Many people confuse effectiveness with efficiency. Organizations strive to be more efficient and in doing so, forget about how effective their actions really are. It should not come as a surprise that often the price for greater efficiency is less effectiveness. One of the first steps to take is to understand what efficiency and effectiveness…
BACKGROUND After having worked with cultural change initiatives for nearly 40 years, there is one rule I can state with certainty. The level of cultural change attained will be directly proportional to the level of management commitment applied. With a serious commitment from the top management, success is possible; without this commitment, failure is guaranteed. The conversion…
How to move from simply measuring customer satisfaction to taking action that drives growth. Many companies measure and report the purported satisfaction or loyalty of their customers. However, the ‘metric’ is just the introduction to the many stories your customers have to tell. The real power is inside these stories and what you do with them…
The world is littered with examples where once promising opportunities became a source of ongoing disappointment and loss. Key projects, partnerships, mergers, new technology and programs – we launch these things with fanfare and an enthusiastic press release, only to suffer as a helpless spectator as conflict erupts, innovation fizzles and profits disappear. What once seemed…
An important aspect of total quality is the identification and control of all the sources of variation so that processes produce essentially the same result again and again. At a glance, a histogram is a tool that allows you to understand a variation that exists in a process. Although the histogram is essentially a bar…
