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Category Archives: Improve / Turnaround
Instilling Passion Back Into Our Businesses
For many companies, the last few years have been a long, hard slog for the leaders and employees alike. Raises and bonuses have been minimal. It is more difficult to make good profits and win. Anxiety is high as there … Continue reading
Data Analytics 101
Data Analytics…Big Data…Sabermetrics With the success of the book and movie, Moneyball, a few success stories in the retail world (Amazon and Wal-Mart), and a lot of hype from the consulting and technology industry, data analytics has become a buzzword … Continue reading
The Goal – Operational Excellence Made Possible
In their book, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox introduced their Theory of Constraints as a primary method to realize operational improvement. Key Concepts Global Optimization: The key in any process and any … Continue reading
Master These Three Processes First in Order to Thrive in 2013
Every year, countless companies undertake process improvements and change initiatives. Most fail. Generally, they fail for one of three reasons:
Manufacturing Made Simple
In their book, All I Need to Know About Manufacturing I Learned in Joe’s Garage: World Class Manufacturing Made Simple, William B. Miller and Vicki L. Schenk lay out the basic principles of low cost, high quality, on-time manufacturing. The … Continue reading
Fast Track to Waste-Free Manufacturing – Appropriate for Any Process
In his still-insightful 1999 book, Fast Track to Waste-Free Manufacturing: Straight Talk from a Plant Manager, John W. Davis discusses how to improve a manufacturing operation by a simple and relentless focus on waste. The methodology he describes is really … Continue reading
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance – An Inside View of a Successful Turnaround and Culture Change
In Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? – Leading a Great Enterprise Through Dramatic Change, former IBM CEO, Lou Gerstner, gives a first-hand account of how he led the turnaround of IBM in the 1990′s. I recommend the book for businesspeople … Continue reading
The McKinsey Way – A Strong Primer on Problem Solving
Way back in 1999, Ethan M. Rasiel (full disclosure: a business school colleague of mine) penned The McKinsey Way: Using the Techniques of the World’s Top Strategic Consultants to Help You and Your Business. In the book, Rasiel reveals the … Continue reading
4 Basic (Often Overlooked) Steps to Operational Excellence
Achieving operational excellence is vital to ensure that your company executes and fulfills its strategic goals. As a result, companies have spent millions of dollars and countless hours on advanced programs such as lean manufacturing, six sigma, kaizen events, ISO … Continue reading
Move Your Company Forward in 2012
Welcome to 2012! I remain confident that this will be the year that your company once again begins to soar. To help you with that I offer up six suggestions on how you can make a substantive change in your … Continue reading
Business Turnaround 301 – Right People Doing the Right Job
In discussing business turnarounds, we have seen that the three fundamentals to turn a troubled business around are as follows: Understand Reality, Face Reality Focus, Prioritize, Plan (Less is More) Right People Doing the Right Job Today, we turn our … Continue reading
9 Keys to Driving Cultural Change
After years of little growth, command and control management, and cost-cutting, the cultures of many organizations need rejuvenating and tweaking in order to thrive in today’s difficult and increasingly competitive business environment. But, changing culture is difficult. As Lou Gerstner, … Continue reading
Three Hidden Truths about Change – Guest Blog by Howard Perlstein
For 14 years I have been a corporate trouble shooter, the one brought in to figure out what is broken, to tell people what is wrong, to clean up a mess, to get people through gut-wrenching change. My job does … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership
Tagged Business Transformation, Business Turnarounds, Change, Do the Right Thing, Integrity
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Three Ways Companies Bungle Change Initiatives
Recent consulting studies have re-confirmed that most performance improvement programs fail to achieve their stated goals and improve the business. These change initiatives are worse than “much ado about nothing”, as they divert attention and resources away from more critical … Continue reading
Three Lessons on Business Change from Learning the Piano
Five years ago, I attended a leadership training class that ended with each participant giving a passionate speech about how they would do something new and different in their lives. My first two speeches stayed under 100 decibels and thus … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround
Tagged Business Leadership, Business Transformation, Change, Cultural Change
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Switch (Chip Heath and Dan Heath)
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard: Chip Heath and Dan Heath This is an excellent book, which I recommend that you read. My notes are reasonably short and only give a flavor of what is discussed. Filled … Continue reading
Posted in Business Acumen, Improve / Turnaround
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Business Turnaround 201 – Focus
In the blog, “Business Turnaround 101 – Let’s Be Honest,” we saw that the three fundamentals to turn a troubled business around are as follows: Understand Reality, Face Reality Focus, Prioritize, Plan (Less is More) Right People Doing the Right … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Perform / Execution
3 Comments
Business Turnaround 101 – Let’s Be Honest
“My business is in trouble. We are losing money. Customers are not buying. Morale is low. And we cannot seem to do anything right.” What then must be done? You have to turn around your business. But, how? On this … Continue reading
Posted in Improve / Turnaround, Leadership
1 Comment
Change – A Broad Overview
Read the business magazines or the Wall Street Journal and change is, as always, a hot topic: “The world is changing faster than ever, so you have to change faster or you will become a dinosaur.” “People hate change. … Continue reading
Posted in Business Acumen, Improve / Turnaround
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Quotes on Change
In some upcoming blogs, I will be discussing change and how to significantly change and improve your business. The three keys for change are the following: Understand Reality, Face Reality Focus, Prioritize, Plan (Less is More) Right People Doing the … Continue reading
