Often, when talking to managers about some challenge they are facing, I’ll get a brief history of what they are dealing with, including what was done by the last manger(s) and what inititaive(s) were tried in the past, with little or no success. Sometimes, they’ll even go on at length about exactly what was done, [...]
Focus on the Problem: Your Customer is a Lens
May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
“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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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