Tag Archives: managing people

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 , , , , , | 2 Comments

The 70 Percent Solution

Posted on December 10, 2005 by John Hunter

The 70 Percent Solution [the broken link was removed] by John Battelle, an interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt: We spend 70 percent of our time on core search and ads. We spend 20 percent on adjacent businesses, ones related to the core businesses in some interesting way. Examples of that would be Google News, Google Earth, and Google Local. And then 10 percent of our time should be on things that are truly new. An example there would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, Management, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Performance of People and Appraisal

Posted on December 5, 2005 by John Hunter

The Statistical and Scientific Thinking blog, by John Dowd, has several interesting posts on the Performance of People [the broken link was removed]: Why can’t performance be numerically rated and ranked? It can’t be defined operationally, it can’t be measured with any degree of precision, it can’t be separated from other effects, and it is destined to vary over time in any case. Any one of these factors present significant (if not insurmountable) problems itself. Combined the problems create an … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , ,

Managing Innovation

Posted on November 16, 2005 by John Hunter

TQM, ISO 9000, Six Sigma: Due Process Management Programs Discourage Innovation? [the broken link was removed – so many organizations show how unable they are to act with a concern for anything but the very short term] “In the appropriate setting, process management activities can help companies improve efficiency, but the risk is that you misapply these programs, in particular in areas where people are supposed to be innovative,” notes Benner. “Brand new technologies to produce products that don’t exist … Continue reading →

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

Performance Without Appraisal

Posted on October 1, 2005 by John Hunter

In response to the Alternatives to Stack Ranking? post on the popular Mini-Microsoft blog. I’m also taking some time to contemplate on Deming’s points and assess how Microsoft is doing against them. … What I would deeply appreciate is real-world experience from people living with stack ranking alternatives. I strongly suggest chapter 9 (Performance Without Appraisal) of The Leader’s Handbooks, by Peter Scholtes. You mentioned Deming. When asked “If we eliminate performance appraisals, as you suggest, what do we do … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

Posted on September 25, 2005 by John Hunter

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers [the broken link was removed], Sarah Jane Johnston interview of Steven Spear. It is our conclusion that Toyota has developed a set of principles, Rules-in-Use we’ve called them, that allow organizations to engage in this (self-reflective) design, testing, and improvement so that (nearly) everyone can contribute at or near his or her potential, and when the parts come together the whole is much, much greater than the sum of the parts. The main … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Process improvement, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Managing Fear

Posted on July 12, 2005 by John Hunter

The post, Root Causes of Crunch Mode [the broken link was removed] from the Game Manager blog makes the good point that Fear and anxiety are known to reduce comprehension and learning ability. W. Edwards Deming made “drive out fear” one of his 14 management changes America needed to make in order to compete with Japan. Fear is a valuable physiological reaction in some situations, but fear make(s) it difficult to think, and thinking is generally superior to fighting in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment