Tag Archives: leadership

Jeff Bezos Spends a Week Working in Amazon’s Kentucky Distribution Center

Posted on March 28, 2009 by John Hunter

Photo of Jeff Bezos during the 2005 O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference by James Duncan. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, is working for a week in Amazon’s Kentucky distribution center. I hope, and based on his past, I believe, that he is going to the gemba (Genchi Genbutsu) to learn more about how Amazon operates. That would be great. He worked on wall street and understands the fake constraints they attempt to put companies (you must focus on short term profits, you … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Customer focus, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged Amazon, Bezos, gemba, leadership, management, Process improvement | 5 Comments

The Importance of Management Improvement

Posted on August 23, 2007 by John Hunter

If organizations just adopt management improvement practices I firmly believe customer service, financial performance and employee satisfaction could be improved. This was a big part of the reason I started to use the internet to share management improvement ideas back in 1996 (plus I find management improvement interesting). On the note of making a difference in people’s lives. I have had far more people tell me how my father (Bill Hunter) made a huge difference in their lives than ever … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, curiouscat.com, Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect, Statistics | Tagged Deming, leadership, management, respect for people, William Hunter | 11 Comments

Focus on Customers and Employees

Posted on July 5, 2007 by John Hunter

As I have stated I believe it is the purpose of organization to serve many stakeholders (customer, employees, stockholders, community…). Thankfully some companies agree: Compensation at Whole Foods – Starbucks: Respect for Workers – Google: Ten Golden Rules – Amazon Innovation. Here is another example – How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart: But the Pièce De Résistance, the item he most wanted to crow about, was Costco’s private-label pinpoint cotton dress shirts. “Look, these are just $12.99,” he said, while lifting … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged Customer focus, leadership, management, managing people, organization as a system, respect for people | 4 Comments

Compensation at Whole Foods

Posted on February 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Compensation at Whole Foods Market [the link that Whole Foods broke was removed] Most large companies also pay their executives large amounts of stock options in addition to large salaries and cash bonuses. However, this is not the case at Whole Foods Market. As the chart below indicates, the average large corporation in the United States distributes 75% of their total stock options to only 5 top executives with the remaining 25% going to everyone else in the company (actually … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged deadly diseases, executive pay, leadership, overpaid executives | 1 Comment

Why Pay Taxes or be Honest

Posted on October 1, 2006 by John Hunter

This kind of stuff makes me mad. I was taught about robber barons in school (or actually I think by my uncle but…). And what I was taught was that business used to be seen as an amoral area. But then society agreed (or rather it no longer was an accepted excuse to claim business was an amoral area) that morality applied to whatever you did, whether you were at work, or not. But we keep getting these continuing examples … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Management, Psychology | Tagged business, ethics, government, leadership, Psychology, society | 2 Comments

Excessive CEO Pay

Posted on September 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Overpaid CEOs and Underpaid Managers: Fairness and Executive Compensation by James B. Wade, Charles A. O’Reilly, III and Timothy G. Pollock: We also find evidence suggesting that CEOs serve as a key referent for employees in determining whether their own situation is “fair,” and this influences their reactions to their own compensation. More specifically, we find that when lower-level managers are underpaid relative to the CEO, that is, underpaid more than the CEO or overpaid less, they are more likely … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged deadly diseases, leadership, Management, organization as a system, overpaid executives, respect for people

Gladwell (and Drucker) on Pensions

Posted on August 21, 2006 by John Hunter

The Risk Poolhttps://management.curiouscatblog.net/2006/08/21/gladwell-and-drucker-on-pensions/ by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink): The most influential management theorist of the twentieth century was Peter Drucker, who, in 1950, wrote an extraordinarily prescient article for Harper’s entitled “The Mirage of Pensions.” It ought to be reprinted for every steelworker, airline mechanic, and autoworker who is worried about his retirement. Drucker simply couldn’t see how the pension plans on the table at companies like G.M. could ever work. “For such a plan … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Economics, Health care, Investing, Management, Popular, Systems thinking | Tagged business, Data, Economics, Investing, leadership, long term thinking, Management | 1 Comment

Interviews with Innovators

Posted on August 9, 2006 by John Hunter

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston is an interesting looking book to be published in a few months. The book consists of interviews with founders of technology companies exploring the initial efforts to create a new company. Interviews include: David Heinemeier Hansson [the broken link was removed] (who many of our readers may not have heard of but who has recently done a great web development framework [Ruby on Rails] and development philosophy very compatible … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Innovation, IT, Management, Management Articles, Software Development | Tagged Books, business, entrepreneur, Innovation, leadership

