Deming Philosophy
Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). Don’t think customers will let you know if there are problems. Some will, most won’t. Even internal customers are often quiet. Learning the voice of the customer requires proactive effort. Doing so also requires designing your organization to seek out […]
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Guest post by John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. Using data to access and guide improvement efforts is extremely useful. Data must be used appropriately, however. Thought must be given to understand the systems being studied and what the data actually indicates. It is easy to be misled if you are not […]
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Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). This post is part of our Deming on Management series that aims to provide resources to help those transforming their management system to one based on Deming’s management ideas. Many people link Deming’s management ideas to only the use of […]
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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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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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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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Guest post by John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. This embedded video is a webcast with Rocco Perla and Lloyd Provost: Learning with the Science of Improvement during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The presentation is from April 2020 which is useful to keep in mind given the rapidly changing COVID-19 situation. Their explanations […]
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Guest post by John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. When a company’s culture rots, eventually everyone pays: customers, employees, stockholders, and suppliers. Yet, when the focus is on the short term, the long-term consequences are easy to ignore, even though everyone eventually suffers. Once those consequences are realized, there is interest in addressing the consequences of […]
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Guest post by John Hunter, founder of the CuriousCat.com. This interview on NPR, How To Harness The Power Of Emotions In The Workplace, provides some good thoughts on psychology in the workplace. There is often much more focus on the data part of W. Edwards Deming’s ideas, and while using data to understand and improve […]
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Guest Post by Dr. Doug Stilwell, Drake University. During this time of COVID-driven isolation and loneliness, and the accompanying challenges to mental health, finding and operationalizing systematic methods to help people belong and recognize their sense of belonging – even after COVID is over – may be more important than ever for leaders to address.
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