Executive Leadership

Posted on May 21, 2013 by John Hunter

Senior executives must lead management improvement efforts. When senior executives only give lip service to management efforts the result is normally the same: little happens.

When Dr. Deming was working with companies after the 1980’s NBC white paper, If Japan Can Why Can’t We, he wouldn’t work with companies if the CEO wasn’t attending the meetings and learning how to manage the organization better. Dr. Deming had seen far too many CEOs want improvement but wanted to delegate the effort of getting there. Dr. Deming saw when senior executives delegated improving the management system it didn’t work.

There are a number of problems with senior executives not taking improvement seriously. First, and most common, they don’t really believe it and have no interest in improving practices – they just want to magically get better results without improving how things are done.

Second many senior executives don’t understand what management improvement is about. They think it is something those other people do on the factor floor or in the call center or somewhere. The most important changes will be in the c-suite for organizations that make substantial improvements. But when executives are out of touch (as so many are) in both management practice and how their organization actually works (at the gemba) then improvement efforts are extremely difficult.

If those senior executives are taking part in the improving the management system they will learn and then will be able to help improve the management system. If they are not engaged in actively working PDSA (on their workload) learning about variation, looking at their organization as a system, making changes to the organization given an understanding of respect for people the potential gains are severely limited.

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Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #193

Posted on May 15, 2013 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival is published twice each month. The posts selected for the carnival focus on the areas of management improvement I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996: Deming, lean thinking, innovation, respect for people, customer focus, etc..

  • Dr. Deming’s “Role of a Manager of People” by Mark Graban – quoting Dr. Deming “A manager understands and conveys to his people the meaning of a system. He explains the aim of the system. He teaches his people to understand how the work of the group supports these aims.”
  • Does Standard Work Destroy Creativity? by Janet Dozier – “When standard work is consistently and uniformly adhered to, it drives continuous improvement by exposing problems within the process. Making problems easier to see inspires planned experimentation to discover better ways to perform the work. Standards are the foundation for continuous improvement.”
  • How to Be Startup CEO by Ryan Allis – “In my experience the three most important components of the Start-up CEO’s role are:
    1. Creating a product that solves a real customer need (and convincing customers to pay for it).
    2. Making sure your users and customers have an extremely positive emotional experience with your product.
    3. Recruiting a great team to build your product.”
  • Distorting the System, Distorting the Data or Improving the System by John Hunter – “It is good to get in the habit of considering if the measured improvements are truly an indication of an improved system or merely the result of distorting the system or the data.”

    • Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival

Lean Blog Podcast with John Hunter

Posted on May 13, 2013 by John Hunter

Mark Graban interviewed me for the Lean Blog podcast series: Podcast #174 – John Hunter, “Management Matters” (listen using this link). Links to more information on what we discussed in the podcast.

More podcasts with me: Software Process and Measurement Podcast With John Hunter – Business 901 Podcast: Deming’s Management Ideas Today – Process Excellence Network Podcast with John Hunter

Posted in Books, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Respect | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #192

Posted on May 1, 2013 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat management blog carnival has been published since 2006. New posts are published twice a month. I also publish a collection management improvement articles on the Curious Cat management improvement articles site.

  • Customer Service Andon Cord: Jeff Bezos and Customer Experience by Pete Abilla – “Lean principles have taken such a hold on Amazon and on Jeff Bezos that job titles now contain terms often used in Lean Manufacturing. For example, Jeff Bezos’ comment on ‘Customer Service Andon’ – well, it’s also a current job opening at Amazon…”
  • The Neuroscience of Deming by John Hunter – From the video (embedded below), JW Wilson: “Fast thinking is what you use when you are running from the bear, slow thinking is the kind of thinking you use when you want to change the world… We think we only have time to run from the bear; the consequences are devastating… [slow thinking is required for] making adaption to unsuccessful attempts”

  • Procter & Gamble: Basis Point Wise, Percentage Point Foolish by Bill Conerly – “If one of the parties in a transaction has to borrow, it should be the party with the cheaper debt cost.” [This is another example of stovepipe thinking and optimizing part of the system at great expense to the whole. People continue to fail to apply decades olds knowledge of the benefits of focusing on system improvement instead of optimizing components within the system. In addition to systems thinking failures it is an example of a focus on financial metrics themselves which often leads to silly actions due to not appreciating the proxy nature of measures. – John].
  • Are you providing leadership or support? by Dan Markovitz – Leadership means hacking through the jungle with a machete, clearing a path for front-line staff, supervisors, and managers to follow.

    • Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival | 2 Comments

94% Belongs to the System

Posted on April 24, 2013 by John Hunter
I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special.

Page 315 of Out of the Crisis by Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

the system that people work in and the interaction with people may account for 90 or 95 percent of performance.

Dr. Deming’s quote from the introduction to the Team Handbook

I think, in looking at the total of Deming’s work, that the point he is trying to make is that looking to blame people is not a good strategy for improvement. The impact due solely to a person’s direct action (not including their interaction with the system and with others) is small in comparison to that of the system within which they work. So, Deming (and I) want people to focus on improving the system; which will achieve better results than searching for what people did wrong.

What did Deming want people to take from his statements?

Did he want us just to accept bad results? No. He was not saying it is the system there is nothing we can do just accept that this is how things are. He wanted us to focus on the most effective improvement strategies. He saw huge waste directed at blaming people for bad results. He wanted to focus the improvement on the area with the greatest possibility for results.

Did he want to say people are just cogs in the machine? No. Read or listen to most anything he said at any significant length (a full chapter of this book, a full article he wrote on management, an hour from one of his videos) and it is hard to maintain such a thought.

photo of forest trail

Pinetree Trail, Frasers Hill, Malaysia by John Hunter

Did he believe that people were not important? No. He was trying to direct the focus of improvement efforts to look not at the fault with one person but to look at the system. I believe strongly he was correct. If you blame a person as the root cause of a problem, my first, second and third reactions are why? why? why? It is possible the person is to blame and there is no benefit to exploring system improvement instead of settling for blaming the person. But that is rare.

I have written about the importance of developing people to build the capability of the organization. My father wrote about it previously, “American organizations could compete much better at home and abroad if they would learn to tap the potential information inherent in all processes and the creativity inherent in all employees.”

I wrote about the importance of the ideas behind Deming’s quotes here, back in 2006 – Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame

Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Popular, Psychology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

The Art of Discovery

Posted on April 18, 2013 by John Hunter

Quality and The Art of Discovery by Professor George Box (1990):

Quotes by George Box in the video:

“I think of statistical methods as the use of science to make sense of numbers”

“The scientific method is how we increase the rate at which we find things out.”

“I think the quality revolution is nothing more, or less, than the dramatic expansion of the of scientific problem solving using informed observation and directed experimentation to find out more about the process, the product and the customer.”

“It really amounts to this, if you know more about what it is you are doing then you can do it better and you can do it cheaper.”

“We are talking about involving the whole workforce in the use of the scientific method and retraining our engineers and scientists in a more efficient way to run experiments.”

“Tapping into resources:

  1. Every operating system generates information that can be used to improve it.
  2. Everyone has creativity.
  3. Designed experiments can greatly increase the efficiency of experimentation.

An informed observer and directed experimentation are necessary for the scientific method to be applied. He notes that the control chart is used to notify an informed observer to explain what is special about the conditions when a result falls outside the control limits. When the chart indicates a special cause is likely present (something not part of the normal system) an informed observer should think about what special cause could lead to the result that was measured. And it is important this is done quickly as the ability of the knowledgable observer to determine what is special is much greater the closer in time to the result was created.

The video was posted by Wiley (with the permission of George’s family), Wiley is the publisher of George’s recent autobiography, An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box, and many of his other books.

Related: Two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity – Statistics for Experimenters (book on directed experimentation by Box, Hunter and Hunter) – Highlights from 2009 George Box Speech – Introductory Videos on Using Design of Experiments to Improve Results (with Stu Hunter)

Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #191

Posted on April 15, 2013 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival has been published since 2006. The carnival, published twice a month, links to great, recent, management blog posts. I hope you find these post interesting and find some new blogs to start reading. Follow John Hunter online: Google+, Twitter and elsewhere.

