Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs - Avoiding Difficult Problems
Coping with this issue (of avoiding unpleasant, systemic and long term rather than acute problems) is one of the things that separates great corporate culture from decent or bad corporate culture.
If there are fairly obvious or fairly easy improvements those would likely be acted on. There are, rarely, but still sometimes, instances where those vocal or politically powerful individuals who would lose out in a fairly obvious improvement will prevent action.
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I am not convinced there are not ways to improve the situation. And I am pretty confident it is important enough to try. And I believe (though I might be wrong) with a concerted effort of knowledgable people improvements that would make a big difference in the quality of life could be achieved. I am not so certain those people involved in leading the effort would be seen in great lights though even if they "succeed." People are much more likely to remember negative consequences to them personally, even if they gain much more than they lost overall. continue reading: Avoiding Difficult Problems - Give People Enough Rope (and the Right Rope) to Succeed
 You want systems that let people take on challenges without too many restrictions but with enough support and training that you don't leave them hanging.
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the ropes should suit their situation. A tightrope over a chasm is fine for a trained acrobat with a balancing pole. It is foolish for someone without the right training or tools. They would be better served with something else - a rope bridge with railings. continue reading: Give People Enough Rope (and the Right Rope) to Succeed - CEO’s Given Lottery Sized Payouts
Today, in the USA, CEOs are basically win the lottery when they start and then either win some more and stay or don’t win and are let go. The lottery performance appraisal aspect Deming talked about (rewarding whoever random variation or macro economic and micro economic trends smiled upon during the period). So if a market (housing, oil, steel, investment banking, microchip, hotel…) is booming why give all the CEO’s in that market huge payoffs? continue reading: CEO’s Given Lottery Sized Payouts - Psychology – Managing Human Systems
People are not cogs in a machine. Everyone brings extraordinary talents and abilities to the organization. Dr. Deming sought to maximize the value people bring to the organization. This requires giving them pride in their work, freedom to use their brain, tools to be effective and systems that allow people to practice continual improvement.
Creating an environment where people flourish is key to Deming’s thinking. Deming understood what John McGregor put forth in the Human Side of Enterprise (1960) that people have an innate desire to take pride in what they do. Management’s job was to allow people to fulfill this need, not to attempt to manipulate behavior through external motivation. continue reading: Psychology – Managing Human Systems - Toyota Execution Not Close to Being Copied
- Shared Principles for Managing People Engaged in Diverse Tasks
 ...I do agree that the system within which people are operating determines how they must be managed. There are definitely features of software development that are significantly different than manufacturing scalpels or basketballs or tables. As there is a difference between a surgical team in an operating room, road construction, mining, editing books, investment banking, manufacturing industrial robots, researching new drugs, manufacturing drugs, teaching in a university, maintaining plane engines, coaching an athletic team...
I see universal principles of management (respect for people, customer focus, continual improvement...) that cross all different human enterprises. How those principles should be manifest in a particular situations depend on the work being done, the management system that is in place, the individual people involved, the specific focus of the effort right now... The way those principles are manifest will look very different in all the varied types of organizations we create and the different work and processes used within those organizations.
... continue reading: Shared Principles for Managing People Engaged in Diverse Tasks - How to Lead From Any Level In the Organization
 Similar to helping other people grow their careers is the idea of helping other people to solve their problems. Again, this starts with a clear understanding of your sphere of influence. It determines what strategies you can pursue, and building your sphere of influence should be part of your decision making process.
