Category Archives: Management

A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers

Posted on October 25, 2010 by John Hunter

Excerpts from The Deming Library Volume XXI, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Russell Ackoff and David Langford demonstrate that educators can begin a quality transformation by developing an understanding of the properties and powers of systems-oriented thinking. You can order the entire video, as well as the rest of The Deming Library. Great stuff! If you enjoy this blog (the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog), you definitely should watch this webcast. This video has some great insight into education, learning … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Education, Management, quote, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Posts on Managing People from Around the Web

Posted on October 18, 2010 by John Hunter

My thoughts on managing people are based on Dr. Deming’s thoughts on management. The over-simplified explanation is that people want to do good work. Performance problems should be looked at first, second, third, fourth and fifth as problems with the system not the individual. I believe organizations should practice continual improvement with the participation of everyone. Decisions should be based on evidence not the opinion of the highest paid person in the room (or even worse – “policy”). Coaching is … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Deming, Management | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Positivity and Joy in Work

Posted on October 14, 2010 by John Hunter

After my father died, for years (at least 10), people I never had met before would emotionally share what a positive influence he had on their lives. He did great stuff helping organizations improve. But the majority of people were not telling me how much he helped the organization improve [there were also a bunch of engineers and statisticians 🙂 that were more impressed with his insights and expertise]. But most people talked about was how much happier they were … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Carnival of Human Resources

Posted on October 13, 2010 by John Hunter

As I have discussed in this blog I believe the ideas Douglas Mcgregor’s laid out in The Human Side Of Enterprise 50 years ago. People want to do a good job. Managers don’t need to use carrots and sticks to get employees to perform. They need to remove the de-motivators that organizations so often put in the way of workers. Here are some recent blog posts from around the web on how we can improve the management of people in … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #112

Posted on October 11, 2010 by John Hunter

Tim McMahon hosts the Management Improvement Carnival #112 on the A Lean Journey blog. Highlights include: Establishing a Classroom Culture – David Kasprzak explores the question of “what if work was like going to school?” Overlooked Waste Reduction of Kanban – Matt Wrye reminds us that kanban can reduce information flow not just inventory but the real goal is about flow. 5 Reasons You Need to do DMAIC – Christian Paulsen shares a personal story explaining why you need to … Continue reading →

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Create a System That Lets People Take Pride in Their Work

Posted on October 7, 2010 by John Hunter

I believe I learned this from Peter Scholtes, though maybe I am remembering it wrong or explaining it wrong (so give him the credit and if I mess it up it is my fault). I believe there is a problem with using the term empowered. Using the term implies that it one person empowers another person. This is not the correct view. Instead we each play a role within a system. Yes there are constraints on your actions based on … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Six Sigma Interview with Jack Welch

Posted on October 4, 2010 by John Hunter

The short video includes some interesting points by Jack Welch on six sigma. GE was a huge company and did plenty of things that could be criticized. But often those criticizing take it much to far and disregard the sensible things GE understood and was doing well. Quotes by Jack Welch: “variation is evil” “Will six sigma companies get more valuation in the marketplace? Not unless they produce results. You can’t put up a slogan that says we are a … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #111

Posted on October 2, 2010 by John Hunter

Mark Graban hosts the Management Improvement Carnival #111 on the lean blog, highlights include: Daily Kaizen (Lee Fried), Teach Everyone the Business – Lee, a lean facilitator at Group Health in Washington, writes “When I reflect on Health Care and my own organization I do not think we do a very good job at helping team members understand the financial side of the business.” Doing Common Things Uncommonly Well (Anna Roth), A Culture of Safety: Forgiving – A hospital CEO … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #110

Posted on September 21, 2010 by John Hunter

The management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with select recent management blog posts. Also try Curious Cat Management Articles for online management improvement articles. Visual Management for having a baby by Xavier Quesada Allue – “The team members (us, the parents) were not working full time on the project. This means that at certain moments, if necessary, we could scale up our efforts on this project to the detriment of other parallel projects we were doing” “Systems … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #109

Posted on September 10, 2010 by John Hunter

The management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with select recent management blog posts. Also try our collected management articles and blogs posts at: Curious Cat Management articles. When to coach the process, and when to coach the solution by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “Your focus is not on the solution or the problem itself, but on the process that either created or missed the problem that would end up enabling future problems. Obviously you might end up doing … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #108

Posted on September 3, 2010 by John Hunter

Kevin Meyer hosts the Management Improvement Carnival #108 on his blog, highlights include: Gemba Tales: Developing Leader Standard Work – Five Important Steps – key components of leader standard work. Flinchbaugh: Small-i ROI as Applied to Strategy – Sometimes instead of focusing on the big R in ROI, it can pay to find a unique niche requiring just a small i. Lean Blog: Mental Models: Standardized Work and Performance Measures – Standard work and performance measures mean different things in … Continue reading →

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The role of leadership in software development

Posted on August 30, 2010 by John Hunter

The webcast of Mary Poppendieck’s talk, The role of leadership in software development, at Google. As usual Mary does a very nice job of providing some good historical background while exploring wise management practices (tied to software development but plenty useful for any manager). via: Sheep of a different fold Related: Lean, Toyota and Deming for Software Development – Webcast on the Toyota Development Process – Don’t Use Performance Appraisals – Lean Software Development – The Leader’s Handbook

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Management Blog Posts from July 2006

Posted on August 27, 2010 by John Hunter

New Rules for Management? No! – “New” rule: “Look out, not in.” What kind of rule is that? It is pretty obvious you need to do both. I find it incredible the amount of time that is taken trying to show “new” ideas that amount to absolutely nothing. See comments on: Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt. How Google Works – Google understands when you experiment things might not work out. Google’s solution is to experiment quickly and fail early (turn … Continue reading →

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Managing Our Way to Economic Success

Posted on August 23, 2010 by John Hunter

From Managing Our Way to Economic Success, Two Untapped Resources by William G. Hunter, my father. Written in 1986, but still plenty relevant. We have made some good progress, but there is much more to do: we have barely started adopting these ideas systemically. there are two enormously valuable untapped resources in many companies: potential information and employee creativity. The two are connected. One of the best ways to generate potential information to turn it into kinetic information that can … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Economics, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Management Improvement Carnival #107

Posted on August 20, 2010 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat management blog carnival selects recent management blog posts 3 times each month. Since 2006 the carnival has focused on finding interesting posts for managers on improving the performance of organizations (lean manufacturing, Deming, agile software development, six sigma, customer focus, innovation…). “To find out what happens when you change something, it is necessary to change it.” by Andrew Gelman – “From the classic Box, Hunter, and Hunter book. The point of the saying is pretty clear, I … Continue reading →

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Dee Hock on Hiring

Posted on August 16, 2010 by John Hunter

Great quote from Dee Hock, founder of Visa: Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities. This short article from Fast Company is … Continue reading →

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