Charts & Graphs Can Make You Smile
Quick Look Back at Tools Offered to Members
Recently I reviewed some of the tools and sessions we have held over the past few years. I am compiling a more complete list, however, just for fun here is a few of the things we have learned about:
• Accident Investigation
• Ergonomics Issues
• Blood Borne Pathogens
• TRIZ
• Value Stream Mapping
• FMEA
• Legal Issues of Employment
• 7 Habits for Highly Effective People
• Execution; Getting Things Done In the Real World
• Competing For Top Talent – Recruiting & Retention
• Kaizen Event Prep & Facilitation
• Advanced Team Building Tools
• Power, Position & Influence in Teams
• The Power of Listening
• Risk Communication
• Telephone Tactics
• How to Communicate Effectively – Even With Jerks!
• How to Get Heard in a Meeting
• Effectively Communicating Strategic & Tactical Change
• Creating Win-Win With Customer Problems
• Building Customer Value & Loyalty
• Mapping Customer Value
• When Customer Service Goes Wrong – How to Bounce Back
• Dealing With Project Road Blocks
• Defining, Prioritizing & Matching Projects & Tools
• Establishing & Validating the Benefits of Projects
Do You Twitter? Tweet Tweet…
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter web site, via the Twitter web site, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application. Find and follow what is the latest tweet tweet in the TQM Network here: http://www.twitter.com/tqmnetwork
Traditional Learning vs. Online/e-Learning
Nationally, employers spend $215 billion a year training their employees. Distance learning via online classes is now being touted as the best way to save money and time … but is it? Here are some of the myths and issues to consider as you decide if distance learning provides the knowledge transfer you are seeking for yourself and your employees.
Myth: Online/e-learning is “always available – even at 2am”
Reality: E-learning is only available if you have the proper technology and adequate bandwidth to run the programs (videos, simulations, chat, etc.), if the employee has the skill level to actually use the technology, and if the location is conducive to learning (addressing factors such as noise, disruptions etc.) .
Myth: Online/e-learning is “participatory learning”
Reality: The training developer determines the amount of participation, not the delivery method. E-learning can be developed as a passive learning program just as readily as any other learning program. However, without an instructor present to visually observe student body language and hear verbal cues, it is impossible to gauge whether or not the participant is actually learning passively.
Myth: Online/e-learning is an efficient and cost-effective training method
Reality: Several factors are important in the evaluation of ROI for training. Typically, organizations look at only a few of these, like travel costs, or time away from the job;however, there are many other costs that should be taken into consideration in a comprehensive evaluation, such as:
• content development (initial and ongoing)
• measurable effectiveness in transferring real skills/knowledge to the end user (i.e. can the student perform the task – not just talk intelligently about it, or pass a simulated test)
• value - purchasing training that accomplishes your end goals (i.e. You might pay less for a small pickup truck, but if you need to move several hundred tons of rock, spending more for a larger, more powerful truck would be a much better value. Both purchases are called trucks – but the results and overall cost effectiveness will be significantly different.)
• the employee’s ability as a self-paced learner to seek out assistance or guidance when questions arise — not to mention employee motivation
• impact of not sharing learning through discussion or missing the opportunity for cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts
• upgrading and maintaining computer systems/software/connectivity.
Myth: Online/e-learning is “modular” or in “manageable structured bite-sized pieces”
Reality: The modularity of training is determined by the developer/instructor, not the medium. Degrees of modularity can be built into every type of learning program.
However, online learning eliminates the experience of an instructor observing students to provide optimal pacing of material. An experienced instructor is usually able to gauge whether students are challenged or bored — if they are ready to progress or still need more time in a certain module. Also consider, that in some cases, modularity doesn’t enhance the training or knowledge transfer process, but rather, accounts for additional time in the training to review and bring students back “up to speed.”
