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Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs

• Deming on being Destroyed by Best Efforts

  Best efforts are essential. Unfortunately, best efforts, people charging this way and that way without guidance of principles, can do a lot of damage. Think of the chaos that would come if everyone did his best, not knowing what to do.

      W. Edwards Deming

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• The Importance of Management Improvement

  If organizations just adopt management improvement practices I firmly believe customer service, financial performance and employee satisfaction could be improved. This was a big part of the reason I started to use the internet to share management improvement ideas back in 1996 (plus I find management improvement interesting).

  On the note of making a difference in people’s lives. I have had far more people tell me how my father (Bill Hunter) made a huge difference in their lives than ever tell me anything like that about myself...

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• Don’t Empower

  Using the term, "empower", implies that it one person empowers another person. This is not the correct view. Instead we each play a role within a system. Yes there are constraints on your actions based on the role you are playing. Does a security guard empower the CEO to enter the building?

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• Don’t Empower

  I believe I learned this from Peter Scholtes, though maybe I am remembering it wrong or explaining it wrong (so give him the credit and if I mess it up it is my fault). I believe there is a problem with using the term empowered. Using the term implies that it one person empowers another person. This is not the correct view. Instead we each play a role within a system. Yes there are constraints on your actions based on the role you are playing. Does a security guard empower the CEO to enter the building?

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• Data Based Blathering

  I am tired of seeing the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) promoted as if it were some encouragement for better management when all it seems to do to me is encourage superficial, non data based claims. And since it my blog I can rant if I feel like it.

  ...

  They think a flat American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reading is going to lead to weak consumer spending? I doubt it. I really doubt it. What data, or theory is that based on? Jeez this whole thing just makes me crazy. Trying to use a index to promote the “importance of quality principles” (ASQ is one of the “sponsors” of this effort) and customer focus in this way – ARGH. It does the opposite – showing people how to misuse numbers. How to overreact to variation. How to compare one dot to another dot and make claims from those 2 dots. I am sure I will make mistakes in my statements but the ACSI has bugged me since it was started with the way it ignores sound quality practices and promotes the opposite of what people like Dr. Deming taught.

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• Are Google Management Practices Worth Studying?

  Larry Dignan asks “Is Google reinventing corporate management or just living off the fruits of one big breakthrough?” Well, I believe Google offers a great deal for managers to study – see our posts on Google management practices. But that is not the same as reinventing corporate management. Most companies have no way of just replacing their management system with a “Google management system” – they don’t have the managers to make it work, or the staff or the systems or maybe even the business… However there is plenty that can be learned and adopted.

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• Cool Workspaces

  Beautiful work spaces acknowledge the people that work in those spaces and show a respect for employees as people.

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• Stop Demotivating Me!

  ...What should a manager do? Eliminate the de-motivators. Provide coaching (building the capacity or employees and the organization). And manage a system to allow people to take pride in what they do. Holding pizza parties, pep talks, displaying posters and annual performance reviews are not what is needed. But those actions are really easy so that is what some people do – instead of what is needed. How sad.

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• Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation
  1. Ideas come from anywhere (engineers, customers, managers, executives, external companies – that Google acquires)
  2. Share everything you can (very open culture)
  3. You’re Brilliant. We’re Hiring [Google Hiring]
  4. A license to pursue dreams (Google 20% time)
  5. Innovation not instant perfection (iteration – experiment quickly and often)
  6. Data is apolitical [Data Based Decision Making – this is true but as an operating principle requires people that really understand data. See: Data can’t lie.
  7. Creativity loves Constraints [process improvement and innovation]
  8. ...

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• Data Can’t Lie

  Many people don’t understand the difference between being manipulated because they can’t understand what the data really says and data itself “lying” (which, of course, doesn’t even make sense). The same confusion can come in when someone just draws the wrong conclusion from the data that exists (and them blames the data for “lying” instead of themselves for drawing a faulty conclusion).

  The data can be wrong (and the data can even be made faulty intentionally by someone). Or someone can draw the wrong conclusion from data that is correct. But in neither case is the data lying. It is also common to believe the data means something other than what it does (therefore leading to a faulty conclusion).

  ...

  If all those involved understand how to draw conclusions from data it is not easy to mislead them.

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• Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno

  Ohno focused a great deal on the faulty perceptions derived from cost accounting thinking. He discussed the importance of not letting your understanding be clouded by thinking with the accounting mindset.

  If you insist on blindly calculating individual costs and waste time insisting that this is profitable of that is not profitable, you will just increase the cost of your low volume products. For this reason there are many cases in this world where companies will discontinue car models that are actually profitable, but are money losers according to their calculations. Likewise, there are cases where companies sell a lot of model that they think is profitable but in fact are only increasing their loses.

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• Management by Walking Around

  Management by walking around (MBWA) is based on the concept that a manager needs to actually understand what is really going on – not just view reports in an office. By seeing the actual state of affairs they can better understand what management improvements are actually doing where work is being done. Lean thinking includes a great deal on the importance of going to the gemba to make decisions. Anyone interested in MBWA should look at some of that material (as often MBWA is too superficial to do much good). 

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• The Joy of Work

  We spend much of our life at work: we deserve to have pride in what we do and even enjoy it (shocking I know). Read the respect for people posts for some ideas on how to make your workplace better.

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• Respect for People – Understanding Psychology

  I see building improvement capacity of the organization, which largely means building the capacity of the people, as an extremely important focus of improvement efforts. It is, at times, important to slow down the pace of change to ensure that people can adopt and incorporate the new concepts fully. If not, the improvements tend to only take effect on the surface.

  Improvements in results are important but it is also critical to have management improvement concepts adopted as the natural way of doing business.

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• Focus on Customers and Employees

  I believe it is the purpose of organization to serve many stakeholders(customer, employees, stockholders, community…). Thankfully some companies agree: Compensation at Whole Foods – Starbucks: Respect for Workers... Here is another example – How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart...

  I am happy to invest in companies where all stakeholders are winning – I think that is a great long term strategy...

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