Carve Out Time to Think

Posted on April 29, 2009 by John Hunter

Dan Markovitz recently discussed the practice of the CEO of eBay to take thinking days, Why isn’t “thinking time” part of your standard work?,

Some people think that it’s all well and good for a CEO to unplug himself — when you’re the big cheese, you make the rules — that’s just not possible for the folks in the trenches. But I think that’s a lie. Unless you’re in a sadly dysfunctional organization (and if you are, feel free to stop reading now and go to ESPN.com for the latest baseball scores), you’re being paid to create value for customers (internal or external). You’re not being paid to respond to every random thought or idle question in 8 nanoseconds. And to create value, sometimes you have to actually stop and think.

And a recent Business Week article quotes Turner Broadcasting CEO, Phil Kent: “carve out time to think, not just to react.”

I agree. We need to take more time to think and reflect on how to improve the system to produce better results. We too often find ourselves trapped by spending so much time reacting to seemingly urgent but less important matters. We need to make time to focus on important but perhaps less urgent matters. And taking time to think is part of doing so.

Related: Think Long Term Act Daily – How to Improve – Most Meetings are Muda – Managing Innovation

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Why Setting Goals can Backfire

Posted on April 27, 2009 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming long ago stated in his 14 obligations of management: “Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives.” I think he was right then, and is right now. A goal can help set the scope of the effort. If you are aiming for 2% improvement different strategies may make sense than if you are aiming at 50% improvement. But that type of use is rare. The problem with goals is what actually happens in organizations. They create serious systemic problems and should be avoided (other than in setting the scope). They are deeply ingrained in the way many people think, but we would be better if we could eliminate the use of goals, as they are used now (mainly as arbitrary numerical goals).

Ready, Aim … Fail, Why setting goals can backfire

In clawing toward its number, GM offered deep discounts and no-interest car loans. The energy and time that might have been applied to the longer-term problem of designing better cars went instead toward selling more of its generally unloved vehicles. As a result, GM was less prepared for the future, and made less money on the cars it did sell. In other words, the world’s largest car company – a title it lost to Toyota last year – fell victim to a goal.
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Rather than reflexively relying on goals, argues Max Bazerman, a Harvard Business School professor and the fourth coauthor of “Goals Gone Wild,” we might also be better off creating workplaces and schools that foster our own inherent interest in the work. “There are lots of organizations where people want to do well, and they don’t need those goals,” he says. Bazerman and others hold up Google as an example of a company that manages to do this, in part by explicitly setting aside time for employees to pursue their own projects and interests.

Today, as the economic situation upends millions of lives, it is also forcing the reexamination of millions of goals – not only the revenue targets of battered firms, but the career aims of workers and students, and even the ambitions of the newly installed administration. And while it never feels good to give up on a goal, it may be a good time to ask which of the goals we had set for ourselves were things we really needed to achieve, and which were things we only thought we should – and what the difference has been costing us.

Related: Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations – Arbitrary Rules Don’t Work – The Defect Black Market – Goals can Distract from Improvement – Be Careful What You Measure

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

More Management Blog Posts From January 2006

Posted on April 25, 2009 by John Hunter

energy chart

  • Great Charts – The lack of such effective visual display of information is another example of how much improvement could be made just by applying ideas that are already published.
  • Change is not Improvement – if you have to document how you will know the change is successful it makes it more difficult to change for just the appearance of improvement.
  • Management Excellence – Most management practices cannot be plugged into any organization and work well. That practice must be applied in a sensible way given the organizational system.
  • China now the 5th Largest Economy – China’s economy grew 9.9 percent in 2005, overtaking France as the world’s fifth largest, powered by exports and investment in factories, roads and power plants.
  • Zero Defects – eliminating defects that get to customers (and even those that don’t) is wise. But doing should be as the result of continually improving your processes. I do not believe you succeed by declaring your goal to be zero defects. You succeed by creating a culture of never ending improvement, of customer focus, of fact based decision making, of learning…
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Red Bead Experiment Webcast

Posted on April 22, 2009 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming used the red bead experiment to present a view into management practices and his management philosophy. The experiment provides insight into all four aspects of Dr. Deming’s management system: understanding variation, understanding psychology, systems thinking and the theory of knowledge.

