Category Archives: Systems thinking

Remembering Brian Joiner

I knew Brian Joiner as a child growing up in Madison, Wisconsin. He and my father worked together and our families spent time together. As I grew I interacted with Brian in my professional life and that relationship made my … Continue reading

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Expand the View of the System to Find Ways to Improve Results

Here is an example of improvement made possible by expanding the view of the system (and viewing the results from the perspective of the customer instead of just looking at internal process measures). I was working to improve the processing … Continue reading

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Annual Performance Evaluations are a Poor Management Practice

Sports provides visible examples of the futility of accurate performance appraisal. We have athletes who thousands of people devote a huge amount of time to dissecting their strengths and weaknesses and those evaluations are constantly shown to be wrong. Teams … Continue reading

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Interview of Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes on Better Management Practices

Interview with Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes (listen to the interview) on a Public Affair, National Public Radio about improving management practices in the USA. The interview is over 30 years old now but the better management ideas … Continue reading

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How to Lead From Any Level In the Organization

By successfully helping other people get better results, whether it is your manager, peers, or subordinates, you will grow trust and influence with those around you. “You grow your influence with them by showing them that allowing you to have influence is good for them.” The more you show positive outcomes from your input, the more influence you will have over time. Continue reading

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Interview of Bill Hunter: Improving Quality and Productivity in Organizations

Interview of William G. Hunter on Improving Quality and Productivity in Organizations by Peter Scholtes. Bill taught a course at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Improving Quality and Productivity in Organizations, which was co-sponsored by the business school, statistics … Continue reading

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Factfulness – The Importance of Critical Thinking

Factfulness by Hans Roling (of TED talks and Gapminder charts fame) is an exceptionally good book. It provides great insight into how to think more effectively and how to understand the reality of the world we live in (versus the … Continue reading

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My Willing Worker Award

Here is an image of the employee of the quarter award I received from Bill Scherkenbach. I have received other awards and I don’t think those awards were given with any more understanding of the contributions to results due to … Continue reading

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Effective Change Management Strategies and Tactics

ASQ has asked their Influential Voices to respond to the question: What are some recommended strategies or tactics to help achieve successful change management? See my past blog posts as part of the ASQ Influential Voices program (I have participated … Continue reading

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Peter Scholtes on Teams and Viewing the Organization as a System

In this presentation Peter Scholtes provides an explanation of teams within the context of understanding an organization of a system: We will not improve our ability to achieve our purpose by empowering people or holding people accountable. I know that … Continue reading

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