To Build a Team, You Must Become a Leader
I am a big advocate of leadership development. I study and push leadership development through all I do in life. I once read that General Dwight D. Eisenhower was asked how he managed to lead such a diverse group of people to work together to win Europe from the Nazis. He answered, “Sir, it is one team, or we lose.” How alike…
Finding & Managing Bottlenecks in Process Plants
One of the primary objectives of Lean is to achieve smooth continuous flow of material through the process. If there are bottlenecks within your process, they can inhibit flow, cause inventories, and prevent throughput from matching customer demand (Takt). In order to make progress towards Lean goals, bottleneck resources must be identified, managed and improved. From a purely…
Start Building a Better Future Today
What a difference a year makes… Looking back at my last year’s Holiday article called 2008 “The year of quicksand” I made several references to the rip-saw in the economy and the plummet of almost every known economic indicator. Some pundits were even speaking of an “economic Armageddon”. Everything is still not back to the “before” – with…
Possibility Deficit Disorder (PDD)
Possibility Deficit Disorder (PDD) is the pervasive and persistent experience of ‘no possibility’ now, and no attractive prospects in the future. PDD is widespread in modern times. At a national level, it is evidenced in the lack of ambitious ventures in technology development, industrial policy, educating necessary resources, infrastructure planning, national security, and transportation. PDD can be observed at…
Small Teams, Big Results
Small teams in large corporations can ‘out small’ today’s successful smaller players, and win big. Smaller competitors to today’s largest corporations are consistently winning in customer satisfaction ratings without the so-called economies of scale associated with large (frequently out-sourced) customer care centers. For the largest companies in some key sectors – such as telecommunications, technology, andfinancial services – there is the potential to…
Executive Presence: What is It & How to Get It
In the opening scene of the legendary film Casablanca, an employee walks intently through the casino with a piece of paper in hand. The employee arrives at a table and reaches across to hand the paper to an unseen recipient. All the viewer can see is the recipient writing his signature authorizing a payment of 1,000 francs…