John Hunter

Managers Must Understand that Blaming Employees Doesn’t Help

By John Hunter / October 5, 2021 / 0 Comments

Guest post by John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. Often when problems occur, we seek to figure out who is to blame for the problem. This is not an effective management strategy as Dr. Deming made clear, and I have discussed before: Attributing Fault to the Person Without Considering the System, Distorting the System, Distorting the […]

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Online Resources on W. Edwards Deming’s Management Ideas

By John Hunter / October 4, 2021 / 0 Comments

Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). There are many online resources for those looking to improve the practice of management in their organization in a way consistent with Dr. Deming’s management system. A new resource that is excellent is Digestible Deming by Christopher Chapman. If you […]

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Data Can Provide Insight or be Used to Mislead

By John Hunter / September 22, 2021 / 0 Comments

Guest post by John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. Data can provide insight or be used to mislead. When looking at data, you need to critically think about how you could be misled. One of the things you learn as a scientist is the ability to look at a plot and think, […]

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Russell Ackoff Answering Questions

By John Hunter / August 31, 2021 / 1 Comment

Guest post by John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. It is wonderful to listen to Ackoff discuss how to tackle challenging problems. We could create so much value by following the guidance of Dr. Ackoff and Dr. Deming in our organizations and by applying that thinking to the larger problems our societies face. We need to […]

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Avoiding Fires Rather Than Fighting Fires

By John Hunter / August 11, 2021 / 1 Comment

Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). In order to build strong companies that are resilient and able to prosper even in challenging times, it is best to create reliable and robust systems. It is easy to be misled by what is flashy if we don’t think […]

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Plan-Do-Study-Act

Quick Tips for Using the PDSA Improvement Cycle

By John Hunter / July 23, 2021 / 1 Comment

Guest post by John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. The Plan Do Study Act improvement cycle is a valuable method to maximize learning and catalyze improvement. See our Deming on Management: PDSA cycle resource page for many more details than are covered here. Here I will just provide four ideas to keep […]

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Deming on Management: Performance Appraisal

By John Hunter / July 15, 2021 / 0 Comments

Guest post by John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. Dr. Deming called for the elimination of the annual performance appraisal. This post, part of our Deming on Management series, provides some resources to help those getting started in transforming their management system to one based on Deming’s management ideas. This topic is one that is difficult […]

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The Existing Management Conditions Limit How Effective New Strategies Will Be

By John Hunter / June 28, 2021 / 0 Comments

Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). Over time, I have learned that one of the challenges in implementing Deming and Ackoff’s ideas are the underlying expectations for the organizations that are missing. What happens is, people take ideas from Ackoff and Deming and decide that using […]

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Prioritizing Joy in Work

By John Hunter / May 20, 2021 / 0 Comments

Guest post by John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. Many lessons have been learned during the last year as the pandemic caused havoc with our lives and economy. During this time, we found new ways of operating our business that would have likely been deemed impossible before. As we return to more normal lives, as vaccines […]

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The First Control Chart

By John Hunter / May 19, 2021 / 0 Comments

Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). Dr. Walter Shewhart developed the control chart in the 1920s while working for Bell Telephone. The text of the memo that including the image of the control chart: A few days ago, you mentioned some of the problems connected with […]

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