What if what’s in their best interest……doesn’t interest them?

May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
salad

A very good post appeared on the FastCompany site yesterday, in which author Ginny Whitelaw declared, “Empathy is the most powerful leadership tool.”

There’s not a lot to disagree with in the article. It is, essentially, about Covey’s “seek first to understand” and represents both a practical, and I would say moralistic, way to approach your interactions with others. Seeing things from their point of view is a good thing, of course. It helps you to understand the other person better, so that you can align your message with their concerns. It’s a practical exercise for influencing others in any walks of life where negotiation, compromise, and change are necessary. It also indicates that you have a measure of respect for the other person’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs and opinions.

Unfortunately, there are times when people simply don’t act in a way that is consistent with what is in their best interests. Especially not in the long term. It’s as simple as David Meister’s Fat Smoker principle – you have to go through something difficult to get to something good, so change is hard and rarely happens. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Continuous Improvement, Random observations Tagged With: , , , ,

Broken glass, broke and hungry, Broken hearts and broken bones

April 23, 2012 By 2 Comments
broken

Last Saturday, my older son fell off the swing in the backyard and broke both his wrists.

I spent each day at home with him, logging in to work on my laptop just a few times when I could, in between administering doses of medicine, running him to the doctors, feeding him, dressing him, helping him go to the bathroom or even simply shift positions in his chair.

The most important lesson over the past week has been this: We should all lose ourselves in something completely and totally selfless from time to time. Parenting, as depicted above, can be one of those things. There’s great value in doing something that has little or no rationality behind it. No personal benefit, no altruistic higher purpose for which we believe we can gain good Karma points, just plain old long, dreary, difficult work for the benefit of someone else, even if they never thank us or show any outward signs of appreciation. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Family, movies, music, tv, entertainment Tagged With: , , , ,

The inexcusable “I just don’t have time” excuse.

April 11, 2012 By 2 Comments
Running_our_of_time_by_joanna5549

Managers who aren’t able to address a problem due to time constraints need to think again about what they consider important. Clearly, you have the time to deal with things – you have simply chosen to ignore one set of problems in favor of another. Are you sitting in boring, mindless, disorganized meetings instead of getting ahead of a problem? Well – that means you value the meeting more than being proactive. I know, I know – you believe you are as proactive as possible and you certainly want to be even more proactive – but the truth is, you wanted to be in that meeting more than anything else. How do I know? Because that’s where you were and actions speak louder than words or wishes. [Read more]

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Unlimited vacation, unlimited responsibility….for management

March 28, 2012 By 2 Comments
working outdoors

The true burden for making unlimited vacation work rests not on the workers for knowing what’s coming down the pipe and, therefore, which days they can take off. The burden rests on low-level managers who are aware of not just the workflow – but also have an emotional connection to the individuals placed within their area of control. The role of management in an environment that supports unlimited vacation is a crucial one. It necessitates that managers have a handle on the value stream and the ability to establish multiple workaround paths and redundancies to ensure work continues no matter who is in the office or on the shop floor. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Business Management, Family, Operational Excellence, Planning & Measurement, Team Building & Human Capital Tagged With: , , , ,

More on kids and the wisdom gained from teaching baseball

March 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

So, it struck me, that when we interview candidates or assign people to tasks based on what they tell us about themselves, we are really only going on that person’s interpretation – which may be very different from our own. Different professions have attempted to make the understanding of the job standardized by instituting certifications and licenses, however, there is still a great deal of variation in the ability to understand and implement those standards. There is still one universal truth – the definition of what constitutes “good” is often developed after the fact and is done so according to subjective interpretations by someone with a need to save face. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Continuous Improvement, Education, Family, Team Building & Human Capital Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Respect for People is not Respect for Person, just ask Clint Eastwood

March 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

On my mind lately is the concept of “Respect for People” that is at the core of Lean and one of the fundamental building blocks of the Shingo Model.

I remember just about 3 years ago, as I was first introduced to Lean via the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership, there was a video in which Bruce Hamilton mentioned that, sometimes, leaders need to tell the late adopters to get with the program. “Wait a minute…” I thought. “Doesn’t that contradict the need for management to show concern for each of their charges, and guide them to accepting new ways of thinking & doing?” [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Featured Posts, movies, music, tv, entertainment, Operational Excellence, Team Building & Human Capital Tagged With: , , ,

The state of the blog (and the blogger). Or, how did I get here & what am I going to do now?!

March 7, 2012 By 2 Comments

March is the 2 year anniversary of this blog. It has had a lot of ups and downs, gone through some periods where I did very few updates and considered killing the site altogether, but I am proud to say that I’m still here. To be honest, I couldn’t image NOT writing this blog. It’s one of the most gratifying things I’ve undertaken and continues to be a terrific learning experience as well. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Family, Operational Excellence, Project Management, Random observations, Team Building & Human Capital Tagged With: , , , , ,

Change your assumptions to change everything else

March 6, 2012 By 2 Comments

We pride ourselves on toughness, but not on eliminating the need to be tough. We praise those who struggle, but do little to eliminate the struggle. If you change that flawed assumption – that life is a relentless series of difficulties, punctuated with intermittent moments of levity – and reversed the equation – that life is an endless series of interesting and joyful events, occasionally interrupted with difficulty – how would your attitude towards everything change?
[Read more]

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Management Improvement Blog Carnival #159

March 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

March 2012 marks the 2-year anniversary of My Flexible Pencil. Although I’m certain he was unaware of that, I am still honored that John Hunter of the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog is helping me to celebrate this milestone, by asking me to host the Management Improvement Blog Carnival #159.

The Carnival, begun by in 2006, is published 3 times a month and serves to provide a selection of links to posts on a number of blogs. The carnival covers management improvement: Deming, lean manufacturing, six sigma, innovation, customer focus, leadership, systems thinking, continuous improvement, respect for people… [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Business Management, Continuous Improvement, Funny things, Operational Excellence, Planning & Measurement, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Guest post on A Lean Journey, and the weekly rewind

February 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Today, I have a guest post appearing on Tim McMahon’s A Lean Journey Site. The Topic: ROWE in the context of the Shingo model. When Tim asked if I’d like to do a guest post on his site, I jumped at the chance. I also reached out to Mark Hamel, a blogger, an award-winning author for his book: The Kaizen Even Fieldbook, and a Shingo Prize examiner, for input. Mark wrote a complete post of his own which will appear on Tim’s site tomorrow. Mark dives even deeper into how ROWE aligns with the Shingo, and how it does not. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Business Management, Continuous Improvement, Funny things, Operational Excellence, Random observations, Team Building & Human Capital, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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