It has been validated that powerful change-agents are more similar to physicians or airline pilots. Would you prefer to have a surgeon that was trained through an online program or in an interactive school with subject matter experts? We would love to hear about your experiences with traditional learning opportunities versus online/e-learning. Please send your comments and insights to Jamie@tqmnet.com
Where Do You Keep Your Road Map???
So Where Do You Keep Your Road Map?
The above picture was submitted first — apparently his “office decorator” suggested the map was not suitable for the office decor… so he got creative and stuck in under his chair mat.
The second picture was in response to the first — the kind of one-upmanship we appreciate here at the Network! : )
In Memoriam … Local Notable Entrepreneur
Russell W. Kruse, 85, auctioneer and one of the owners of Kruse International, in Indiana passed away this year and will be noted in the December’s Inc. magazine as one of the people who helped shape major trends in business in the past 50 years.
In 1971 the Auburn Chamber of Commerce needed fundraising for their annual classic-car show. Kruse suggested auctioning off some of the antique cars. When a bidder’s $61,000 bid for a locally-made Duesenberg was turned down, the press picked up the story, and his fame as a car auctioneer took off. Russell was on the original Indiana Board of Auctioneers and served as chairman. He was also a past president of the Indiana Auctioneer’s Association, and a member of their hall of fame along with two of his son’s, Dean and Dennis.
He capitalized on his mellifluous voice to build a company that popularized the antique car auction in America, and moved $200 million in real estate and nearly $300 million in oil industry equipment per year. The Kruse family sold the company twice - once to eBay for $150 million - only to buy it back each time.
Grandson and fellow entrepreneur Mitchell Kruse, had this to say:
“Russell was my grandfather, teacher, and friend. While I was selling a curio cabinet at one of my first auctions, he coached me with a volume that the entire crowd of bidders could hear, “Mitchell, if I can get you convinced, I can get them convinced.” I never forgot those powerful words. They really sum up his legacy that is integrated into each one of us, “Lead through excellence in communication.”
Dale Siegelin – Tree Hugger?
(This is another in the “Where’s Dale?” series. Can you guess where this picture was taken? It was not California and the tree is not a Sequoia. The location will be identified in a subsequent E-flash. Dale shares some related thoughts below.)
I suppose some might consider it the curse of Lean Six Sigma. It is the analytical mindset that is always questioning the statements and pronouncements of others.
One of my favorite quotes is from Artemus Ward (in the 1800’s). He said:
“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble.
It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.”
While I might applaud the ideals of many of the “tree hugger” organizations, I often find that I am wishing that I could listen to a seasoned Black Belt present objective data, and talk about “p-values.” I would probably find many of the claims and proposals much more credible if I believed they really were treating the data objectively. I always have the feeling that they already “know” the answer and they are only looking for data that “supports” their position. If they found a contrary scientific analysis, they would ignore it.
This same failure to honestly use data is not limited to one group or one side of the argument. I have seen it in far too many situations and arguments. It does seem to me however, that those who utilize “political correctness” arguments often do so because they do not have the power of data and scientific reasoning on their side.
Many of you may be familiar with the story of Larry Summers, then president of Harvard University (and former Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration). In January 2005, he presented a provocative hypothesis based on scientific research that suggested that men and women might have different innate abilities in math and science. (He did not suggest that a woman could not be successful in these fields.) From that point on, there was no argument about the validity of the data or the accuracy of the analysis – it was only about the adverse impact that such a hypothesis might have on recruiting women scholars. The “PC” uproar was so great that Summers was forced to resign.
Unfortunately, I believe that we diminish our ability to solve major problems and compete as a nation when we refuse to talk about legitimate scientific data and objective analysis. Not every “scientist” may agree with the data and the analysis, but let’s have an honest debate about measurement systems; the difference between correlation and causation: confidence intervals; p-values; etc.
I realize that the “average citizen” might not be familiar with some of these concepts, but I believe they can understand much more if they were given the chance. (As proof of that belief, I offer results from students with little/no analytical background who come to understand these principles in TQM Network’s Lean Six Sigma training with Scott Lasater.)
