Arend Hintze
The common and recurring view of the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) research is that sentient and intelligent machines are just on the horizon. Machines understand verbal...
Michelle LaBrosse
When you’re knee-deep in the logistical details of managing a project team, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture: your organization’s vision.
Here at Cheetah Learning, we use...
Mike Richman
In the quality profession today, the term “guru” tends to be thrown around with reckless abandon, more often than not self-referentially by the “guru” him- or herself. Don’t get me wrong; there are...
Mike Figliuolo
It’s called “work” for a reason. Most days we’re able to “work” through it and find enjoyment in what we do, but occasionally we’re faced with a grind that saps our strength and threatens to derail...
NIST
The U.S. Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker, has named four organizations as the 2016 recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest presidential honor for...
Christian Wolcott
T he following is for mature quality audiences only. Is it unwise to take people who are new to lean on a tour of a Toyota facility running at top efficiency? Is the sight of a glossy, mature lean...
Kevin Meyer
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Like most people, I maintain a fairly long to-do list of personal and professional...
Michelle LaBrosse
Let’s say you’ve found the perfect mix of people to staff your new project. They get along great together. They’re all top performers in their respective fields. They’re all gung-ho to get going....
Bruce Hamilton
I was lucky that the first boss I ever had (at age 13) had much to teach at a point when I had much to learn. Chris M. was a brilliant but illiterate Italian immigrant and fisherman who had built a...
Jeff Sanford
Since we at Humantech developed an entire software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering to help our clients streamline the ergonomics process, a recent article in the Harvard Business Review gave me...
Festo Didactic
Manufacturing in the United States and Canada is marked by negative stereotypes left behind from 1955. Repetitive and simplistic duties in grimy workplaces, without a chance to change or advance a...
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
Over the years, I’ve beaten myself up over business breakdowns, lost relationships, and countless other failures. I would only look at what I’d done wrong and where I was at fault. And, of course,...
Knowledge at Wharton
Steve Klasko, president of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health, is the co-author of We Can Fix Healthcare (Mary Ann Lieber Inc., 2016) with Wharton adjunct professor Gregory P....
Innovating Service With Chip Bell
Francie Johnsen is my very favorite pharmacist. When the petite, redheaded bundle of energy first came to work at the Eckerd Pharmacy (now CVS) near my home, she encountered a store spirit painted...
Michelle LaBrosse
According to well-known business executive Don Tapscott, the technological development that will most affect the way we live in the next few decades is not the newest iPhone, or flying drones, or...
John Maxwell
Have you ever considered the time investment required of some of the world’s greatest achievements?
• It took 26 months to build the Eiffel Tower. • It took Da Vinci four years to paint the Mona...
Marlene Chism
The world needs leadership, and there’s no better way to lead than to listen. A leader who listens controls the conversation, and has the power to build bridges instead of barriers.
Listening...
Michelle LaBrosse
Before you can do a project well, you must first make sure it’s the right one for you at that time. A project is “right” when it moves you closer to your long-term goals, aligns well with your...
Afaq Ahmed
New technologies have empowered customers to seek out the best products and services at the lowest cost and shortest delivery times. Customers can compare price and delivery information as well as...
Harish Jose
Today I’d like to take a look at a lesson from Taiichi Ohno regarding the pursuit of quality. His comment, “The pursuit of quantity cultivates waste, while the pursuit of quality yields value,”...