Red Bead Experiment by Steve Prevette

Various techniques are used to ensure a quality (no red bead) product. There are quality control inspectors, feedback to the workers, merit pay for superior performance, performance appraisals, procedure compliance, posters and quality programs. The foreman, quality control, and the workers all put forth their best efforts to produce a quality product. The experiment allows the demonstration of the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of the various methods.

Related: Fooled by Randomness – Performance Measures and Statistics Course – Performance without Appraisal – Exploring Deming’s Management Ideas – Eliminate Slogans

Posted in Data, Deming, Education, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, quote, Respect, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #61

Posted on April 20, 2009 by John Hunter

Submit suggestions for the management improvement carnival.

  • Unplanned items and legacy issues by Xavier Quesada Allue – “A small change request if you want. How are you going to manage this work? Are you going to create a new story for this? Too much overhead… just put up a task (a post-it) in Legacy Issues, get it done with and forget about it.”
  • Ask Gemba: Nuts and Bolts of the Andon System by Jon Miller – “Each person should have specific and personal responsibility for responding to problems raised within a particular zone. Each person should have a clear person that they can go to when unable to resolve the issue, all the way up the chain to the head of site at a minimum”
  • How to Manage a Remote Employee – “My belief is that without deliberate attention, the remote employee slowly becomes irrelevant to the organization.”
  • What’s So Special about 3-Sigma? by Marc Hersch – “So where did Shewhart get the 3-sigma limit from? He got it from lots and lots of empirical observation. He says it has no “truth” to it. It is just a value that works to minimize the consequences of the mistakes our minds trick us into making. 3-sigma is a tipping point that minimizes the two mistakes we can make—confusing common cause with assignable cause OR confusing assignable cause with common cause. In his own words”
  • Are Business Schools to Blame? by Joel M. Podolny – “There has been little contrition on the part of those involved in MBA education after the crisis… Until business schools make such public gestures of disapproval, society will never fully trust the MBA again. “
  • Why requirements stink by Scott Berkun – “Getting Real, by the folks at 37 signals, is a book that puts simplicity first, advocating almost no formal documents, requirements lists or specs at all.”
  • Management Poka-Yoke by Dan Markovitz – “But why not institute poka-yoke for management? Why not create systems that prevent bad management practices from taking hold?”

    • Continue reading →

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Leadership

Posted on April 17, 2009 by John Hunter

Leadership is the act of making others effective in achieving an aim.

Leadership is not about being great yourself.

Leadership does involve more than making others effective. Leaders need to know what needs to be done, and then make others effective, based on that knowledge. As Dr. Deming said about any situation:

It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.

Leadership is not about getting a good performance appraisal. Leadership is not about making your numbers. Leadership is not about following the latest fad. Unfortunately, in my view, far too many managers fail to focus on making others better. Instead, probably largely influenced by performance appraisal mentality, they focus on making the case for why they, personally, are valuable.

Related: Deming on being destroyed by best efforts – 6 Leadership Competencies – The Leader’s Handbook – Seven Leadership Leverage Points – How to Improve – People are Our Most Important Asset – Bring Me Problems – Dr. W. Edwards Deming quotes

Posted in Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Management Blog Posts From January 2006

Posted on April 15, 2009 by John Hunter
photo of John Hunter John Hunter on the top of the Bear’s Hump trail in the park, Waterton, Canada. A great, very steep trail.
  • Agility vs. Six Sigma – “Process improvement should be part of a well run system, as should innovation. Deming, who many believe focused only process improvement, knew the importance of both. See several of Deming’s ideas on innovation.”
  • The Public Sector and Deming – Madison’s quality improvement efforts began after then-Mayor James F. Sensenbrenner and his staff were exposed to the teaching of W. Edwards Deming in 1983. and a follow up Public Management II: Actually Deming did acknowledge that the United States government was not designed to be as efficient as possible. From page 198 of Out of the Crisis “Government service is to be judged on equity as well as on efficiency.” He then quotes Oscar Ornati “We have forgotten that the function of government is more equity oriented than efficiency oriented.”
  • How Not to Convert Equity – “In no way does increasing their leverage convert equity that might melt away… If the value of their house fell $300,000 before or after this supposed ‘conversion’ they would ‘lose’ (on paper) the same amount: $300,000.”
  • Management Improvement Leaders – Russell Ackoff – frankly I find it difficult to imagine a list management thought leader list, not including his name. Organizational development, systems thinking, management improvement, planning, policy deployment, learning. George Box: statistics, design of experiments, finding solutions (problem solving, process improvement), learning, management improvement…
  • The photo shows me from one of my most enjoyable days from 2005 hiking in Glacier Waterton International Peace Park
Posted in Management | Tagged , , , ,

