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Category Archives: Management
Taking What You Don’t Deserve, CEO Style
The excesses to which CEO’s and their board buddies go to in taking from corporate treasuries what they don’t deserve continues to amaze me. The level to which the bad behavior is accepted is apparent in the lack of progress at dealing with those that are taking what they have no moral right to. As shouldn’t have to be explained (but maybe does) leadership isn’t about avoiding being indicted. The levels to which these people take from the organization they … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Economics, Investing, Management, Psychology, Respect
Tagged Deming, ethics, executive pay, leadership, management, overpaid executives
5 Comments
Dr. Deming in 1980 on Product Quality in Japan and the USA
I posted an interesting document to the Curious Cat Management Library: it includes Dr. Deming’s comments as part of a discussion organized by the Government Accounting Office in 1980 on Quality in Japan and the United States. The document provides some interesting thoughts from Dr. Deming and others; Dr. Deming’s statements start on page 52 of the document. For those really interested in management improvement ideas it is a great read. I imagine most managers wouldn’t enjoy it though (it … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Public Sector, Quality tools, quote, Respect, Statistics, Systems thinking
Tagged continual improvement, curiouscat, Deming, government, Japan, Lean thinking, management, management history, managing people, Process improvement, Psychology, Public Sector, quality, Quality tools, quote, respect for people, SPC, Statistics, Systems thinking, variation
Management Improvement Blog Carnival #150
Mark Graban is hosting Management Improvement Blog Carnival #150 on the Lean Blog, highlights include: Watching Waste in the ER! – As part of his relatively new blog, Anthony Scott (Frontline Lean) writes about his experiences with waste in an emergency department. The waste isn’t surprising to those who have been a patient or those who have worked in the E.D. Scott is a supervisor in a lean manufacturing setting and he applies lean thinking to this unfamiliar environment. Case … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival, Lean thinking, Management
Tagged Health care, Lean thinking, management
Psychology of Improvement
Even if ideas are good and have significant importance (high value to customers, reduce waste dramatically, improve safety…) implementing the ideas can be difficult. Getting people to make an effort to improve a situation by simply laying out the dry facts is not very effective. You need to engage in the management system to make your ideas something other people care about and want to do (you need to consider the psychology of getting things done in human systems). Often … Continue reading
Manufacturing Skills Gap or Management Skills Gap?
I stumble across articles discussing the problem of manufacturers having difficulty finding workers with the skills they need (in the USA largely, but elsewhere too) somewhat regularly. While it is true that companies have this problem, I think looking at the problem in that way might not be the most insightful view. Is the problem just that potential workers don’t having the right skills or the result of a long term management skills gap? To me, the current manufacturing skills … Continue reading
Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing, quote, Respect, Systems thinking
Tagged Career, Deming, hiring, jobs, lean manufacturing, long term thinking, management, managing people, Manufacturing, problem solving, quote, respect for people, Systems thinking, workplace improvement
3 Comments
Practical Ways to Respect People
What matters is not your stated respect for people but your revealed respect for people. Here are some ideas that I collected on how to practice respect for people. Don’t waste people’s time: have meetings only when necessary and provide agendas in advance. Use email effectively instead of presenting material in meetings that can better be presented in email. Don’t have complex benefit manuals, aimed at making lawyers happy, that employees are expected to use. Do what you say you … Continue reading
Management Improvement Carnival #147
Jason Yip hosts the 147th edition of the Management Improvement Carnival on his blog: You’d think with all my video game experience that I’d be more prepared for this. Highlights include: Being Responsive is Critical for Successful Customer Development by Ben Yoskovitz — “Customers can be quite forgiving. But what they won’t tolerate is being ignored.” Failure is Essential to Knowledge Work by Keith Swenson — “Viability will depend upon learning to cultivate a culture that not only accepts failure, … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival, Management
Tagged management
Management Improvement Carnival #146
The Curious Cat management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with hand picked recent management blog posts. I also collect management improvement articles through Curious Cat Management Articles, you can subscribe via RSS for new article additions. PDCA by Lee Fried – “By approaching all work through the Plan, Do, Check and Adjust (PDCA) cycle is incredibly powerful and transferable. It allows everyone to think and talk about their work in a consistent way and it creates a … Continue reading
