Tag Archives: leadership

Leanpub Podcast on My Book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability

I recently was interviewed for a podcast by Len Epp with Leanpub: Leanpub Podcast Interview #9: John Hunter. I hope you enjoy the podcast (download the mp3 of the podcast). In the podcast we cover quite a bit of ground … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Data, Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Using Incentives to Guide Social System Improvements

When confronted with the challenge of managing a social system (or market) I like to find ways to use a few simple rules that will guide the system to find improvements. I favor allowing participants in complex social system to … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Economics, Public Sector, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Ackoff: Corporations Are Not Led By Those Seeking to Maximize Shareholder Value

If I had to limit myself to a handful of management experts, Russel Ackoff would definitely be in that group. Thankfully there is no such limit. Ackoff once again provides great insight, with great wit, in the above clip. A … Continue reading

Posted in Fun, Management, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Customer Focus

Customer Focus is at the core of a well managed company. Sadly many companies fail to serve their customers well. To serve customers, a thorough understanding of what problem you solve for customers is needed. The decisions at many companies, … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Leading Improvement and Enjoying the Rewards

The better job you do of managing the easier your job becomes. As a manager your primary responsibility is to improve the system: both the systems within your sphere of control and those outside of it. The more effectively you … Continue reading

Posted in Management, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Better Management in Government

This month Paul Borawski (CEO of ASQ) has asked the ASQ Influential Voices to share their thoughts on quality management in the public sector. I have been involved in quality improvement in government at the Office of Secretary of Defense … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Public Sector | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Long Term Thinking with Respect for People

Toyota nearly went bankrupt near 1950 and had to lay off a third of their employees. A huge focus of the Toyota Production System as envisioned by Taiichi Ohno was to secure the long term success of the company. The … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

How Could They Know?

I am a big fan of Dr. Deming’s ideas on management. The way I see one of the quotes of Dr. Deming used I don’t agree with. Dr. Deming said “How could they know?” to explain why people continued to … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Management | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Selling Quality Improvement

In this month’s ASQ influential quality voices post, Paul Borawski asks How Do You “Sell” Quality? I am amazed how difficult it is to sell quality improvement. I look at organizations I interact with and easily see systemic failures due … Continue reading

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

Engineering Management Thoughts Based on Facebook Experience

Yishan Wong is the new CEO at Reddit, an excellent social media site I have written about previously. In looking at his background I found some interesting articles he wrote on engineering management based on his experience at Facebook engineering. … Continue reading

Posted in Management | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments