All Features
Mike Figliuolo
We all have enemies. Some of us have many. But when we spend our time and energy focused on attacking them and counterattacking their inevitable strikes, we’re the ones losing.
In getting us to attack, our enemy has taken us away from productive pursuits. They’ve hung a dark cloud over our days.…
Gleb Tsipursky
The transformative potential of generative AI in learning and development (L&D) is a topic of growing interest among business leaders. And if you think your workers aren’t using gen AI, you might be seriously off-base.
According to a global study of 14,000 workers by Salesforce in late 2023,…
Roy VanGemert Jr.
What if you could meet your new employees a few years before their start date? Imagine a future where skilled workers are readily available in your local market, eager to contribute and connected to your company’s mission.
By investing in a sustainable local talent pipeline, manufacturers improve…
Donald J. Wheeler
The Man of La Mancha never got to the unreachable goal—and if you’re being judged by overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), then your manager may also be dreaming an impossible dream. This column will look at problems associated with the use of OEE values.
OEE is a value often used in lean…
Harry Hertz
My story begins with Hurricane Milton, one of two tragic hurricanes to hit the west coast of Florida last year. Milton went right over Sarasota, where I live part of the year. It was a devastating storm; tree and plant debris still remain on the sides of many roads. Big root balls are still upended…
Adam Grabowski
Cash is king for manufacturers, from the owner down to the machine operators. If you visit any manufacturer, you’ll see that most have a keen eye on how everything is being used. Machines are generally only running if they are making parts; employees are typically only working if orders are coming…
Tara Fortier
If you’ve heard or read about quantum mechanics, you may have seen it described as “weird.” Even the great Albert Einstein—one of the founders of quantum mechanics—called certain aspects of the theory “spooky.”
With its wave-like particles and particle-like waves, quantum mechanics certainly…
Gleb Tsipursky
You open your email and your stress level spikes: It’s another request titled “Can I work from home tomorrow?” It’s one of several you received in the last month—a relentless march of requests for remote work that ask for one-off exceptions to your policy.
So, what’s the deal? This constant…
Mike Figliuolo
You are the only one who can protect your time and your interests. You have to establish the “line” you’re not willing to cross or allow others to cross. Whether it’s the number of hours you work, the work you do (and the work others do), or the physical layout of your workspace, there are things…
Donald J. Wheeler
In last month’s article, “ANOVA and the Process Behavior Chart,” we saw how both techniques use the same basic comparison to answer completely different questions. Here, we’ll look at a case history where both techniques were used.
A physical property of a mass-produced item was important to its…
Matt Tweedy
In global manufacturing, two key goals—intertwined yet distinct—heavily dominate the industry’s agenda: addressing the growing demand for environmentally sustainable practices, and optimizing operational efficiency. With these priorities in mind, companies are seeking multifaceted solutions that…
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…