Deming Prizes for 2011 go to Companies Based in India, Taiwan and Thailand
The Union Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) has awarded the Deming Prize to 3 companies in 2011: Sanden Vikas Limited (India) The CPAC Roof Tile Company Limited (Thailand) – I am not sure if this link is for the right company (often divisions of companies apply and wether CPAC is a part of Siam Cement company I am not sure). Unimicron Technology Corporation (Taiwan) Follow the links I included for the companies to see a bit about their management philosophies. … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management
Tagged Asia, awards, Deming, Deming Prize, India, Japan, Thailand
2 Comments
Management Improvement Carnival #145
The Curious Cat Management blog carnival highlights recent management blog posts 3 times each month. The posts generally focus on the areas I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Guide since 1996 (Deming, evidence based management, lean manufacturing, agile software development, systems thinking…). Why Startup Hubs Work by Paul Graham – “The problem is not that most towns kill startups. It’s that death is the default for startups, and most towns don’t save them… Both components of the … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival, Management
Tagged Carnival, entrepreneur, management
Interviewing: I and We
In response to: say “I” — not “we” — in your interviews If you are a manager you need to lead teams, lead projects and improve work systems. In an interview I believe you need to say specifically what you did but also talk about what the team accomplished. A manager needs to have successful project and make other people successful. To me the important thing is getting great long term results, not doing lots of tasks themselves. Often figuring … Continue reading
Posted in Career, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Systems thinking
Tagged build capacity, Career, jobs, managing people, Process improvement, Psychology, Systems thinking
2 Comments
Management Improvement Carnival #144
Kevin Meyer is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #144 on the Evolving Eexcellence Blog. Posts he chose to spotlight include: The Conversations You Are Not Having Are Killing Your Business – Art Petty describes ten key conversations or difficult decisions most organizations never get the guts to confront. Call Firefighting and Band-Aids What They Are, But Do Them in a Structured Way – Jamie Flinchbaugh acknowledges that those terms have a negative stigma, but tells us how they also have their … Continue reading
Posted in Management
The Need to Improve Management While Building Organizations Fit For Human Beings
[embedded video link broken, so that code was removed but you can watch the video by following this link: Gary Hamel: Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment. I agree with Gary Hamel that we need to adopt new management strategies. I happen to believe most of new strategies we need to adopt have been known for decades, we just fail to implement many of them. He argues it is hard to retain knowledge advantages (within companies). I agree. However execution … Continue reading
The Theory of Knowledge in Deming’s Management System: How Do We Know What We Know?
I contributed an article to the Process Excellence Network’s Deming Files that was published yesterday: How Do We Know What We Know?. I took on the task of explaining the theory of knowledge, as one article in a four part series looking at the four components of Dr. Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge. The other 3 articles are: Systems Thinking and the Three Musketeers by Eric Christiansen The Trouble with Motivation by Jussi Kyllonen Variation, So Meaningful Yet So Misunderstood … Continue reading
Management Improvement Carnival #143
The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival has been published since 2006. We find great management blog posts and share them with you 3 times a month. We hope you find these post interesting and find some new blogs to start reading. Follow me online: Twitter, LinkedIn, more. U.S. Patent Overhaul Won’t Help Innovators by “What they found is that America’s patent system only provides positive incentives for innovation in two industries: pharmaceuticals and chemicals. The value that a patent confers … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival, Management
Tagged management
Management Improvement Carnival #142
The Curious Cat management improvement blog carnival is published 3 times a month with hand picked recent management blog posts. I also collect management improvement articles through Curious Cat Management Articles, you can subscribe via RSS for new article additions. 5 Things a Good Product Manager Should Think About by Joseph Puopolo – “User experience has become such a core function to any product manager. Is this easy to use? Do people get pissed off when they have to use … Continue reading