All Features
Gallup
In the intense competition to attract and retain top talent, U.S. employers are vying to offer the most alluring perks imaginable to their workers. Companies such as Google are leading the trend, hoping that happy employees are more productive, creative, and passionate workers.
On the surface, it…
Jack Dunigan
What Do You Call Quietly Capable People Who Help You Succeed? Keepers
Resource-fullness Hire people who can solve problems, not create more
Accountability Failure is an event, not a way of life
Emotional and Psychological Security Emotionally secure people are not rare, but they are in demand…
James Brewton
During the past 20 years, lean Six Sigma (LSS) has proven itself as an effective strategy for business success in virtually every industry sector. The methodology has helped organizations realize their processes are the engines that drive operational excellence and customer value. Recently,…
Mary Knight
Companies that want to boost employee engagement sometimes can’t make their efforts stick. These businesses seek the benefits that come from increased engagement—improved productivity, profitability, safety, retention, and customer focus, among others—but they don’t feel that employee engagement is…
Kyle Toppazzini
Confucius, also known as Kong Zi, was an ancient Chinese philosopher who believed that trust—or shin—enables people to contribute to society. He believed that, for a leader, earning trust was essential. In addition, according to Confucius, to consider the concerns and interests of another person…
Timothy F. Bednarz
Effective leaders manage by keeping their finger on the pulse of their employees’ key activities. When tasks and assignments are delegated, leaders must take the time to review each employee’s progress against goals to determine what, if any, additional training and coaching is needed to…
Gallup
Many companies measure employee and customer satisfaction without much to show for it. That’s because their surveys—whether one magic question for customers or 100-plus-item monstrosities for employees—often focus on the rational and exclude the emotional. However, it’s vital to measure emotional…
Knowledge at Wharton
If loyalty is defined as being faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution or product, then there seems to be a certain amount of infidelity in the workplace these days.
Consider some recent studies: MetLife’s 10th annual survey of employee benefits, trends and attitudes released in March 2012…
Timothy F. Bednarz
Effective leadership is based on ongoing input and feedback. Where 20 years ago managers rarely asked for input, today effective leaders are regularly seeking and receiving employee feedback.
Leaders elicit cooperation from employees and other individuals when they listen to them. To move…
James Brewton
Lean Six Sigma has proven itself as an effective strategy for business success in both private and public sectors. The methodology has helped enterprise leaders recognize business processes as engines that drive performance excellence and help to deliver value. Lean Six Sigma offers a…
In a perfect world, we’d all be looking forward to the holiday season without anxiety. Unfortunately, for most employees, that isn’t even close to being the case. Times have been tough, and for several years, workers have been stretched thin as they try to do more with less. As an employer, you…
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
At a recent health-care conference I had a conversation with Mary, a Six Sigma Black Belt for a 700-bed hospital. She told me that the hospital had only a few copies of Minitab software, which was shared by several people. She was always being asked to close out of the program so that someone…
Bruce Hamilton
I was listening to Alan Robinson present recently at the Lean Systems Summit about the power of “small ideas.” Alan wondered aloud why so many organizations continue to pursue the few million-dollar ideas while small ideas account for more than 75 percent of the innovation outcome.
I reflected…
Mark R. Hamel
Lean culture is largely defined by, or at least manifested in, engaged and empowered employees practicing voluntary kaizen. Engagement can be measured in a number of ways, but perhaps one of the most telling is the number of implemented suggestions per employee per year.
Awhile back, I developed…
Laurel Thoennes @ Quality Digest
“What makes a personal kanban any better than a to-do list?” asked Julie, crossing out a completed task on her “ta da!” list with exaggerated strokes.
“With personal kanban you visualize your work, it becomes tangible, you get kinesthetic feedback, it’s flexible, contextual, and it promotes…
Mike Micklewright
Our fascination with rewards systems that attempt to get people to comply with the demands of work and short-term good behavior starts early in school. These systems operate without imparting an understanding of good solid principles for the betterment of our community, our place of employment, and…
I have long admired and respected Toyota. I have been to its factories, published and written books and articles about its revolutionary production system, known many of its brilliant people, and taught its methods to thousands of students. Like many of Toyota's admirers, I was shocked and saddened…
Marvin Marshall
Leadership would be easy if it weren’t for those we lead. As any leader or manager knows, getting people to actually want to do the tasks you need them to do can be a challenge. People will not fully commit to a task unless they’re motivated to desire your goals and objectives or the reason behind…
Stewart Anderson
Jack Welch, the famous and former CEO of General Electric (GE), once said that the markets in which GE competed were “brutally Darwinian.” The expression is apt because competitive markets always enforce a natural selection where only the fittest firms survive. As in nature, firms that can’t…
Douglas C. Wood
Almost all companies have a sign on a wall stating something similar to “Our employees are our most important asset.” The wording may be slightly altered, and “asset”’ may be replaced with “resource,” but usually there is such a sign posted somewhere on the premises. Regardless of the exact…
With so much focus on customers, we often lose sight of our employees and the critical roles they play in our organizations. It’s always instructive to remember that organizations are the employees, and that customer service and quality are dependent on these skilled, motivated people.…
Stewart Anderson
The 5 Whys is a well-known root cause analysis technique that originated at Toyota and has been adopted by many other organizations that have implemented lean manufacturing principles. Unlike more sophisticated problem-solving techniques, the 5 Whys doesn’t involve data segmentation, hypothesis…
Quality Digest
In the context of project management, a resource is any entity that contributes to the accomplishment of project activities. Most project resources perform work and include such entities as personnel, equipment, and contractors. The concept of a resource and the techniques of resource management…
Bretta Kelly
I
SO 9001 says in subclause 5.1, "Executive management shall provide evidence of its commitment to the development and implementation of the quality management system and continually improving its effectiveness by:
a) Communicating to the organization the importance of meeting customer…
