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Tag Archives: purpose
Your Purpose Must Be About You
Guest post by Jurgen Appelo I’m a writer. It’s the one thing that I intend to do for the rest of my life. That means, when I focus on writing, I cannot focus on knitting. Somebody else will have to do the knitting, so I can focus on the writing. And maybe later, I can trade my wonderful book for someone’s beautiful sweater. This concept applies to all other professionals too. Everyone is entangled in a web of economic dependencies, … Continue reading
Posted in Psychology, Systems thinking
Tagged aim, guest post, intrinsic motivation, motivation, Psychology, purpose, Systems thinking
1 Comment
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 corporation says that its principle value is maximizing shareholder value. That’s non-sense. If that were the case executives wouldn’t fly around on private jets and have Philippine mahogany lined offices and the rest of it. The principle function to those … Continue reading
Posted in Fun, Management, Systems thinking, webcast
Tagged Ackoff, aim, culture, evidence based management, leadership, management webcast, purpose, quote, theory of knowledge
8 Comments
The Customer is the Purpose of Our Work
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so. Mahatma Gandhi [his authorship of the quote is … Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking
Tagged aim, Customer focus, customer service, food, Psychology, purpose, quote, respect for people
6 Comments
Frugal Innovation
First break all the rules The device is a masterpiece of simplification. The multiple buttons on conventional ECGs have been reduced to just four. The bulky printer has been replaced by one of those tiny gadgets used in portable ticket machines. The whole thing is small enough to fit into a small backpack and can run on batteries as well as on the mains. This miracle of compression sells for $800, instead of $2,000 for a conventional ECG … Frugal … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, India, Innovation, quote
Tagged Creativity, disruptive innovation, Economics, Innovation, purpose, quote, simplicity
1 Comment
Incentivizing Behavior Doesn’t Improve Results
In the webcast Dan Pink shares research results exploring human motivation and ideas on how to manage organization given the scientific research on motivation. “once a task called for even rudimentary cognitive skill a larger reward led to poorer performance” “Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table. Pay people enough so they are not thinking about money they are thinking about the work.” “3 factors lead to better performance: autonomy, mastery and purpose” [not additional … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect, Science
Tagged extrinsic motivation, management research, management webcast, managing people, motivation, Psychology, purpose
3 Comments
Akio Toyoda’s Message Shows Real Leadership
Speech by Akio Toyoda Since the birth of Toyota, the company’s philosophy has always been to “contribute to society.” … “Contributing to society” at Toyota means two things. First, it means, “to manufacture automobiles that meet the needs of society and enrich people’s lives.” And second, “to take root in the communities we serve by creating jobs, earning profits and paying taxes, thereby enriching the local economies where we operate.” … Toyota has overcome many challenges during its seven decades … Continue reading
Corporations Do Not Exist Solely to Maximize the Bottom Line
Do corporations exist solely to maximize their bottom lines? We don’t think so., Forbes Magazine: When Bill Gates suggested recently that corporations should sacrifice profits to the public welfare, practicing what he called “creative capitalism,” he wasn’t the first robber baron with the idea. Henry Ford made a similar proposal in 1916, but he was defeated in court by shareholders who preferred he simply issue dividends. The countervailing view, famously expounded by Milton Friedman, is that the only responsibility of … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged Deming, Economics, purpose, stakeholders, stockholders, suppliers
3 Comments
Communicating Change
Response to: Sales Compensation Plan Changes [the broken link has been removed] I believe the best way to communicate such changes is to explain how they tie into the long term vision of the organization. This requires that such a vision actually exists (which is often not the case). Then all strategies are communicated based on how they support and integrate with that vision. In addition that communication strategy incorporates an understanding about what weaknesses with past practices are addressed … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, Systems thinking
Tagged change, communication, management, purpose, Systems thinking
5 Comments
A Company’s Purpose is to be Useful to Society
Toyota powers to the front [the broken link was removed] (Toyota President, Katsuaki Watanabe) eschews the normal management mantra of shareholder value above all. A company’s purpose, Watanabe insists, is to be useful to society. 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 term. More from our previous … Continue reading
The Power of Purpose
The Power of Purpose by Rebecca A. Morgan: Constancy of purpose means that quality decisions are not situational. End of month quality is the same as beginning of month. It means that the long term benefit of the organization is not sacrificed to hit quarterly targets. It means having your eye on the competition, whether it is in your industry or coming from elsewhere, with plans to stay ahead. Constancy of purpose doesn’t require the threat of a customer leaving … Continue reading
Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind
Topic: Management Improvement Toyota Engineers…a Shrub Toyota Motor Corp has developed a derivative of the Cherry Sage shrub that is optimized for absorbing pollutants from the air. It seems Toyota is dominating the management improvement news in the same way Google is dominating the rest of the business news. It seems like Toyota is mentioned positively nearly as much as other companies combined on the management blogs that I read most often. And I am contributing to that. I doubt … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Management, quote, Science, Toyota Production System (TPS)
Tagged engineering, green, Innovation, purpose, Science, Toyota
4 Comments
Management Improvement Books
My recent post on Statistics for Experimenters: Design, Innovation, and Discovery , 2nd Edition reminds me I have not mentioned other good books that have been published recently. Three great books published last year are: Six Sigma Beyond the Factory Floor by Ronald D. Snee and Roger W. Hoerl. Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Management
Tagged Books, purpose, Six sigma, Statistics for Experimenters, Systems thinking