What does it mean to Drive out Fear, as Dr. Deming instructed us to do? Yes, we know that fear in the workplace is crippling: Fear of failure, fear to tell the boss there’s a problem, fear of not meeting quotas, fear of each other, fear of ourselves. What are you most afraid of? In [...]
Combining Forces: Lean, Leadership, Organizational Development, Innovation come together.
June 10, 2010 By 3 Comments
Sightseeing Tourists: A Continuous Improvement Idea
June 7, 2010 By 1 Comment
We need more tourists at work. While the hospitality industry would certainly agree, that’s not what I have in mind. What we need are people to walk around, keep journals of what they see, and share their experiences with others. When trying to generate improvements, people often get stuck when trying to look at their [...]
Best of MFP: To All Employees: Get up and Get out
May 27, 2010 By 13 Comments
On three separate occasions throughout my career, I’ve had my boss tell me: 1) That I produced more work, more quickly, than they had expected, however, 2) I seemed to spend a lot of time away from my desk. Despite my productivity, I was chastised for being “too chatty” or “spending too much time talking [...]
Best of MFP: Leadership: Not for Followers.
May 24, 2010 By 5 Comments
Are those who are labeled “Leaders” truly leaders, or do they follow? There are many people in leadership positions, who have achieved that rank through their ability to implement their superiors’ decisions. In the act of doing so, these people demonstrate their ability to do what is required of them, and do it well. It’s [...]
Elephant Biting: Running with the Herd = Safety in Numbers?
May 23, 2010 By 4 Comments
Change direction scary. Especially if you don’t know exactly where you’re going. It is certainly safer to go with what is familiar or, to at least go along with what everyone else is doing. Running off on your own can leave you isolated and defenseless. Your protection is your ability to stay with the herd, [...]
The Best Advice Ever: Never Point at a Problem.
May 10, 2010 By 12 Comments
Several years ago, when I was just a couple years out of college, I strutted into my boss’s office with (what I thought at the time) was a brilliant observation. I declared there were a number of activities going on within our department that were in violation of approved procedures and policies. I laid out [...]
Why Performance Appraisals are Still Used, and Why Team Building Still Suffers.
April 30, 2010 By 12 Comments
In his book, “Out of the Crisis” Dr. W. Edwards Deming put forth his belief that Performance Appraisals should be done away with. His case was taken up by Peter Scholtes, who championed the Deming philosophy and became it’s strongest proponent in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, the concept of the Annual performance Review is [...]
Think like a Manager! Critically, and Creatively.
April 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Raise your hand if this situation sounds familiar: You are delivering some information to someone above your rank in the organization (it can be a presentation or a 1-on-1 sit down). The deeper into the discussion you go, the more irrelevant the comments and question you’re receiving become. Before too long, it’s fairly clear that [...]
Elephant Biting: Learn to Make the Bad Parts Taste Better
April 25, 2010 By 4 Comments
If you ever have to do something particularly distasteful, there are a few approaches you can try. You can force yourself to choke it down in big bites, hoping to get the worst of it over with as quickly as possible, and probably making yourself sick in the process. Or, you could procrastinate, work on it [...]
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