Corporate Culture
Goldman Sachs and the Need for Hangings in the Village Square
The child like and pseudo religious belief that the free market will, by itself, right all wrongs in time, a belief adhered to by Alan Greenspan and other groupies of Ayn Rand, is at the heart of our financial crisis and the crisis of capitalism. This Greek tragedy was played out at Enron, Lehman Brothers, and now Goldman Sachs and BP. The question is whether corporate executives are capable of adhering to principled behavior in the absence of punishment of significant severity to balance out the significance of potential rewards for unprincipled behavior.
Obama’s Gulf Leadership Lesson: The Limits of Power and the Power of Empathy
There are times when intelligence, analytic ability, is far less important than urgency and empathy. It is the difference between leadership in combat and leadership in a court room or academic setting.
Decision Making Chaos on the Deepwater Horizon
It appears clear now that the Deepwater Horizon, the Transocean drilling rig under contract with BP, suffered from poorly designed decision processes.
Management Waste – Get Lean and Eliminate It!
One of the core ideas of Lean Management is the elimination of waste. This usually means eliminating unnecessary tasks, motions, inventory, rework, etc. However, the new challenge for lean management is to improve the efficiency of management itself. Much management activity is waste. This waste is just as destructive, or more so, than waste on [...]
Toyota: Did they believe too much in their own reputation?
The Washington Post today reports Toyota’s own explanation of their failure. By their own account, they put growth ahead of quality. They did not have the sense of urgency to respond to customer feedback. Again, nothing in this condemns shop floor practices, the essence of the Toyota Production System, or “lean”, rather it condemns the priority and actions of senior managers.
So What Happened to Toyota???
Last week I was at a client and I was explaining some point of lean culture and I used an example from Toyota. The union president who was in attendance stood up and said “I’ll tell you one thing, you better not tell us to do anything because Toyota did it. Ten people in the past week have come up to me and told me that we aren’t doing anything because Toyota does it.” That about sums up the sentiment out there.
Ordering Lean Team Management
Amazon and other online retailers do have Lean Team Management available. However… I’ll make you a deal! The list price of the manual is $38. Order copies of ten or more through me! If you purchase ten or more copies I will fulfill that order for $28 each. If you order 25 or more copies [...]
The Strategic Value Stream – How Organizations Create Wealth
The purpose of corporations is to create wealth… not only financial wealth for stockholders, but total wealth for society. When corporations build competence in their employees they are creating wealth. When they innovate they are creating wealth. When they build relationships across groups of people and countries they are creating wealth. Wealth is not only [...]
Shamu and Me
Shamu, husbands, children, inmates, managers and employees… all respond to reinforcement.
Capitalism Lives, but…
Capitalism is a live and well, but now it is time for an internal redefinition of capitalism, the capital that matters in the new competive world economy.
Broad Slicing the Organization (or Country!)
In Blink the author defined thin slicing as the ability to make quick judgments. What we need now is the ability to engage in broad slicing, the ability to identify unifying themes that slice across all units and people in an organization.
Becoming Authentic – Understanding High Performance
A study of the highest performing individuals reveals “athenticity” – like the “natural” they have a perfect fit for their work
Changing the Culture: The Whole Loaf of Bread
What could be better than sliced bread? A whole loaf. But when you have a culture of continually slicing the bread to find solutions to problems it may be hard to put the pieces of the culture together.
A Reflection on The Unity of Our Government
I hope the tragedy of the killing of the husband and mother of Judge Joan Lefkow in Chicago may bring some appreciation to the service provided by Federal Judges, and all Judges for that matter.
How We Talk Matters
Our national conversation is dominated by polarity politics – left or right, blue or red, liberal or conservative. Is this two dimensional linear view the way we should discuss problems?