What it comes down to is proving yourself in this way—and doing so consistently. “It isn’t some secret sauce. Prove yourself to be valuable and you will gain influence. Help people solve their problems. They will be inclined to listen to your ideas. And helping people to solve their problems doesn't mean you are giving them the answer. It may mean you asking empowering questions. continue reading: How to Lead From Any Level In the Organization - Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay
I continue to tilt at the robber barron CEO pay packages. Hopefully, at some point, the people approving these obscene pay packages can be shamed into stopping or replaced by people with some sense of decency. I was taught in the days of robber barrons the business world was seen as an amoral place (morality did not belong in this area of human endeavor) but that over time society decided that in fact morality did apply there. It is hard to reconcile that change with the behavior of CEOs and board approving ludicrous pay packages. continue reading: Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay - Bring Me Solutions Not Problems
 What they are saying is: if you know of a problem but don’t know of a solution I would rather we continue to have that problem than admit some of my staff don’t know how to fix it (and then have to deal with it myself – maybe then having to accept responsibility for results instead of just blaming you if I am never told and there is a problem later…). I think that is setting exactly the wrong expectations.
Employees should fix things. They should bring solutions to managers to improve things that might be out of their ability to fix. But if they know of a problem and not a solution and a manager tells the employee they don’t want to be brought problems then I don’t want that manager. continue reading: Bring Me Solutions Not Problems - Leading Quality: Some Practical Approaches to the Managers New Job
 Throughout the talk Peter emphasis the importance of viewing the organization as a system and using the knowledge from that view to inform how the organization is lead, managed and how people are able to work. With a systems view it is possible to appreciate how many individual factors interact to impact how successful an organization can be and how those factors interact with each other.
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Peter Scholtes:
We need to define what our customers get from us, not in terms of the product that we sell or the service that we offer, but in terms of capability that they acquire from us.
continue reading: Leading Quality: Some Practical Approaches to the Managers New Job - Factfulness – The Importance of Critical Thinking
 I have come to see a willingness to value critical thinking, even when it means forcing the organization to address tough issues, as one the differences between organizations that succeed in applying management improvement methods and those that fail. In many organizations that fail, more weight given to making things easy for your bosses versus continual improvement in providing value to customers (which often requires challenging existing processes, beliefs and power structures in the organization).
Challenging the status quo is difficult and most organizations prefer to maintain a culture that takes an easier path. Management improvement often requires a willingness to encourage challenges to the status quo. The importance of challenging the status quo in your organization and in your own thinking is under appreciated. continue reading: Factfulness – The Importance of Critical Thinking - Leading The Transformation Process
Transformation starts with the individual but as they change they can run into organizational barriers and resistance to change. Similarly if the organization institutes changes without helping people change their own understanding and views those people resist the changes in the organization.
Deming’s management system provides a view of the organization as a system, including the people in that organization, and ideas for how to manage the transformation as an integrated system. The interactions between the components of the system and people must be considered and managed to transform. And those interactions continually change as the overall system evolves.
continue reading: Leading The Transformation Process - Failure to Address Systemic SWAT Raid Failures
- Interview of Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes on Better Management Practices
That kind of experience could not have happened if management wasn’t willing to listen to the workers and wasn’t willing to say to the workers “you have brains and you have ideas and why don’t you go out and see if you can solve it and I will back you up. And that is what they did
Bill on creating jobs people want to do:
If they are going to work with the attitude that part of my job is to figure out how we can make things work better around here it adds another challenge to the job which makes the work more fun and more enjoyable. It all points in the same direction it seems to me. These methods do feed into making jobs more interesting and morale going up and the job being better.
continue reading: Interview of Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes on Better Management Practices - How to Successfully Lead Change Efforts
 In order to lead efforts to improve the management of an organization understanding how people will react to change is critical. For that reason I have written about change management often on this blog since I started publishing it in 2004.
In, Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods?, I wrote:
It seems that if there were better ways to manage, people would adopt those methods. But this just isn’t the case; sometimes better methods will be adopted but often they won’t. People can be very attached to the way things have always been done. Or they can just be uncomfortable with the prospect of trying something new.
Leading change efforts requires paying attention to the existing conditions: the culture, the motivation to adopt this change and/or the motivation to resist it, the history of change where the change is being attempted and the reasons the change is desired (by at least you and hopefully others). And then you need to build a case for the change and manage the process. continue reading: How to Successfully Lead Change Efforts
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