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- Blame the Road, Not the Person - Is a situation killing 40,000 people in the USA a year a health care issue? It sure seems to me it would be. It probably isn’t a disease management issue though... I think this is one, of many examples, that shows that we have a disease and injury management system not a health care system.
- Baking in Quality to Software Development - The switch to using Ruby coincided with the beginning of many improvements to our software development practices that have continually improved over the last several years.
- Bond Yields Show Dramatic Increase in Investor Confidence - From April 2009 to July 2009 the yield spread decreased by 213 basis points, showing investors have moved away from government bonds and into Baa corporate bonds.
- When Performance-related Pay Backfires - Managers need to eliminate de-motivation in the work systems not try and find bonus schemes to motivate behavior. Eliminating de-motivation and improving the system is often much more work... You have to manage. But if you are a manager you shouldn't be afraid to actually manage the system and make it better.
- 12 Stocks for 10 Years (July 2009 Update) - The portfolio is beating the S&P 500 by 5.2% annually, the largest holdings are Google (up 105%), Templeton Dragon Fund (up 80%) and PetroChina (up 78%)
- Akio Toyoda's Message Shows Real Leadership - Toyota continues to show they are an exceptional company that doesn't waver due to short term pressures. They know the management system they have in place is excellent. They always try to improve, but with constancy of purpose.
- The Long-Term USA Federal Budget Outlook - Saying you cut taxes when all you actually do is postpone them is dishonest. Cutting taxes and increasing the debt either is increasing taxes in the future to pay for spending today (just like putting charges on your credit card and saying I cut the amount I pay this year - because I didn't pay I just took out debt instead).
- Zappos and Amazon Sitting in a Tree... - Amazon is acquiring the unique company - Zappos... The letter from Tony Hsieh, the Zappo's CEO, to employees is fantastic. This is a CEO that respects employees. These (Tony and Jeff Bezos) are leaders I would follow and invest in (and in fact I am glad I do own Amazon stock).
- Narcissistic Cadre of Senior Executives - It really is a shame that the executives leading so many companies are so moral, ethically and managerially bankrupt. We need to stop allowing such people to become executives in organizations.
- The Calorie Delusion - "According to Geoffrey Livesey, an independent nutritionist based in Norfolk, UK, this can lower the number of calories your body extracts from a meal by anywhere between 5 and 25 per cent depending on the food eaten."
- Science Knowledge Quiz - The question most often answered correctly is "Which over-the-counter drug do doctors recommend that people take to help prevent heart attacks?". The least often "Electrons are smaller than atoms," a true or false question fewer than 50% of people got right.
- Loan Default Rates: 1998-2009 - real estate default rates exploded in 2008. In the 4th quarter of 2007 residential default rates were 3.02% by the 4th quarter of 2008 they were 6.34% and in the 1st quarter of this year they were 7.91% (471 basis points above the 4th quarter of 2007). Commercial real estate default rates increased 366 basis point increase during the same period.
- Peter Scholtes died peacefully in Madison, Wisconsin on the morning of July 11th - we shared the desire to make the huge amount of time people spend working a much more rewarding experience. Making progress in that vein requires not just a wish to do so but the ability to learn and effectively apply ideas to bring about real improvement. He was exceptionally gifted at this difficult task
- Toyota Develops Thought-controlled Wheelchair - Both companies continue to invest in innovation and science and engineering. The story of a bad economy and bad sales for a year or two is what you read in most newspapers. In my opinion the more important story is why Toyota and Honda will be dominant companies 20 years from now.
- Albert Einstein, Marylin Monroe Hybrid Image - This fun post shows science at work and is just cool. "Hybrid images, however, contain two coherent global image interpretations, one of which is of the low spatial frequencies, the other of high spatial frequencies."
- The Relative Economic Position of the USA is Likely to Decline - The economic clout of the USA has been huge since the end of World War II. The relative position has been decreasing recently with the rise of not only Europe and Japan but Korea, China, India, Brazil and many more
- If Your Staff Doesn't Bring You Problems That is a Bad Sign - If an employee never learns how to find possible solutions themselves that is not a good sign. But it is much, much better to bring problems to managements attention than to fail to do so because they know the manager thinks that doing so is weak.
- Manage Your Debt - "The 'secret' is not very secret. Just don't buy what you can't pay for. It is very simple, many people just don't want to follow that simple strategy. Also save money in an emergency fund, so when some emergency comes along you don't go into debt. You just use your emergency fund."
- CEOs Finally Want Health-Care Reform - Decades ago Dr. Deming emphasized the deadly disease of excessive health care costs in the USA. Since then, year after year, the situation has become worse. During that time senior executives have put forth very little serious effort to fix this problem. Finally, in the last few years, more and more senior executives are actively moving to address the ever worsening crisis.
- Is Productivity Growth Bad? - "My sense is their is more room to eliminate non-value added activity from management positions which will not harm long term productivity growth."
- Revealed Preference - "Normally what matters is not what people say they want but what they actually will choose. For that reason revealed preference is a better measure than stated preference."
- Historical Engineering: Hanging Flume - "The Montrose Placer Mining Company built a 13 mile canal and flume to deliver water from the San Miguel River for gold mining operations. The last 5 miles of the flume clung to the wall of the canyon itself, running along the cliff face"
- Dr. Russell Ackoff Webcast on Systems Thinking - "Synthesis (thinking about systems) involves 3 steps: 1) what is this system of which this is a part of; 2) understanding the behavior of the containing whole; 3) identify the role of function of the system in question within the containing system."
- Global Installed Wind Power Now Over 1.5% of Global Electricity Demand - "USA capacity grew 50% in 2008, moving it into the global lead for the first time in a decade. China grew 107%, the 3rd year in a row it more than doubled capacity."
- Why Setting Goals can Backfire - They create serious systemic problems and should be avoided (other than in setting the scope). They are deeply ingrained in the way many people think, but we would be better if we could eliminate the use of goals, as they are used now (mainly as arbitrary numerical goals).
- Failure to Regulate Financial Markets Leads to Predictable Consequences - The widespread failure to regulate financial markets recently is almost certain to lead to this exact type of situation every time. Companies will over-leverage, take huge risks, take huge pay while times are good and just go bankrupt when times are bad (or have the taxpayers bail them out if they give enough money to politicians).
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John Hunter has experience with quality management, management improvement, customer focused continual improvement, process improvement and related areas. Since 1995, I have used the internet and internet technology to improve the results of management improvement efforts.
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