  • How much is your success dependent on those around you? by Eric Barker – “You’d think that doing thousands of heart surgeries would make you better at them. Not necessarily. Surgeons only got better at their home hospital: the one where they knew the team best and developed strong working relationships…. We often take our context and those around us for granted. What is it about those around you that’s making you good at what you do?
  • A Lesson on Leadership from Marrakech by Kevin Meyer – “Five times a day Muslims are reminded of their faith and are asked to reflect on it. And practicing Muslims will, whenever possible… Take the time to discover and define the true purpose of the organization. Translate that into a long-term strategy with short- and intermediate-term objectives. Then communicate and reinforce that purpose, strategy, and thinking… over and over and over.

    At least five times a day.”

    • photo of vista at Frasers Hill, Malaysia

    Fraser’s Hill, Malaysia, by John Hunter. See photos from my walk on Bishops Trail in Fraser’s Hill.

  • The Reason Health Care Is So Expensive: Insurance Companies by Jeffrey Pfeffer – “Unless and until we as a society pay attention to the enormous costs and the time wasted by the current administrative arrangements, we will continue to pay much too much for health care.” [the administrative system used by insurance companies is a big part of the problem but there are plenty more that needs to be improved with the health care system – John.]
  • This Executive Compensation Issue by Bill Waddell – What all of this means in terms of lean is that a holistic, respectful approach is an essential element of the lean philosophy – respect for people, including all of the stakeholders in the business. It is hard for me to see how anyone with the focus and priorities it takes to be in the cross hairs of the critics of CEO compensation can be such a lean leader.” [Taking What You Don’t Deserve, CEO Style – John Hunter]

    • Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #190

Posted on April 4, 2013 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Carnival is published twice each month. The posts selected for the carnival focus on the areas of management improvement I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996: Deming, evidence based management, systems thinking, respect for people, applied statistics, etc..

photo of George Box, John Hunter and Peter Scholtesphoto of (from right to left) Peter Scholtes, John Hunter and George Box in Madison, Wisconsin at the 2008 Deming Conference
  • George Box (1919 to 2013) by John Hunter – George Box was a very kind, smart, caring and fun person. He was a gifted storyteller and writer. He was also one of the most important statisticians of the last 100 years. He had the ability to present ideas so they were easy to comprehend and appreciate…
  • George Box: A remembrance by Bradley Jones – “His greatest contribution to my life was the wonderful book, Statistics for Experimenters, which he wrote with William G. Hunter and Stu Hunter and published in 1978, the same year he served as president of the American Statistical Association. I remember the excitement I felt on reading the description of how the attainment of knowledge is an endless spiral proceeding alternately from deduction to induction and back. Even now, I recall with pleasure the discussion of the randomization distribution early in the book.”
  • Getting Started with Factorial Design of Experiments by Eston Martz – “When I talk to quality professionals about how they use statistics, one tool they mention again and again is design of experiments, or DOE. I’d never even heard the term before I started getting involved in quality improvement efforts, but now that I’ve learned how it works, I wonder why I didn’t learn about it sooner. If you need to find out how several factors are affecting a process outcome, DOE is the way to go.”
  • Brian Joiner Podcast on Management, Sustainability and the Health Care System – Recently Brian has shifted his focus to the health care system (while maintaining a focus on quality principles and sustainability). “Our health care system is an economic tsunami that is about to overwhelm us if we don’t do something very significant, very soon.”

    • Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management, Statistics | Tagged ,

George Box

Posted on March 28, 2013 by John Hunter

I would most likely not exist if it were not for George Box. My father took a course from George while my father was a student at Princeton. George agreed to start the Statistics Department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and my father followed him to Madison, to be the first PhD student. Dad graduated, and the next year was a professor there, where he and George remained for the rest of their careers.

George died today, he was born in 1919. He recently completed An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box which is an excellent book that captures his great ability to tell stories. It is a wonderful read for anyone interested in statistics and management improvement or just great stories of an interesting life.

photo of George EP Box

George Box by Brent Nicastro.

George Box was a fantastic statistician. I am not the person to judge, but from what I have read one of the handful of most important applied statisticians of the last 100 years. His contributions are enormous. Several well know statistical methods are known by his name, including:

George was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. He also served as president of the American Statistics Association in 1978. George is also an honorary member of ASQ.

