Quick thoughts on the definition of excellence, and the weekly rewind

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Excellence

It’s one of those days where what should be, and what is, are at odds with each other again…..

“Excellence” is something that ought to be defined objectively. There ought ot be agree-upon standards for excellence. In some cases there are, such as in sports where Excellence is defined as a team championship. Even then, however, excellence has a subjective interpretation – you might be a batting champion in baseball (meaning you have the highest individual batting average of any player), yet play for a last place team. A super star player might have sub-par statistics due to the poor team that surrounds him or her.

I think, if you ask almost any person, in any role, in any company what excellent means and they will tell you about their experience – and not necessarily about the standards within their profession. This may mean that, in reality, “excellence” becomes a locally-defined phenomenon, which is a mistake. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Operational Excellence, Team Building & Human Capital 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]

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

It’s all in how you look at it – current state to ideal state

April 10, 2012 By 2 Comments
A_Change_of_Perspective_by_kuschelirmel

within all the reasons why a process can’t be changed, won’t be changed, or why it did not work last time lies a vital component necessary for overall improvement to begin – a definition of the current state. What all those protestations are giving us is the perception of the current state that is held by the people who are living with whatever process, as suboptimal or utterly broken as it may be.

What the person sees is their reality. A reality where both people and things don’t work. What they are sharing, when they complain, is their knowledge of the way things really work around here. When improvement concepts are introduced, they tend to take the tone of “Here’s the way things can or should work around here.” When poorly introduced, the new ideas sound condescending at best, and threatening at worst. What those ideas represent, however, is the ideal state – the concept of the way things should work, even if we don’t know how to get from here to there.

So, how to overcome the reluctance and resistance? [Read more]

Filed Under: Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

Management Innovation Exchange, and the weekly rewind

April 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Think Differently

I’m not certain how many of the usual readers of this blog are aware of the Management Innovation Exchange. According to their site:

What is the MIX?

An open innovation project…

The Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) is an open innovation project aimed at reinventing management for the 21st century. The premise: while “modern” management is one of humankind’s most important inventions, it is now a mature technology that must be reinvented for a new age.

The spur for a revolution in management… [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Business Management, Operational Excellence, Useful Tools Tagged With: , , , ,

Chronic problems are not problems, they are constraints.

April 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
path blocked

In any environment, among any group of people, there are going to be problems that just don’t go away.  You might have a critical vendor who is your only go-to source, but who is chronically late to contract.  You might have a genius employee who is a prima donna.  Or, you might have a moronic [...]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, Team Building & Human Capital Tagged With: , , , ,

Let’s all stop being professional, a rhino’s tale

April 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The giant rhino monster

Every time someone with enough rank and a title granting them authority starts to screw up, behave in a foolish or terrible manner, or speak like a fool – we are told that we shouldn’t address the issue because “That wouldn’t be professional.” So, since being professional prevents us from acknowledging there are problems, let’s make a conscious decision to be profoundly un-professional.

What’s at work here is the manifestation of fear. Fear that if I point out there’s an 80,000 pound rhinoceros in the room, someone will make my life difficult, or I’ll lose my job altogether. Which is silly, because the rhinoceros is obvious and it stinks to high heaven. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Business Management, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

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: , , ,

A ROWE & Lean chat on business901.com, and the weekly rewind

March 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had a chat with Joe Dager on the business901.com podcast a couple weeks back, and we discussed ROWE and Lean,and where the two approaches line up, and where they differ. Click the link to hear me discuss how what ROWE’s creators advocate might help to expose what Bob Emiliani calls “Fake Lean” or what Mark Graban calls “L.A.M.E” and create better focus for those whose Lean aspiration have gone astray. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, Team Building & Human Capital Tagged With: , , ,
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