“Focus on the customer” might be an overused phrase. It also might be entirely wrong. At the very least, it’s inaccurate. Consider this familiar, but still powerful, example: You work in a hardware store. One day, Bill comes in and indicates he wants a drill. What does Bill need? You might be tempted to say [...]
Critical Thinking & Creative Thinking: Combine Tools to Develop Insights
May 18, 2010 By 6 Comments
Very often, many of the solutions we develop when attempting to deal with a problem don’t result in long-term improvements. Instead, they are band-aid approaches that only attempt to keep today’s fires at bay. Unfortunately, those fires tend to rekindle, and we approach them, yet again, with another round of short-term “solutions.” In order to uncover systemic [...]
Elephant Biting: Try Sampling the Menu
May 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
There are bound to be times when we find that the tried and true simply don’t work for us anymore. At these times, it’s important to remember that sampling something new can expose us to new experiences we may have been reluctant to try before. From these new experiences comes a new awareness of what’s [...]
Operations, Change, Innovation, Strategy, Culture and Waste: How it All Fits Together
May 13, 2010 By 4 Comments
There are limitless writings on each of these topics. Obviously, each one contributes to the degree of success, or failure, an organization experiences, but how do they all fit together? Each one has an affect on the others, but how can this dynamic be represented? My answer is that each of these elements can be [...]
GlenGarry Glen Ross and the Art of Inefficient Management
April 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment
This has always been one of my favorite films. It popped back into my head recently while contemplating some thoughts on management films. Courtesy of YouTube, I was able to go back and relive some scenes, and I started to look at the film in a new light. If you’re unfamiliar with the film, or [...]
The sum of us is always better than the one of us.
April 3, 2010 By 2 Comments
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about finding ways to demonstrate the purpose and necessity of developing people who appreciate, respect, and adhere to a fundamental concept: That the sum of us is always better than the one of us. Along with this thought came a memory of the movie ‘Miracle’ and its [...]
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