Trust: Respect for People

Posted on June 30, 2006 by John Hunter

Respect for People [the broken link was removed*], Toyota.co.jp Respect for People has always been important to Toyota, and nowhere is this more evident than in the relationship among Toyota associates. … There has been only one exception to this rule throughout Toyota’s entire history. In June 1950, during a postwar period of great hardship in Japan, the company was forced to choose between corporate restructuring or risking complete collapse. Then-President Kiichiro Toyoda battled for months for the sake of … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged layoffs, leadership, management, organization as a system, respect for people, Toyota, usability | 2 Comments

More on Obscene CEO Pay

Posted on June 22, 2006 by John Hunter

Study site: CEO-worker pay imbalance grows [the broken link has been removed] includes the graph above. Unfortunately this reverse robin hood (steal from the workers, stock holder, customers…) and give to the CEO tale continues. Hopefully someday soon we can at least turn the momentum in the right direction (stopping these incredibly excessive “pay” packages). Even then it will take quite a deal of reducing these ridiculous “pay” packages to reach some sense of decency. CNN article based on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged charts, curiouscat, Deming, ethics, executive pay, leadership, management, overpaid executives, quote | 12 Comments

People: Team Members or Costs

Posted on April 1, 2006 by John Hunter

Inside TPS at Toyota, Georgetown, Kentucky [the broken link was removed] by Ralph Rio: Toyota believes people need to be intimately involved with the process to understand how to improve it. The team member writes the standardized work they use because the person performing the work is the true expert. People are trusted to understand the process and improve it. Automation is used but is seen as a tool for helping people manage the process. This can be contrasted with … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged leadership, management, organization as a system, respect for people, robots, teams, technology, Toyota | 4 Comments

Executives Participating in Kaizen Events

Posted on March 1, 2006 by John Hunter

The Masco Mapmakers [the broken link was removed] by Bill Waddell Guys from Brasscraft or Morgantown Plastics might go to a Delta faucet plant for the event – and note that these are executives, not factory level folks – that spend the week working on the kaizens. Of course, the Grand Kaizens are not the only ones. Individual plants hold their own kaizens by the hundreds. The primary purpose of the Grand Kaizen is to spread the lean message throughout … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing | Tagged continual improvement, leadership, lean manufacturing

Management Lessons from Terry Ryan

Posted on January 4, 2006 by John Hunter

Management Lessons from Terry Ryan: Humility, Stability & Personality from Management by Baseball: competitors in any endeavor figure anything easy must not be a very important differentiator (bass-ackwards of course, but the erroneous mental algebra is that if it was important and easy both, everyone could/would do it and since they’re not doing it and it’s easy it, therefore, must not be important. Goofy but widespread thinking. As long as Ryan and his team make this seem like luck or … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Psychology | Tagged change, Creativity, Innovation, leadership, management, management history, Psychology, workplace improvement | 1 Comment

Quality, SPC and Your Career

Posted on December 24, 2005 by John Hunter

Lead To Succeed [sigh, ASQ broke the link so I removed it, it sure gets tiring how backwards some organizations still are about using the internet, June 2010] by Stephen S. Prevette: * Succeed as a quality professional by branding yourself and providing a service or product your manager and organization deem worth paying for. * Lead your manager “your customers” by providing the data they need in a form they can understand. This is a great article on how … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Management, quote, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged Career, leadership, managing people, Quality tools, SPC, Statistics | 2 Comments

Innovate or “Play it Safe” to Avoid Risk

Posted on December 8, 2005 by John Hunter

The Xooglers blog has some really interesting posts. In one, “But, but, that’s just crazy talk!” [the broken link was removed], Doug Edwards discusses a great example of what true leadership is about. In my defense, my background conspired against me. Past public relations debacles had taught me always to evaluate worst-case scenarios before considering the possible benefits of any new initiative. “First, do no harm” had become my mantra. This is the reality of many people. There are many … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Google, Innovation, Management, quote | Tagged decision making, Innovation, leadership, management, risk | 2 Comments

Excessive Executive Pay

Posted on December 4, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement Via Christian Sarkar [the broken link was removed], Too Many Turkeys, The Economist: Executive compensation in America – already far ahead of the rest of the world, despite the best efforts of overseas managers to catch up – is now rising inexorably again. In fiscal year 2004 the total compensation of the median American company boss rose in every industry… according to a new report by the Conference Board, a research organisation. In the big companies that … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged business, curiouscat, deadly diseases, executive pay, leadership, overpaid executives, Systems thinking | 18 Comments