respect for people
Which brings us to response time targets. Putting aside the arguments that numerical targets are arbitrary and prone to causing dysfunctional behaviour*, a critical further point is that targets do not provide a method. Neither do they provide additional capacity for achieving the improvements sought. Therefore, setting an arbitrary numerical target for response times (or anything else), simply does not change anything about those systems conditions that dictate predictable levels of performance. The system will produce what it’s capable of producing, whether the target is there or not.
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By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). This post continues with some thoughts prompted by the Read Bed Experiment Lessons post. Another aspect the Red Bead Experiment can’t replicate is the long term impact of working in a system that frustrates your desire to do great work. The importance […]
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By John Hunter, founder of CuriousCat.com. Response to a question on the Deming Institute LinkedIn group: let’s say Dr. Deming wanted to sit down with his boss to negotiate a compensation increase. What grounds would he use to justify the request? I believe he would explain how the value he brought to the system was […]
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By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. In the last post we began to look at the efforts to improve the Maine State Prison. The efforts to adopt a management strategy and practices guided by an understanding of Dr. Deming’s management system are hampered by the overall management system. This is […]
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By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004). Randy Harward spoke at the 2013 Deming Institute annual conference about his experience with applying Deming’s management ideas at Patagonia. Low energy costs in the USA are a significant factor driving companies to consider moving apparel production to the USA. Energy costs […]
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By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. Randy Harward spoke at the 2013 Deming Institute annual conference on applying Deming management methods at Western Mountaineering and Patagonia. Western Mountaineering was facing a cash flow crisis when Randy Harward took over and he strongly considered closing down. Given the problems the “only […]
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By John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. What is a leader? As I use the term here, the job of a leader is to accomplish transformation of his organization. He possesses knowledge; he himself has been transformed. He has personality and persuasive power. How may he accomplish transformation? First he has […]
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Guest Post – Chatterbox by Lou Tribus I teach a Year 4 class in a small private primary school in central London. That would be the equivalent in the USA, by age of a 3rd grade class or academically of a 4th grade class. One of the benefits of a small private school is small […]
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By John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. Peter Scholtes on understanding people and why they behave as they do; from his presentation at the 2008 Deming Institute conference in Madison, Wisconsin. In the presentation he discussed the 6 leadership competencies from his book, The Leader’s Handbook, which is based on Deming’s ideas […]
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By John Hunter, author of Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. The only thing you can do as a manager is de-motivate people. When you start thinking like that you starting thinking about how am I operating, what am I doing that’s causing people around me to be de-motivated. Am I preventing them from thinking? Manager’s […]
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