Archive for March, 2009
ManagementSpeak, 3/30/2009
Monday, March 30th, 2009ManagementSpeak: He wanted a higher salary, and that wouldn’t have been fair to the rest of the team.
Translation: He wanted his pay to reflect his performance. If we started to do that, we’d have to define what we mean by “performance.”
What we mean by performance is “handy phrases with useful translations,” and this week’s anonymous [...]
Out with objectives, in with technique?
Monday, March 30th, 2009Sometimes logic takes you places you’d rather not go.
Take, for example, the four fallacies of metrics described in the KJR Manifesto: Measuring the right things wrong, measuring the wrong things (right or wrong), failing to measure important things, and measuring employees.
I’ve been pondering the connection between fallacy #4 and the financial meltdown. It’s a pretty [...]
ManagementSpeak, 3/23/2009
Monday, March 23rd, 2009ManagementSpeak: Good question — we are working through those details. Next question?
Translation: Ouch! We were hoping no one would ask that.
Alternate translation: I had no idea that was going on. Thanks for bringing it to my attention in such a public setting.
Thanks to KJR Club member George Spohrer for bringing this to our attention in [...]
All the news that’s fit to print won’t be
Monday, March 23rd, 2009What’s good for each of us isn’t necessarily good for all of us.
This column is prediction, not advice, so please allow a bit of self-indulgence: History will, I think, mark 2009 as the year the newspaper industry ended in the United States.
It won’t be the year the last newspaper is printed. Like Mike the Headless [...]
ManagementSpeak, 3/16/2009
Monday, March 16th, 2009ManagementSpeak: We have preserved our flexibility.Translation: We managed to avoid making a commitment until we knew which way the wind is blowing.This week’s contributor preserved his flexibility by remaining anonymous.
Who LSD is good for
Monday, March 16th, 2009What is it about Lean? It consists almost entirely of excellent and very practical notions, and yet for many of us, our first reaction when Lean ideas come along is an irrational desire to poke holes.
And so, you can imagine my joy: Last week’s column wondered why Lean would invade the hoary halls of accounting [...]
Great Quotations, 3/9/2009
Monday, March 9th, 2009“I’m all that’s left of me.” – Arlo Guthrie
Leery of LSD
Monday, March 9th, 2009I like Lean.
At least, I like Lean when it’s applied within its proven domain, which is process optimization. And that’s in spite of the nearly Messianic fervor of some of its proselytizers, not to mention their annoying decision to build their impenetrable jargon on a Japanese vocabulary, instead of the gratuitous Latin that lawyers and [...]
ManagementSpeak, 3/2/2009
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009ManagementSpeak: We took a cold, hard look at our bottom line and had to make some very tough choices.
Translation: It was either your benefits or our bonuses. Sorry.
This week’s contributor took a cold, hard look at the risks of being identified and decided to remain anonymous.
Spotting weak managers
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009Principle #3 of the KJR Manifesto (aka Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology) states that bad metrics are worse than no metrics: If you have no metrics you’re ignorant and know it. Bad metrics, in contrast, give either the wrong answer to the right question or answer the wrong question.
Which [...]
Bob Lewis is president of 