The “media” could be a tremendous resource in this area, but unfortunately, they are some of the worst offenders. They routinely “cherry-pick” some portion of the data or survey to support the headline that they want to use. Or worse, the headline is not supported by any of the analysis. Wouldn’t it be great if every story had to be approved by a Black Belt! Or wouldn’t it be great if there were an group of independent Black Belts that would analyze each major news story and tell the “real story” and/or the “full story.” I have often thought that each news outlet should have its own Black Belt on staff to give a stamp of approval to each story from a statistical/scientific perspective. I won’t hold my breath!
I won’t talk much about our Congress and elected politicians. These are not ignorant people. I would assume that many have had at least one class in Statistics in their educational background. They have to know that they are not following the scientific principles when they debate an issue. In the next 13 months, I challenge you to count the times when you hear any politician fairly represent scientific data and analysis.
The Organizational Connection
OK, I have been pretty hard on advocacy groups, media and politicians. But many organizations suffer from a similar malady – it just does not get the public attention. Leaders often make decisions without scientific data and analysis. Sometimes the data is not available, but often it is not available because no one knew what to ask, or no one thought to ask.
If your decision-making could use some help from the scientific methodology applied to the organization, please talk to Craig Crook or Scott Lasater at the TQM Network. They can help.
Competing in the Global Marketplace
By Alan Bowden, ReVision LLC © 2007
The sport of boxing has many classes and subdivisions, but it has only one competition that is universally recognized as the best—the one that produces the heavyweight champion. It is in this class that you find boxers who are the strongest and the most able to take a punch. It is evident that the United States’ economy has been the world heavyweight champion since the Second World War; today, however, it seems that our nation is now more heavy weight than champion.
This thought has run through my mind in recent years as I worked in Mexico, Europe, and, over the last four years, China. Even when I’m home in the States, people here who have not been overseas believe the U.S. will prevail just as we always have prevailed. Their example is typically Japan, forgetting that Toyota, Honda and other Japanese automakers are growing their market share and profits here and around the world as our Big 3 continue their downward spiral.
My purpose in this letter is to offer you a better understanding of what is
really taking place in China and why U.S. manufacturers must seriously face the
challenge of competing on a global basis. I have made more than 30 trips to China since 2003 and I can assure you the scene is similar everywhere I go: incredible expansion and construction. Let me put this into perspective: 40 percent of the world’s construction is happening in China. Does that seem incredible? It ought to—it is the fastest growth in the history of the world. The gross domestic product in China is growing at 6 to 10 percent. By comparison, the United States’ GDP is growing at 1 to 3 percent. While some here believe that China will not be truly competitive, consider this: China has more English speakers and more Internet users than the United States has. In addition, the ratio of new engineers produced each year in China in comparison to the U.S. is 4:1.
The competition is formidable. So how do we compete with $150 to $200 a month labor rates in China and other low cost producers? Part of the answer is greater efficiency through automation, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma and other tools to reduce non-value labor and waste. However, would you be surprised to know that China is also beginning to employ these same principles? China wants to move from the world’s low-cost producer to the country that is inventing products.
Some pundits in our country say that the only way to compete is to move all of our labor-intensive work to China. That’s not the right long-term strategy. Manufacturing today represents less than 17 percent of jobs in the U.S. and continues to decrease. Some say we need to keep all jobs here and that we should adopt a strategy of protectionism. That fight is long over. If you do not address the low-cost competitors, you can be sure your competitors will.
The ultimate answer for manufacturers will be a combination strategy. Some industries are fortunate that either labor cost is a small component of their overall cost or they are able to automate and continue to produce solely in the U.S. For most though, foreign prices and lower cost pressure from your competitors is a real factor. In this case, the appropriate strategy may be that certain products or components carrying a high labor component need to be manufactured off-shore, and your plant here may need to be redesigned to eliminate all non-value labor.
