Category Archives: Psychology

Data Can’t Lie

Posted on August 9, 2007 by John Hunter

Many people state that data can lie. Obviously data can’t lie. There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies and statistics – Mark Twain Many people don’t understand the difference between being manipulated because they can’t understand what the … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Management, Psychology | Tagged curiouscat, Data, evidence based management, Statistics | 13 Comments

Google Exceeded Planned Spending on Personnel

Posted on July 19, 2007 by John Hunter

Often people have trouble understanding Dr. Deming’s disapproval of arbitrary numerical targets. What he was trying to prevent is what many see every day, such as managing to quarterly earnings targets. There are several problems with numerical goals but in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Google, Investing, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, quote | 3 Comments

The Joy of Work

Posted on July 15, 2007 by John Hunter

Comic by Joe Sayers, Wanna play work? A good laugh, but also a reminder of an important idea. We spend much of our life at work: we deserve to have pride in what we do and even enjoy it (shocking … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Fun, Management, Psychology, Respect | 5 Comments

Respect for People – Understanding Psychology

Posted on July 13, 2007 by John Hunter

Process improvement tools offer great resources to improve results. Dr. Deming included understanding psychology as one of the 4 areas of his management system. He understood organizations where not machines but systems made up of people. Therefore management needs to … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Respect | Tagged build capability, long term thinking, management, management system, Process improvement, Psychology, respect for people | 6 Comments

Process Improvement and Innovation

Posted on July 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Every so often an article appears discussing the need to change focus from process improvement to innovation (and recently they are followed with quite a bit of blog talk). I disagree on several grounds. First you have needed to focus … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged change, continual improvement, Innovation, iteration, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools | 5 Comments

How to Get Ahead

Posted on June 27, 2007 by John Hunter

Deep Thinkers Need Not Apply: How To Get Ahead In the Modern Business World [the broken link has been removed – when will sites be managed with the known wise practices from 1998 (web addresses need to live forever)?]: Fast … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology | Tagged managing people, Psychology | Comments Off

No Excessive Senior Executive Pay at Toyota

Posted on June 23, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota Boosts Executives’ Bonuses on Record Earnings (link broken by Bloomberg has been removed – why can’t companies with huge IT budgets follow even basic web usability rules like not breaking urls?): Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker by … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged bad usability, executive pay, management, respect for people, Toyota | 5 Comments

Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation

Posted on June 19, 2007 by John Hunter

Mistakes in Experimental Design and Interpretation Humans are very good at detecting patterns, but rather poor at detecting randomness. We expect random incidents of cancer to be spread homogeneously, when in fact true randomness results in random clusters, not homogeneity. … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Design of Experiments, Management, Psychology, Science, Statistics | 2 Comments

People are Our Most Important Asset

Posted on June 18, 2007 by John Hunter

One of the beliefs I try and get the organizations I work for to adopt is to truly value excellent people. The costs are challenges of hiring great people, to me, makes it critical to do what you can to … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect | Tagged coaching, Creativity, curiouscat, John Hunter, Management, managing people, Psychology, respect for people | 9 Comments

Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay

Posted on June 11, 2007 by John Hunter

I continue to tilt at the robber barron CEO pay packages. Hopefully, at some point, the people approving these obscene pay packages can be shamed into stopping or replaced by people with some sense of decency. I was taught in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged curiouscat, Deming, executive pay, management, overpaid executives, quote, respect for people | 10 Comments