Discussing Operational Excellence, Management Innovation, and the Pursuit of Work/Life Integration.
There is a company called SIB Development and Consulting in Charleson, SC where, after working there for 5 years, you are rewarded with a $50,000 cash bonus just for your 5 years of service. (See the CNN Money article here.)
At first, this might seem like a wonderful incentive program. Unfortunately, the program highlights what might be the greatest problem fcing the business world: the belief that people can be bought, and the alarming number of people who are willing to sell. [Read more]
I caught a great article from Brad Power that was posted a couple weeks ago on the Harvard Busines Review, entitled “Shifting Finance from Controlling to Improving.”
What Power demonstrates are several CFO’s who have endeavored to make understanding finances simple to those who don’t live & breathe it in daily lives. They change the terminology to something more intutitve. They measure performance in a way that makes bottom-line impacts intutive. They help to spread the word about Lean to others with no-nonsense, easily articulated, and most importantly – easily acted-upon information. [Read more]
The discussion surrounding what is leadrship and what isn’t, and what is leadership vs. management, has become so convoluted that just about anyone, at any time, can be considered a leader depending on which definition you’d like to attach yourself to.
I, however, have one very simple requirement.
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The focus of improvement, and not just in lean, is in cost reduction and increased cycle time. That focus misses the point entirely, and remains unaware of just how brilliant the Easier, Better, Faster Cheaper methodology – when pursued in that order and that order only, truly is.
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Let’s say that an organization is not measured by the ability of those who are in positions of power to control subordinates, but by the value that the organization transfers to its customers. In this sense, order and control are necessary, but they are not sufficient, for a high-performing organization. Also, if seen this way, the management ranks exist only to initiate the transfer of value – they do not create it and they certainly don’t place it in the customer’s hands. [Read more]
Angry Birds, that time-draining app that has spawned a cult phenomenon and a slew of stuffed toys at Walmart, might seem like an odd place to look for wisdom on accomplishing tasks. Nonetheless, the game offers several highly useful examples of how to manage yourself and others in order to get things accomplished: [Read more]
In baseball, batting .500 is pretty good right? In basketball or hockey, staying above .500 pretty well guarantees at least a run at the playoffs. But? Doesn’t that still mean that the remaining .500 were failures? There is a quotation that I have heard attributed to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky that states; ‘You miss 100% of the [...]
Michael Koplov over at softwareadvice.com contacted me last week to write a review of his article, Consumer-Driven Technology Creates the Need for a C-Level Supply Chain Focus. The article focuses on the ascension of Tim Cook to the CEO position at Apple, following Steve Jobs’ decision to step down from the position due to [...]
A recent survey of over 30,000 employees including 2400 US-based employees had some grim results. One-third of US employees are considering leaving their current company – it’s even worse with younger employees. There are also those who are so unmotivated that they are unproductive. Statistically, those who are either ready to leave or are completely unmotivated make [...]
This grapevine is an important source of information for any manager, executive or business owner. It provides you information that you may not otherwise hear, such as how employee morale is doing and issues that are important to employees. The grapevine is of value to employees because they tend to trust what comes from the grapevine. This is due to the fact that usually management is not involved in grapevine communications. And grapevines are not all about rumors – there is fact in there. As a manager or business owner, don’t discount the grapevine conversation, or assume it isn’t happening. [Read more]
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