Another key consideration is that China should also be considered as an exciting new market for your products and services. Many U.S.-based companies have found China to be a profitable market. China has a population of 1.4 billion people and that number is increasing.
In my view, the bout for heavyweight economic champion is not over. We may be bloodied and our economy staggering a bit, but manufacturing can use new tools and form new alliances to regain its pride
and profitability.
To read a recent Journal-Gazette article featuring Al Bowden go to: http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070826/BIZ/708260362&SearchID=73291653608508
The Old Men and the Game of Golf
(The following article was written by an anonymous golfer, who became a student while playing with three older golfers.)
Old men play golf differently from the rest of us. Some play well and some play it poorly but, as a class, their journey from the first tee to the last is worth studying. You can both improve your score and deepen the game’s pleasures by paying attention when the elders lace up their spikes.
My own education began in a foursome that included three artificial joints: two hips and a knee. The orthopedic hardware was bolted to the bones of three men in their eighties, all residents of a gated community in Florida that includes my wife’s mother. I joined them for a round during an annual holiday visit.
They eyed me warily as I walked toward them with the starter. I learned later that my own age was almost a deal breaker. As a reasonably fit “kid” of fifty, they feared I might disrupt the octogenarian rhythms of their round. We exchanged greetings, handicaps, and teed off.
What followed was a post-graduate education in good manners, good fellowship and, in the end, what’s so good about the game.
Like many retirees, they drove flamboyant golf carts: custom paint jobs, unmistakable echo of the Chrysler’s and Cadillac’s they drove fifty years ago. One, apparently the group’s quartermaster, had a year’s supply of pencils and scorecards at the ready, wrapped in rubber bands and meticulously arranged in what otherwise, appeared to be a medicine cabinet: Advil, prescription meds, band-aids, tubes of mentholated muscle cream, disinfectant and multiple grades of sun block. Sir Edmund Hillary conquered Everest with fewer provisions. Clearly, this would be no ordinary round of golf. This was a pilgrimage and the lessons unfolded on every fairway.
Golf Cartography: Old guys frequently have an encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. After all, they’ve spent seven or eight decades walking around in it. If you’re lucky, they’ll map out the golf course for you, its landmarks, landscape and wildlife. Learning that your ball has come to rest under a “bougainvillea” and not a generic “bush” may be small consolation but it will better connect you to the golf course and, as the details accumulate, sharpen your appreciation of its architecture.
Knowing that the bird cart-wheeling overhead is an American kestrel can turn an out-of-bounds tee shot into an occasion of wonder. Stop counting strokes and give more thought to the canvas you’re playing on.
There’s No Swing Like An Old Swing: Their swings are miraculously constructed. In the best of them, there’s a hint of the 50’s Ben Hogan; in the worst, an homage to the same decade’s Bob Hope. In all of them, you’ll see ingenious compensations for body parts that don’t work quite as well as they used to. Their swings aren’t uniformly pretty but they’re predictably consistent and give new meaning to the term “muscle memory.”
Remember, they’ve been tutoring their neuromuscular junctions since Ike was in the White House. Because their testosterone is taking flight, they worship at the altar of timing and tempo more than young Turks do. During your next round, genuflect with them and watch your score improve.
Splendor in the Grass: Because they grew up during America’s first mass exodus to the suburbs, these guys love to landscape. They repair divots and rake bunkers unfailingly. They minister to ball marks on the green as if they were bruises on a granddaughter’s arm. They know, from the hard-won experience of guarding their own health, that living things need looking after. Whether you play at a private club or a pockmarked muni, leave every golf hole in better shape than you found it.
Take a Lesson: Remember, you’re in the presence of men who have stopped punching the clock and can still afford a tee time. They have more or less successfully retired. They may not be able to lead you to the next Goggle, but any elder foursome can be full of sage advice on money, marriage and generally managing your life. Ask them about their lives and careers, turning points and blunders. Take notes.
