All Features
Ian Williamson
Finding good employees has always been a challenge, but these days it’s harder than ever. And it’s unlikely to improve anytime soon.
The so-called quit rate—the share of workers who voluntarily leave their jobs—hit a new record of 3 percent in September 2021, according to the latest data available…
Angus Robertson, Ahmet Abaci, Beth Somplatsky-Martori
Often, there’s a razor-thin margin between success and failure. Not long ago, Gillette—which dominated the $3.5 billion market for razors and accessories for longer than a century—was challenged by a little upstart called Dollar Shave Club, which had just starred in its first commercial for a…
Maureen Metcalf
Many organizations feel the need to be leaner, faster, stronger, more adaptable, and more profitable. The right tool set to get them to that outcome may not be intuitive or singular. Building organizational agility is a solid approach to help organizations develop the capacity to perpetually evolve…
W. Edwards Deming
Editor’s note: The following is from a transcript of a forgotten speech given in Tokyo in 1978 by W. Edwards Deming for the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). Because the original was a poor photocopy, there are small portions of text that could not be transcribed. Transcript…
Jon Speer, Devon Campbell, Christie Johnson
When I began my medical device career, I started as a product development engineer. Part of the role included—right, wrong, or indifferent—project management. And I’ve found throughout my career and from discussions with hundreds of others in the industry that this is commonplace.
What I learned,…
Henning Piezunka, Vikas Aggarwal, Hart Posen
Does this situation sound familiar? You’re sitting in a meeting, and you and your colleagues are energetically discussing how to handle an important issue or challenge. Ideas and suggestions are bouncing around so fast that the designated note-taker can barely keep up. Then a new voice chimes in,…
Jason V. Barger
We’re experiencing rapid change, political and economic uncertainty, employee shifts and a war for talent, and the still-evolving “future of work.” A lot seems out of our control. However, even in the midst of all that is swirling around us, there is so much that every leader, team, and…
Julia Canale
Believe it or not, the technology that brought you Bitcoin is beginning to make waves in the food manufacturing industry. This technology, called blockchain, is a digital ledger maintained across several computers, then linked through a peer-to-peer network. The system's design makes it difficult…
Gregg Profozich
If your food manufacturing plant has to issue a product recall, many people might take to social media to vent their frustrations, resulting in a public backlash that can damage your brand’s reputation. Other consumers might opt to switch brands, resulting in further revenue loss. How can you…
Christine Schaefer
When the City of Germantown, Tennessee, was named a Baldrige Award recipient in 2019, the small suburb of Memphis (just 20 square miles in size) became only the fourth city to earn the prestigious, presidential award for organizational excellence.
During the Baldrige program’s 32nd Quest for…
Chengyi Lin
Performance reviews are clearly in need of an overhaul. A 2019 Gallup poll found that a mere 14 percent of employees are strongly inspired to improve based on their performance reviews. At best met with a lack of enthusiasm, at worst with resentment, this annual exercise in the era of The Great…
Gleb Tsipursky
It’s too bad that so many rely on their intuition for their decision-making process. From former President Donald Trump, to Steve Jobs, and even allegedly Mark Twain, gut reactions are viewed as something almost magical, acquired either by hard-earned experience or possessed by a select few young…
Alaina Love
‘Sometimes she just came to my office to meet, but she really hadn’t identified anything she needed my help with. It felt awkward and like a waste of time.”
Those were the words of a leader in my client’s organization who had participated in a mentoring program with a previous employer. Jessica…
Ryan E. Day
‘By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 3301, 3302, and 7301 of title 5, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows....”
Why do these words make me cringe? Well, because when presidential ink hits…
Ship and Shore Environmental
Building on its successful mentorship efforts with Cal Poly Pomona and the University of California at Irvine, Ship & Shore Environmental (S&SE), a leading U.S. pollution abatement firm, announced the completion of its 2021 summer internship program with Sage Hill High School. This…
Rob Lowe
Much like many industries, the manufacturing sector has been completely upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, unlike many sectors, manufacturing was already in the midst of a consistent cycle of up and downs by the time the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
From sourcing challenges to fighting off…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
For most of 2021, roughly 4 percent of the retail workforce has quit every month; in June alone 632,000 workers quit their retail job. Even though retail workers are quitting at a record pace, more new stores are opening than expected and looking to hire new employees. So how can retail chains…
Knowledge at Wharton
Food Co., a pseudonym for a large food processing plant in the U.S. Northeast, had been operating successfully for several years when the plant manager realized he had a problem he couldn’t solve alone.
The employees did their jobs well, but they didn’t seem to care much about taking care of each…
Karla Jo Helms
Disruptors are defined by several characteristics. They see beyond the existing status quo and challenge it by visualizing improvement and the outcome of that solution. Innovators do not provoke anger for its own sake, but they are not afraid to upset the competition or even potential allies. They…
Sachin Waikar
Know who invented the first digital camera? It was Kodak—or more accurately, an engineer at the historic camera company who conceived the technology and built a prototype in 1975. But corporate leadership had no interest in pursuing the idea, given the company’s dominant position in the market for…
Gleb Tsipursky
Fear of losing their innovative edge pushes many leaders to reject hybrid and virtual work arrangements. Yet extensive research shows that hybrid and remote teams can gain an innovation advantage and out-compete in-person teams by adopting best practices for innovation, such as virtual…
Gregg Profozich
Apprenticeships have a proven track record of producing strong results for both employers and workers. Apprenticeship programs offer access to hundreds of occupations in high-growth and emerging industries, with an average annual starting salary of $72,000 for employees who complete a program and a…
Bryan Christiansen
Learning from past failures is the best way to understand and prevent future equipment breakdowns. In practice, that learning process falls under the umbrella of failure analysis.
These days, there are plenty of failure analysis techniques to choose from. They all come with a specific set of…
Felipe Monteiro
Bringing innovation inside an established firm, even one that has created novel ideas in the past, is not as simple as just purchasing bundled external knowledge and expecting it to work wonders at headquarters right away.
Enel CEO Francesco Starace’s mandate was to create long-term sustainable…
Kiley Becker
I was recently on a trip to visit a manufacturing facility for one of our clients. My connecting flight didn’t arrive on time, which delayed my arrival and put me on a tight schedule.
When I got to the rental car agency, I saw more than 20 people waiting in line, and my heart sunk. “Should I call…