Workforce Development Workforce Development for manufacturers or anyone really, is a topic I’ve never given much thought to. I’ve owned a custom manufacturing shop and now help custom job shops and machines shops to reduce lead-time, improve due date performance, and...
Managing people is still one of the toughest things we do. A friend (hi Kathy) recently sent me this video that addresses the science of managing people /human resources and ourselves (my take). The reason she sent it was because my personality is similar to the...
Managing People: What are we going to do about Joe? #2 We are continuing our series based on The Goal by Eliyahu M Goldratt and the Theory of Constraints. {This series was co-written with Brad Stillahn.} Dr. Lisa: “That’s true. In almost all of our client companies,...
Managing People: What are we going to do about Joe? Dr. Lisa: “Who’s Joe and what did he do? You’d better tell them right away. Managing people can be such a challenge.” Brad: “Joe is that problem personality you have in your organization. Joe’s just a nickname. It...
“Incentives Work, Don’t They?” Dr. Lisa: “Brad, ever since I’ve known you, you have been interested in the effectiveness of incentives. You have a strong opinion on incentives. Tell me why.” Brad: “It started when I bought my label printing business back in 1991. I...
To make managing a complex organization easier, we break organizations into pieces. Many of the current measurements have the purpose of measuring local performance, under the erroneous assumption that the overall performance of the organization will be maximized if...
Reliability To increase our reliablity, we need things to NOT go wrong. Dr. Goldratt proposed that there are just two categories of things that can go wrong - unreliability and ineffectiveness. These two things account for everything, and have no overlap....
Measurements (Not Incentives) “Tell me how you measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave. If you measure me in an illogical way…do not complain about illogical behavior”. This quote by Dr. Eli Goldratt, the father of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), speaks...
Q3 Dr Lisa: As you know we recommend against most incentive or bonus programs. How does the prevailing belief by Western management that incentives are effective relate to the “best efforts” contract? Tom: Yes, incentives are effective. They are most effective at...
Dr Lisa: Tom in your speech you mention the “best efforts” contract that exists between an employer and employee. Could you elaborate on what that is? Tom: There is a widely held notion that to get the best efforts from a person, management must engage in a game of...
