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Sixty Years of Deming and American Managers Forgot to Pay Attention

Dec 21, 2008

Dr. Deming indicated that he hoped one of his life’s accomplishments was to keep American companies from committing suicide. The public spectacle of Detroit and Wall Street committing suicide in the same quarter would indicate that he failed in his mission. Deming’s Theory of Profound Knowledge and 14 points offered (and still do) keys to many of the answers. They are not prescriptive, but rather they combine to create a philosophical approach to running a business, that if adhered to, will stand a chance of succeeding for customers, workers and partners on a global stage.

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The Pain and Promise of Collaborative Management on Display at Cisco

Dec 9, 2008

It’s an exciting time to be leading as the pendulum seems to be swinging away from a style of leading and working that minimized the value of the individual to one that emphasizes empowerment, creativity and the freedom for groups and individuals to think and act. It’s hard to imagine a future where this formula does not produce winners.

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The Counterintuitive Nature of Management Excellence

Dec 2, 2008

It takes no management skill whatsoever to spend a fortune building up clicks and it definitely takes no skill to slash budgets, cut headcount, freeze programs and hunker down and wait out the storm.
It does take remarkable management courage and skill to run against the crowd and conventional wisdom by investing in strategic initiatives and talent during tough times and resisting the temptation to chase mythical fortunes during boom times.

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Improve Strategy and Execution Planning with Project Management Practices

Nov 24, 2008

The application of professional project management practices to the strategic planning and execution program development cycles of an organization can eliminate many of the common pitfalls that derail these programs. While the Project Manager cannot guarantee that the insights and actions developed during strategy are the right ones, he/she can take away the organizational-risk that so often rears its head to doom the best intended initiatives.

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Managing Resistance to Change

Nov 24, 2008

Resistance to Change in corporate life is a very real force, and of course, the bane of existence of the many advocates of change challenging you to put aside your fears and embrace the new way of doing things. You are going to pay for resistance up-front by dealing with it, or your going to pay during the life of the initiative. Some resistance can be overcome through training and education and the rest will only be solved with accountability measures. Proper investment up-front will hopefully minimize the cost and pain as the initiative unfolds.

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Change or Die

Nov 10, 2008

Perhaps it is human nature, but we tend to eschew change either in our personal habits or in business settings until we are faced with mortality. In organizations, most significant change occurs during times of crisis when the threat of extinction sufficiently motivates individuals and groups to consider changing long-standing ways of doing things. The crisis brings into stark focus the fact that it is easier and less costly to accept or embrace change than it is to suddenly become extinct. Unfortunately, by the time this clarity is achieved at the top leadership levels, it is often too late.

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Does Your Dashboard of Performance Measurements Include a Warning Light?

Nov 7, 2008

In discussions and lectures with the up and coming generation of leaders, there is widespread cynicism over the intentions and the capabilities of many of their firm’s senior leaders. There is little faith expressed that their leaders understand their firm’s key drivers and little confidence that the leaders are taking actions and measuring performance based on anything other than preconceived notions of what they think is right. Fewer organizations than you might think are doing anything to engender employee satisfaction…which is ironic given the mountains of data that indicate that employee satisfaction flows through to customer satisfaction and strong financial performance. This current generation of senior leaders is failing, and the very imbalanced scorecard is visible all around us

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In Search of a Quantifiable Return on Leadership Development

Oct 22, 2008

very few months, I run head-on into a discussion with someone (usually a prospective client) about how to value the return from investments in leadership development. The question is not asked as a means of qualifying my services, but rather as a genuine practitioner-to-practitioner inquiry, not dissimilar to what two MDs might talk about with respect to the latest treatment results for an experimental drug program. The person asking knows as well as I do that Return on Leadership Development continues to be an elusive issue that no one has substantively put to rest, and that our best answers are no stronger than impassioned, qualitative opinions.

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Surviving and Prospering Under a Weak Leader

Oct 21, 2008

Learning to manage your team leader takes time and requires extraordinary care and handling. Being indecisive and failing to set direction are big shortcomings for a leader, but leaders that carry these attributes are all too common. You and your peers can either let the water-cooler complaints dominate the daily agenda or you can do something about it. Teams and individuals that have leveraged some or all of the suggestions above have reported some nice successes. No complete cures, but some nice successes and sustained progress in the right direction. When your feet are cast in concrete, progress of any kind is good.

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Weak Leadership at the Top Derails The Pursuit of Performance Excellence

Oct 20, 2008

While some top executives err on the side of asserting a dictatorial style of leadership that poisons the working environment and stifles independent action, in my experience, many more struggle with just the opposite. Instead of overwhelming their associates with strict orders in pursuit of rigid targets, they default on their responsibility to set direction in a poorly constructed attempt to create an environment of empowerment. The results of this approach include endless discussions without resultant actions and massive frustration of well-intended personnel that want to move projects and ideas forward.

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