All Features
Theodore Kinni
There’s an old saw—cribbed from Plato and popularized by Douglas Adams—that those most interested in leading others are least suited to the task. That’s not entirely accurate, yet new research has found a grain of truth in this idea: Many leaders have plenty of ambition to lead, but that’s no…
Gleb Tsipursky
The pandemic forced leaders to reconcile with the need for effective hybrid and remote team management strategies, including performance evaluations. Research has shown the benefits of moving away from large-scale quarterly or annual performance reviews. Instead, successful organizations favor…
Derek Deasy, Enoch Li
Having a coach these days is almost a given, an essential part of any senior executive’s career portfolio. But while some leaders swear by their coaches, others just can’t seem to find the “right one.” What causes these wildly different experiences?
While there are multiple approaches and…
Angie Basiouny
Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli is routinely asked to predict the future of work. His expert answer is always the same: “The future looks like the past.”
He’s not trying to be cryptic. It’s just that the big changes ushered in by the pandemic five years ago are still unfolding—remote…
Akhilesh Gulati
Paul was sitting in his office staring at production numbers from the past quarter. Despite having a great team, strong customer demand, and state-of-the-art equipment, the factory’s performance wasn’t meeting expectations. There was a bottleneck in the assembly line—a critical chokepoint that was…
Mike Figliuolo
For me, the future is all about learning and teaching. Learning new ideas or disciplines fascinates me. Interconnecting those experiences and disciplines and creating new ideas to share with others through teaching is even more exciting. And the more I teach, the more I learn from my class…
Brian Hughes
We live in a world where problems aren’t just growing—they’re evolving into ever-more complex challenges. During the 20th century, we pushed the boundaries of innovation, creating complicated systems that demanded structured problem-solving approaches. Techniques like 5 Whys and the Ishikawa…
Akhilesh Gulati
In the world of operations and quality management, the pressure to act quickly can feel overwhelming. Senior executives are constantly racing against time to meet customer demands, solve problems, and keep shareholders satisfied. In the rush to address immediate challenges, “Ready, aim, fire!” gets…
Harry Hertz
A recent Inc.com blog post by Jessica Stillman discusses Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point (Little, Brown and Co., 2024). The theme in both works is that you can’t create a high-performing team simply by bringing together individual high performers. They need to gel as a…
Ben P. Stein
NIST is unique as the national measurement science institute. We are the U.S. agency responsible for maintaining measurement standards, from the second to the kilogram.
We help ensure that these units of measure are consistent across our watches and our grocery scales. But this isn’t as…
Mike Figliuolo
Every day there’s a new pile of “experts” cropping up on every subject imaginable. The key to differentiating genuine experts from frauds is to ask the right questions.
Warning: This post is a bit of a rant (but it does have a story and some practical advice). How many new experts are there today…
Gleb Tsipursky
In today’s rapidly changing business environment, a subtle yet profound shift is taking place in office dynamics, particularly as we welcome back teams that have been dispersed by the necessity of remote work.
Managers find themselves at the helm of this transformation, charged with the critical…
Angie Basiouny
Hospital patients rate their pain on a scale of 1–10. Teachers grade on a curve. Sports fans spend hours debating stats on their favorite teams. Even the most ardent language lover can’t deny the power of numbers to convey information, especially when choices need to be made.
A new study from…
Mike Figliuolo
When it comes to networking, are you a squirrel or a grasshopper? From what I can tell, there are loads of grasshoppers out there but very few squirrels.
You folks know that fable about the squirrel and the grasshopper, right?
The squirrel works his butt off all summer fortifying his little tree…
4C Consulting
ISO 27001 is a globally recognized standard for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and improving an information security management system (ISMS). Successfully implementing ISO 27001 can provide tremendous benefits, such as ensuring data security, building trust with customers, and meeting…
Silas Fulsom
In today’s highly competitive global markets, lean manufacturing is no longer something that’s nice to have—it’s a way of life. You can either reduce costs, simplify operations, and improve productivity on a continual basis—or you can lose business to competitors that do.
Lean manufacturing starts…
George Schuetz
The need for long-range height measurements has been around since the principles of layout work became a fundamental requirement in machine shops.
The first step in the manufacturing process is to lay out a piece by transferring a design or pattern to a workpiece. This is performed in almost all…
Gleb Tsipursky
Generative AI is revolutionizing industries, from drafting legal contracts to crafting personalized marketing campaigns with unmatched speed and precision. Yet this transformative power comes with challenges: fears of job loss, concerns about algorithmic bias, and the phenomenon of “hallucinations…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
It’s 2024, and the age of automation has largely taken over our phones, computers, and businesses. This isn’t entirely a bad thing, you understand. It gives us the ability to spend time and money elsewhere—from investing in staff to spending more time on innovating technology rather than whittling…
William A. Levinson
The ongoing relevance of the quality profession requires evolution and adaptation to meet the needs of the 21st century. Remember, the quality profession originated with the need for inspection to prevent poor quality from reaching customers; this was before it evolved to include metrology,…
Akhilesh Gulati
It was another busy morning at the monthly operations meeting. Lindsay, the operations manager at TechElectronics, a growing manufacturer of consumer electronics, called the meeting to order. As usual, they started with the routine updates—inventory levels, production schedules, and customer…
Etienne Nichols
Compliance with industry regulations and standards is a fundamental part of medtech. Without proper medical device compliance, companies risk patient harm, litigation, and reputational damage.
Fortunately, compliance with medical device regulations and standards is not an impossible task. A…
Mike Figliuolo
Everyone has goals these days. The one that causes more disconnects than any other is a sales goal. It’s a number to hit (either units or dollars or both—the better ones are actually measured in profit dollars rather than revenue dollars). They’re problematic because by their very nature they get a…
Marian Merritt
Cybersecurity is a fast-growing field with a constant need for skilled professionals. But unlike other professions—like medicine or aviation—there’s no clear-cut pathway to qualifying for cybersecurity positions. For employers and job seekers alike, this can make the journey to building a team (or…
Victoria Alestra
In regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and food manufacturing, compliance is crucial for operational excellence. A validated quality management system (QMS) is key to maintaining this compliance. Let’s explore how QMS software streamlines validation and ensures regulatory…