Building a Great Workforce

Posted on April 13, 2009 by John Hunter

How P&G Finds and Keeps a Prized Workforce by Roger O. Crockett

“We actually recruit for values,” says Chief Operating Officer Robert McDonald. “If you are not inspired to improve lives, this isn’t the company you want to work for.”
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The P&G strategy starts on college campuses. The Cincinnati company dispatches line managers rather than human resource staffers to do much of its recruiting.
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For the few who get hired, their work life becomes a career-long development process. At every level, P&G has a different “college” to train individuals, and every department has its own “university.” The general manager’s college, which McDonald leads, holds a week-long school term once a year when there are a handful of newly promoted managers. Further training—there are nearly 50 courses—helps managers with technical writing or financial analysis.

Career education takes place outside the classroom, too. P&G pushes every general manager to log at least one foreign assignment of three to five years. Even high-ranking employees visit the homes of consumers to watch how they cook, clean, and generally live, in a practice dubbed “live it, work it.” Managers also visit retail stores, occasionally even scanning and bagging items at checkout lanes, to learn more about customers.

Going to visit the gemba, the actual place is incredibly important, and far too often ignored by managers today.

The emphasis on life long learning (in practice, not just words) is also very wise. In my experience far to little emphasis is placed on continual improvement of what many companies will say is their most important asset: their people. If you don’t invest in education of your staff that is going to harm your long term success. The investment P&G makes shows a respect for people.

Related: Jeff Bezos Spends a Week Working in Amazon’s Kentucky Distribution Center – Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno – Respect for People, Understanding Psychology – Ohno Circle
Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Build Your Business Slowly and Without Huge Cash Requirements

Posted on April 12, 2009 by John Hunter

Get Rich Slow by Josh Quittner

At no other time in recent history has it been easier or cheaper to start a new kind of company… These are Web-based businesses that cost almost nothing to get off the ground
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The term ramen profitable was coined by Paul Graham, a Silicon Valley start-up investor, essayist and muse to LILO entrepreneurs. It means that your start-up is self-sustaining and can eke out enough profit to keep you alive on instant noodles while your business gains traction.

“At this point, it would be hard for companies to get any cheaper,” Graham said. Since everyone already has an Internet-connected computer, “it’s gotten to the point that you can’t detect the cost of a company when added to a person’s living expenses. A company is no more expensive than a hobby these days.”

I see a great deal of truth to this and it provides interesting opportunities. Including being able to build a business slowly while still working full time. I have written about Y-combinator previously they have helped make this model popular. And the services these companies make seem to me to often be much more refreshing than ideas so watered down they lose much passion (so common from so many companies). Though some large companies provide great web sites.

Related: Some Good IT Business Ideas – Find Joy and Success in Business – Our Policy is to Stick Our Heads in the Sand – Small Business Profit and Cash Flow

Posted in Career, Competition, Creativity, Innovation, Investing, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Management Improvement Carnival #60

Posted on April 10, 2009 by John Hunter

Kevin Meyer is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #60 on the Evolving Excellence blog, highlights include:

  • TimeBack asks why “thinking time” isn’t part of our standard work.
  • Unfolding Leadership gives us some practical words of wisdom in dealing with layoffs.
  • Shmula describes his experience and observations while sitting in a Jiffy Lube waiting room.
  • Gemba Panta Rei suggests twelve leader standard work questions to ask while at the gemba.
  • Evolving Excellence warns us about the perils of going to China in today’s economy.

Please submit suggestions for post to include in future editions of the management improvement carnival.

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