The Wonders of the Wager: With their business careers behind them, a golf wager awakens a slumbering will to win. It is a kind of business deal, isn’t it? Strokes are ferociously negotiated and the stakes, typically small, are agreed upon. They started playing golf when Byron Nelson ruled the sport and a buck was still a buck. It’s not about the cash, it’s about the contest and the unspeakable pleasure of extracting another ten spot from the flinty, New Englander they’ve been playing with since 1975. Bet smart, bet small, and play fiercely down the stretch.
The Killer Short Game: Every golfer has had a $5 Nassau slip from his grasp as some old guy gets up and down on a crucial hole. This is their wheelhouse, where they swallow the indignity of being out-driven by seventy yards, offer a sly wink and go one-up on the match. Because they’re on life’s final lap, they know that how you start matters less than how you finish. Inside 20 yards, this wisdom is decisive. It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have memorized every subtle swale on the golf course and they have. If you’re lucky enough to meet one of these masters of the short game, share a beer with him after the round and pick up a tip or two.
Enjoy the Journey: When you tee it up with a man in his eighties, you might well be witness to his final round. As fit a fellow as he seems, the basic laws of probability insist that next week’s foursome may be a man short and he knows it. I thought more than once when one of my foursome made his way to the bottom of a bunker that he may never come out. And that he might not mind that at all.
This must explain, in some measure, the simple joy they take in the journey. They generally play without anger or angst and, in an age of ball caps worn backwards and brawling basketball teams, they’ll connect you to a gentler time.
They are the game’s true historians and the keepers of its enduring civility. That golf remains such a grand, old game is largely thanks to the grand, old men who continue to play it.
Nurturing Innovation … Or Surpressing It?
by Craig Crook
I was a very creative, free spirited child. To compromise my integrity by allowing the priorities of the world to influence me seemed unthinkable. I wanted to be an individual who made decisions based upon my feelings and convictions.
As I get older, I am coming to understand that my job is to serve others in the world, at home and at work. Things go better when I put my wife & kid’s needs first, or when I listen to my customers, responding appropriately to their requirements. It is a compromise, but not of my integrity — by putting their needs first I continue to see greater success.
In some ways I have yet to grow up. I am still very creative, and I am not quick to conform to the “way things have always been done.” I am always looking for solutions, questioning the status quo, thinking very out of the box and opening my mind to change. Companies everywhere are clamoring for these “qualities.” If I listen to the media, these traits sound scarce and the very secret to our survival in the new economy. Perhaps some people are more predisposed to these qualities but, truth be told, there are a lot of latent innovators in your workforce - you just need to know how to let that innovation escape. If you value good ideas and allow failure, it helps foster some of this, but experience is a costly teacher.
What if you could equip them to know where to focus their creativity and innovation?
The world is full of talented “artists” — the lone genius, pro ball player, brilliant entrepreneur. For almost every discipline, there are people who have figured out a way to master the required skills. Think of Tiger Woods and golf, or Michael Dell and the supply chain. Each of these people has excelled primarily in one particular area. They have figured out the tools and methods required for excellence. They did their homework, diligently practiced and applied themselves to making it work in the optimal fashion. To watch them, it seems effortless. With their honed skill set, they can respond rapidly to course or market conditions.
So why can’t we apply these truths to innovation? We can! By taking the systematic rigor and discipline exhibited by the world’s greatest, you can apply the same fundamental truths to anything, — even innovation! Innovative strategies, innovative operations, and innovative products and services — it’s about using the scientific process and rapidly discovering insights that yield better results. Science and art are not in opposition, but parallel paths that culminate in greater understanding.
Not seeing the entire picture makes it easy to draw the wrong conclusion. That’s why it’s critical that we are always growing and learning. As I have observed the scientific process at work (aka Lean Six Sigma), I am amazed at how much creativity and innovation it unleashes! Done right, it helps focus efforts on innovating the right priorities — it doesn’t immediately fix all bad assumptions, or bad strategies, but it helps bust business myths, one by one — and that is what holds us back from the next level of creativity and success!