#1 Rule for Learning
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards. Vernon Law, Professional Baseball Player
Practices
Churn … Churn … Churn
Only a couple of years ago, a company was very contrite when it selectively downsized. Now, this is a normal part of business. Welcome to the world of churning. That (churning) may sound cold, but get used to it. Companies are disrupting themselves. They are firing and hiring at the same time, dumping outmoded or …
Globalization and Outsourcing
The auto industry already outsources up to 70% of its manufacturing to suppliers, but now we’re seeing companies outsource all their non-core processes. More functions and activities are being outsourced. Information technology is one function that lends itself to massive outsourcing. Hilton Hotels farms out the lion’s share of its $12 million information technology (IT) …
Global Competitiveness
Several years ago, American companies were being hammered for failing to meet the competitive challenges posed by Japanese and European companies. US companies went on a quality and then a cost cutting binge. To keep up with change and become competitive, companies reengineered, restructured, outsourced, rightsized, cut to core processes, trained everyone in new technologies, …
Levi Paradigm Shift
All companies have their day of reckoning. Levi-Strauss recently slipped when it lost market share particularly among younger consumers. It slashed its North American work force by 34% and closed almost a third of its US plants. The Wall Street Journal noted that “after more than a century of dominance, Levi’s had grown complacent, ceding …
Greatest Discovery
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude. William James, writer
Structuring Your Company Horizontally
We created the hierarchal, pyramidal managerial system because we needed to keep track of people and the things people did; with the computer to track, we can restructure our institutions horizontally. John Naisbitt, Futurist
Silo Management
Silo management is dead. What’s a silo? Think of a cornfield silo. It stands alone storing all the grain in a region. Well, people, teams, departments, and plants can do the same thing. They don’t participate, cooperate, or work with others. They protect turf and use special information to devalue others. This is now dead! …
Essence of Leadership
The essence of leadership is a burning Brand U question to many that believe that we’ve become a nation of command/control managers instead of a nation of Brand U leaders. Mort Meyerson, the President of Perot Systems, said: “the essence of leadership today is to make sure that the organization knows itself. There are certain …
Importance to ‘Wow’ Customers
The objective is not only to satisfy customers but also to ‘wow’ them throughout their experience with a product or service. Xerox research in the early 1990s discovered that if customer satisfaction is ranked on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being completely dissatisfied to 5 being completely satisfied, then 4’s, while satisfied with the …