Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs - Respect for People
“Ohno was absolutely ruthless, employees and suppliers lived in fear of him.” I would say that while Taiichi Ohno was truly remarkable that doesn’t mean he did everything right.
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The difference between respect and disrespect is not avoiding avoiding criticism. In fact often if you respect someone you can be much more direct and critical than you can with someone you treat as though they don’t have the ability to listen to hard truths and improve. I think we often have so little respect for people we just avoid dealing with anything touchy because we don’t want to risk they won’t be able to react to the issues raised and will instead just react as if they have been personally attacked.
It may also be that it is easier to train managers to behave in this way than to effectively deal with though issues. But that is not training them to respect people, it is your organization accepting you don’t respect your people (managers and others) so just train people how to behave in a way that avoids difficult areas.
continue reading: Respect for People - Management: Geeks and Deming
Several of Deming’s 14 obligation of management and 7 deadly diseases are noted in this quote, including: “Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work” and the disease – “Emphasis on short term profits.” Deming was a physicist so that may explain the similarity of this ideas to geek management culture.
- “Geeks seek knowledge for it’s own sake” – Deming’s point 13 “Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.” Deming encouraged organizations supporting education of employees – even when unrelated to work in any direct way.
- “Geeks like to experiment” – many of Deming’s ideas focus on this point, most obviously is the emphasis on PDSA
- “Geeks openly debate the merits of technical ideas”
continue reading: Management: Geeks and Deming - The Customer Knows Best?
Some management ideas are pretty easy and straight forward. But many management practices require knowledge and judgment to apply them successfully. Easy solutions may be desired, but, often you must choose between easy and effective (hint, I suggest effective is the better target).
Listening to customers is important but it is not sufficient.
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People could assume the numbers at Enron proved what Enron was doing was correct. But it did not prove that. Until we start to evaluate data more accurately we will continue to mistakenly see proof where it does not exist. continue reading: The Customer Knows Best? - Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal
People are increasingly challenging the notion that we just have to live with performance appraisal systems. As usually, I will make my suggestion that chapter 9 of the Leader’s Handbook offers great material on performing without appraisal (and the rest of the book is great too). continue reading: Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal - Brainstorming Under Attack
Brainstorming is about creating an opportunity to bring new ideas the forefront.
There are other useful tools such as the affinity diagram which can serve as another option (or can serve as a tool to work with the results of brainstorming).
And Edward DeBono has excellent creativity tools, like his 6 thinking hats. Brainstorming is a useful tool when applied properly but it is only one tool and other tools should be used also. continue reading: Brainstorming Under Attack - Improving Engineering Education
Olin’s aim is to flip over the traditional “theory first, practice later” model and make students plunge into hands-on engineering projects starting on day one. Instead of theory-heavy lectures, segregated disciplines, and individual efforts, Olin champions design exercises, interdisciplinary studies, and teamwork.
This requires radically changing the normal university education model. To me this is definitely a different versus better (see last post) improvement effort. It will be interesting to see the success they achieve going forward. It almost makes me want to go back to school. continue reading: Improving Engineering Education - Kleptocrat CEOs and Their Apologists
CEOs, and their cronies, were well paid decades ago. As their greed about their pay got to be unethical Peter Drucker started to speak out against their ethical failures. As those abuses became more extreme he increased his objections.
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I want a CEO that is paid well and seeks their reward not by taking from the corporate treasury but by providing great jobs, customer happiness and an improved society. continue reading: Kleptocrat CEOs and Their Apologists - Management Advice Failures
I share this frustration with declaring old ideas new: Management Improvement, Better and Different, Quality, SPC and Your Career, Deming and Six Sigma, Management Lessons from Terry Ryan, Everybody Wants It, Toyota’s Got It, Fashion-Incubator on Deming’s Ideas and on and on.
Why does this matter? Two reasons, most importantly to me is that when we fail to value the best ideas, instead valuing the new ideas, we are not as effective as we could be. We often accept pale copies of good old ideas instead of going to the good old ideas – which will often lead to a much richer source of knowledge. When I compare copyrighted versions of management thinking to ideas from people like Ackoff, Deming, Ohno, Scholtes, McGreggor the depth and richness of those I admire is much greater than the packaged solutions as I see it (and they are often more concerned with furthering the practice of management than further their brand). Second, it is often dishonest, or at least sloppy thinkers, that don’t acknowledge the history of management ideas. continue reading: Management Advice Failures - More on Obscene CEO Pay
 Unfortunately this reverse robin hood (steal from the workers, stock holder, customers…) and give to the CEO tale continues. Hopefully someday soon we can at least turn the momentum in the right direction (stopping these incredibly excessive “pay” packages). Even then it will take quite a deal of reducing these ridiculous “pay” packages to reach some sense of decency. continue reading: More on Obscene CEO Pay - Understanding Psychology: Slogans – Risky Tools
 Slogans mainly are bad. But like most things they can be used in ways that help or hurt. The main problem is when they substitute for a method to achieve the aim (most of the time). If the slogan serves like a mission statement to focus people on something useful to focus on and it is one minor part of a system to achieve a result it can be fine and even useful. continue reading: Understanding Psychology: Slogans – Risky Tools - Arbitrary Rules Don't Work
 You can’t just expect people to act in a way that seems arbitrary.
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It is not ok to expect people to think the way you want them to. You have to understand how people will react and create solutions based on that. continue reading: Arbitrary Rules Don't Work - Employee Ownership
I have always liked the idea of employee ownership. To me this can be a great help in creating a system where employees, owners, customers, suppliers work together. Alone an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) does little. But as part of a system of management it is something I think can be beneficial. continue reading: Employee Ownership - Trust: Respect for People
Management then vowed that this (layoffs in 1950) would be the first and last time such an event would come to pass at Toyota, and, in a gesture of respect to former employees, Kiichiro resigned from his position as president of the company.
A bit different than laying off tens of thousands of workers and then taking huge bonuses [the broken link was removed]. And in case you don’t know, I think Toyota’s approach is more honorable and what should be aimed for (I wouldn’t say the president always should resign but it should be a significant admission of failure).
Does this mean no workers ever come into conflict with Toyota management? No. But Toyota’s respect for workers is qualitatively different than that of most companies.
Related: Bad Management Results in Layoffs continue reading: Trust: Respect for People - CEO Flight Attendant
This getting out and seeing work in action is exposed a great deal, including a lean management concept, Genchi Genbutsu – to go to see the problem in situ (not just reading a report about it).
The success of many management practices is more a matter of how the practice is done than if it is done. Also the success depends on the rest of the management system. Practices cannot just be copied. But you can learn from what others find useful and figure out how that idea would work within your organization. continue reading: CEO Flight Attendant - Ex-Toyota Manager Consulting with Porsche in 1994
While respect for people is an important part of the Toyota Production System, the practice of former Toyota managers were often the "tough love" variety. Today, many people are often too timid, in my opinion, to call out things that need to be improved for fear of making someone uncomfortable. Where that balance properly lies though is based on the culture of the organization (and what needs to be done - occasionally there is a need to "shake people up" in order to make change take place more effectively). continue reading: Ex-Toyota Manager Consulting with Porsche in 1994
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