To effectively solve problems, you must first understand the question being asked and why it’s important to your stakeholder. Without clarity on why your stakeholder cares, the recommendation you generate might be useless.

If you had your AS9100 transition audit tomorrow, could you say right now whether you would pass? More important, do you know where the gaps are in your processes that could trigger nonconformities?

Fear. Anxiety. Stress. Anger. Not exactly the emotions we’re hoping to invoke in our employees, right? Not exactly the key to motivational management, anyway.

In a previous article I wrote about the reasons why so many lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and other improvement programs fail. In this article I’m going to expand on reason No. 1: the Academy Award Syndrome.