Management is failing to educate workers on the workings and benefits

Example: “if employees were to save $50,000.00 per year by correcting a recurring shipping problem, the saving would go directly to the bottom line.  If their company was retaining 10% of its total revenue (after expenses), that $ 50, 000.00 contribution represents $500,000 that does not have to be sold.  In a tight economy how many jobs might...

Prosperity depends on survival.  To survive and prosper, companies and

employees must accept that doing more with less is the new normal.  Marginal performers not only fail to carry a fair share of the load, they eat up an inordinate amount of resources because of needless waste and rework.  More importantly, marginal performers inhibit the generation...

structure a business with a scalable model that can accommodate the inevitable

I began my role as senior VP international operations, by reviewing the performance of offshore sites around the world.  Most were profitable, but a few existed only to serve large international clients who demanded  global capacity from their suppliers. The UK office employed a skeleton staff with  expenses cut to the bone.   Five people with...

Remaining competitive while coping with a never ending stream of financial

, regulatory, legal, and operational issues, presents business owners with an unprecedented array of challenges.  Pursuing tomorrow’s opportunities, while at the same time resolving today’s problems, will demand higher and higher levels of performance excellence—particularly...

Can people really change? Kurt Lewin sure thought so. Anyone who has ever

heard or used words like ‘feedback’ or ‘action research’ or ‘group dynamics’ or ‘self-managed work teams’ or ‘force field,’ has been impacted by Kurt Lewin. Known today as ‘the grandfather of applied behavioral science,’ Lewin, a Polish-born, Berlin-educated...

Management science and technology have combined to produce a “mega change

” in stereo.  Adaptations of digital technology allow us to:  create, transmit, compute, store, and retrieve data in ways that have marginalized time and distance as barriers to entry.  This revolution has catapulted us into Marshall McLuhan’s global village.  We are...

Following the Civil War in America (1861-1965), industrialization went

rampant. Large factories started dotting the landscape where farms had stood before. Machines, the exciting new technology, were promising to make business owners wealthier than ever—if only they could ‘get those lazy and greedy front line workers to use those machines to their...

An experiment conducted by behavioral scientists, discovered that problem

solving procedures were inhibiting creative thought. The traditional method begins with a detailed assessment of the current situation and clarification of specific problems. Researchers assessed the enthusiasm and effectiveness of problem solving groups by measuring room sound...

don't waste time and resources trying to develop non adaptive employees

A significant success factor for supervisors, managers, executives, and CEOs is knowing when and how to fire in a rapidly changing and fiercely competitive world—referred to by futurist David Houle as the shift-age.  Many managers, labor leaders, and government regulators are haunted by industrial-age ghosts.  Unknowingly, they are being influenced...

First, get it through the Industrial-age riddled heads of your management

A great place to start the learning process is to accept that the future belongs to millennials..disregard at your peril..  YES!  They will require your wisdom and support.  YES! they must learn the people side of business. BUT NO!  they nor you will  benefit from forcing them to conform to your company’s current  knowledge and experience...