Two Valued Stealth Mentors

To help turn your organization upside down

Wed, 10/18/2017 - 12:03

In my last column, I reflected back on my career to date and issued a challenge. Based on the relatively lukewarm response, let’s see whether I can engage a few more of you to join me on my quixotic journey.

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“Trying to manage your career or your organization in a world changing as rapidly as ours is like dancing with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you get tired. You stop when the gorilla gets tired.”
—Dr. Sheila Sheinberg

I heard Sheila Sheinberg speak at several Deming-based conferences almost 30 years ago. She might be one of the few people who can actually make me look sedate. Hardly a curmudgeon, but rather a provocateur and visionary. During the 1980s, in the early days of the improvement renaissance, she developed the following:

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Comments

Submitted by dickweb on Wed, 10/18/2017 - 14:08

Mr. B. –

   WOW – two articles, seven pages, > 3,100 words!

   Great ideas and info. Challenge: Finding time to "drink from the firehose" (as someone said about study at MIT).

   Saved in text (with URL links inserted for those who won't or can't use click links) and now time to read and reflect. How many people, thinking they are busy, will make that effort? (Lack of feedback for 1st article provides a clue.)

  Idea: How about a checklist of steps to learn and apply QBQ, to put your helpful thesis to work?

Dick Webster <webster.1@osu.edu>

So, are you asking, "WHEN is someone (else) going to tell me how to apply this?"

:-)

I'mj going to put it back on you take personal accountability for this (as John Miller of QBQ! would do). 

Are you satisified with the results you're getting at your job?  If not:

Read QBQ!

Read the Verzino quote from the previous article.

Ask yourself, "What am I tolerating day after day?" Make a list.

Look at each tolerated behavior in the list and ask yourself: (1) "WHAT could I DO (or could have done) to prevent that from occurring?"; (2) Why didn't I do that at the time? (exposes potential "cultural handcuffs")

Apply the same approach with co-workers, especially when you all anticipate how those "thems" allegedly sabotage your work or will sabotage your efforts to implement improvement.

Let me know how things work out!

[I smiled when I read your initial comment.  The term "fire hose" has been applied to me on more than one occasion]

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