All Features
Chip Bell
Delight your customer! Exceed your customers’ expectations! Provide value-added service! These have been mantras of customer service gurus for a long time. Such a focus on “giving more” has improved customer service quality in many organizations. It has also increased customer standards for what…
Gleb Tsipursky
Transparency is not a luxury in today’s transformative projects—it’s a necessity. As organizations integrate generative AI (gen AI) into their operations, the importance of clear, consistent communication around project milestones and outcomes can’t be overstated.
Employees aren’t passive…
Chris Chuang
As manufacturing emerges from a period of contraction, the industry faces more than just empty roles. The average tenure of a manufacturing worker has dropped, but the complexity of the machinery hasn’t. While the industry sees signs of hope, we face a knowledge crisis far more dangerous than…
Mike Figliuolo
What’s the biggest risk facing the leaders of most entrepreneurial ventures? It’s not closing that first round of funding or landing a cornerstone customer. As with most things, it all comes back to people—and your ability to lead those who don’t have much practice following.
It’s easy to be…
Daniel Stewart
Imagine you’re a frontline worker. A new AI system has been rolled out on your line. You’ve heard that it boosts productivity, but you’re not sure how it works or what it means for your role.
Would you:• Spend 20 extra minutes entering data into it if you feel jotting notes on paper was just as…
Jasmine Escalera
The traditional promise of work was simple: Support your life, care for your family, and build toward meaningful milestones like purchasing a home or saving for your children’s education. But for many modern professionals, that relationship with work is shifting. Instead of working to live, more…
Bruce Hamilton
In 1960, organizational psychologist Douglas McGregor introduced a conceptual framework of two contrasting theories about human motivation that grounded my Toyota Production System (TPS) learning.
His Theory X was based on the assumption that workers are fundamentally lazy and can’t be trusted to…
Adam Grant
Nano Tools for Leaders—a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management—are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly affect your success and the engagement and…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
Working with a disability can be a frustrating and isolating experience. As someone who spent years blaming vitamin deficiencies, anxiety, and even Covid for worrisome symptoms before finally seeing a neurologist—and then a movement disorder specialist, I can attest that even the lengthy process of…
Troy Harrison
What does onboarding mean? If you said “onboarding a salesperson” consists of doing the HR paperwork, giving a facility tour, a few days of shadowing existing salespeople, and then expecting the salesperson to hit the ground running, you’re not alone. Entirely too many sales managers feel that way—…
Gleb Tsipursky
Organizations worldwide are navigating the transformative potential of generative AI (gen AI). But the key to unlocking its true value lies in human-centered implementation.
One of the most effective approaches to ensure success is to invite employees to participate in gen AI pilot programs. These…
AMPS Supply
Many warehouses consider peak season (November and December) as a finish line. Once peak season is over, demand stabilizes, pressure eases, and management immediately shifts its focus to the next planning cycle.
However, the period after peak season isn’t the epilogue but rather a transition that…
Manfred Kets de Vries
We often imagine the lives of our paleolithic ancestors as an unrelenting struggle. But the very existence of cave art suggests that at least some of them could focus on making meaning beyond necessity. So what drove them? Was it sacred ritual, primitive science, or early performance art? It might…
Chip Bell
Walk the aisles of any liquor store in the U.S., and brands named after people call for your notice—Johnnie Walker, Jose Cuervo, Captain Morgan, and Jim Beam. Perhaps the most revered name among them is Jack Daniel. Established in 1875, Jack Daniel’s Whiskey comes from the oldest distillery in the…
Susan Robertson
In some organizations, possibility feels like a luxury. Something you talk about at offsite sessions. Something you reference in mission statements. Something you save for after the real work is done.
But in visionary organizations, possibility is the work.
Visionary leaders understand that…
Brian Brooks
The manufacturing world is undergoing a major shift. Supply chain shocks, reshoring, a busy merger and acquisition landscape, and other disruptions are prompting many manufacturers to rethink their operations with the hope of mitigating risk, building resilience, and gaining more control.
Although…
Peter Chhim
During the last couple of decades working in quality, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the same pattern play out: A strong launch. Tight focus. Great early results. People doing the right things for the right reasons. Controls are followed. Issues are surfaced quickly. Leaders are…
Rebecca Okamoto
Jennifer had a problem. She was the program manager for the No. 2 business priority at a multibillion-dollar company, rolling out sustainability programs in manufacturing. But when she presented, she kept hearing: too complicated, too time-consuming, too costly. And she couldn’t figure it out.
She…
Chip Bell
‘I don’t want my Dollar General store to look like a Dollar General store!” That was the owner’s assertive Sunday morning response to a sincere compliment on her immaculate, well-organized store. Her loud echo of pride stood in contrast to two other Dollar General stores in the same area,…
Gleb Tsipursky
The future of flexible work will not be decided by floor plans or badge swipes. It will be decided by who gets to build the tools.
Fresh evidence from a new global survey shows the shift in plain numbers. GoTo and Workplace Intelligence asked 2,500 people across roles and countries about AI and…
Quality Digest
(Michigan Metrology: Livonia, MI) -- Registration is now open for the annual “Surface Roughness, Texture, and Tribology” short course, presented in Livonia, Michigan, May 13–14, 2026. The two-day class offers a unique opportunity to learn the fundamentals of surface roughness and tribology and how…
Mike Figliuolo
It’s a terrible feeling to put a ton of effort into crafting a recommendation only to have it shot down in front of all your co-workers. If you want your idea approved, you should try doing things backward instead.
Think about how you craft a recommendation. Typically, it goes something like this…
Eleazer Carmelli-Kim, Kevin Atkins
As the holiday season is left behind, many manufacturing leaders find a moment to step back from year-end deadlines to reflect on the bigger picture and look ahead. One question often surfaces during that quieter reset: Where will the next generation of engineers, designers, and problem-solvers…
Donald J. Wheeler
Performance indexes use the global standard deviation statistic to describe the past. Capability indexes use a within-subgroup measure of dispersion to characterize the process potential. However, some within-subgroup measures are better than others. This article will explain why you should not use…
Joe Curcillo
Most leaders you meet are losing almost a full workday every week to meetings that go nowhere. Same people. Same topics. Same problems. No real movement.
You’ve seen it in boardrooms and job trailers: different settings, but the same pattern. The problem isn’t meetings; it’s that your meetings are…