George was a very kind, caring and fun person. He was a gifted storyteller and writer. He had the ability to present ideas so they were easy to comprehend and appreciate. While his writing was great, seeing him in person added so much more. Growing up I was able to enjoy his stories often, at our house or his. The last time I was in Madison, my brother and I visited with him and again listened to his marvelous stories about Carl Pearson, Ronald Fisher and so much more. He was one those special people that made you very happy whenever you were near him.

George Box, Stuart Hunter and Bill Hunter (my father) wrote what has become a classic text for experimenters in scientific and business circles, Statistics for Experimenters. I am biased but I think this is acknowledged as one of (if not the) most important books on design of experiments.

George also wrote other classic books: Time series analysis: Forecasting and control (1979, with Gwilym Jenkins) and Bayesian inference in statistical analysis. (1973, with George C. Tiao).

George Box and Bill Hunter co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. The Center develops, advances and communicates quality improvement methods and ideas.

The Box Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Industrial Statistics recognizes development and the application of statistical methods in European business and industry in his honor.

“All models are wrong but some are useful” is likely his most famous quote. More quotes By George Box

A few selected articles and reports by George Box

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Posted in Data, Deming, Design of Experiments, Management, Manufacturing, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Respect, Six sigma, Statistics, Systems thinking, UK | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Quality Processes in Unexpected Places

Posted on March 25, 2013 by John Hunter

This month Paul Borawski asked ASQ’s Influential Voices to explore the use of quality tools in unexpected places.

The most surprising example of this practice that I recall is the Madison, Wisconsin police department surveying those they arrested to get customer feedback. It is obvious that such “customers” are going to be biased. Still the police department was able to get actionable information by seeking the voice of the customer.

photo of a red berry and leaves

Unrelated photo from Singapore Botanical Garden by John Hunter.

Certain of the police department’s aims are not going to match well with those they arrest (most obviously those arrested wish the police department didn’t arrest them). The police department sought the voice of the customer from all those they interacted with (which included those they arrested, but also included those reporting crimes, victims, relatives of those they arrested etc.).

The aim of the police department is not to arrest people. Doing so is necessary but doing so is most similar in the management context to catching an error to remove that bad result. It is better to improve processes so bad results are avoided. How the police interact with the public can improve the process to help steer people’s actions away from those that will require arrests.

The interaction police officers have with the public is a critical gemba for meeting the police department’s aim. Reducing crime and encouraging a peaceful society is aided by knowing the conditions of that gemba and knowing how attempts to improve are being felt at the gemba.

All customer feedback includes bias and personal preferences and potentially desires that are contrary to the aims for the organization (wanting services for free, for example). Understanding this and how important understanding customer/user feedback on the gemba is, it really shouldn’t be surprising that the police would want that data. But I think it may well be that process thinking, evidence based management and such ideas are still not widely practiced as so the Madison police department’s actions are still surprising to many.

Quality Leadership: The First Step Towards Quality Policing by David Couper and Sabine Lobitz

Our business is policing, our customers are the citizens within our jurisdictions, and our product is police service (everything from crime fighting and conflict management to safety and prevention programs.)
…
If we are to cure this we must start to pay attention to the new ideas and trends in the workplace mentioned earlier that are helping America’s businesses; a commitment to people, how people are treated — employees as well as citizens, the development of a people-oriented workplace, and leadership can and does make a difference.
…
If we change the way in which we lead the men and women in our police organizations, we can achieve quality in policing. However, wanting to change and changing are worlds apart. The road to change is littered by good intentions and short-term efforts.

This article, from 1987, illustrates the respect for people principle was alive and being practiced 25 years ago; most organizations need to do a great deal more work on applying practices that show respect for people.

Related: Quality Improvement and Government: Ten Hard Lessons From the Madison Experience by David C. Couper, Chief of Police, City of Madison, Wisconsin – SWAT Raids, Failure to Apply System Thinking in Law Enforcement – Measuring What Matters: Developing Measures of What the Police Do – The Public Sector and W. Edwards Deming – Doing More with Less in the Public Sector – A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Data, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Public Sector, Respect | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments