Tag Archives: Popular

Management Advice Failures

…when we fail to value the best ideas, instead valuing the new ideas, we are not as effective as we could be. We often accept pale copies of good old ideas instead of going to the good old ideas – which will often lead to a much richer source of knowledge. Continue reading

Posted in Management, Management Articles, Popular, quote | Tagged , , , , , | 17 Comments

Respect for People

A very thoughtful post, Respect for People on the Kaikaku blog raises some interesting questions. What does respect for people really mean? Toyota empowers people: To stop the line – to stop every other worker from working – that is … Continue reading

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Global Manufacturing Data by Country

I am still looking for a good source for manufacturing data by country and year. Today I found some data from the United Nations Statistics Division. The data for the top five manufacturing economies: China, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and … Continue reading

Posted in China, Economics, Manufacturing, Popular, quote | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Purpose of an Organization

W. Edwards Deming described the purpose of an organization in New Economics, on page 51, as: The aim proposed here for any organization is for everybody to gain – stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment – over the long … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data

We use data to act as a proxy for some results of the system. Often people forget that the end result is not for the number to be improved but for the situation to be improved. We hope, if the measure improves the situation will have improved. But there are many reasons this may not be the case (one number improving at the expense of other parts of the system, the failure of the number to accurately serve as a proxy, distorting numbers, etc.). Continue reading

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Popular, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments