You're Not the Boss of Me

NOVEMBER 21, 2010

There is a proverb that says, “ If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail&#. This speaks to the dangers of clinging to, and operating from, narrow perspectives. In organizations, we have this tendency to create silos of operation where people make decisions based only on their own needs.

Learning Organization 56

Learning Organization Senge Organization Learning-by-Doing 56

Strategy Driven

MAY 4, 2020

Much of the modern business tools and systems are so intuitive that there is less manual input or operation than ever while maintaining excellent quality. Instead of accepting that there is one way of doing things, it’s always beneficial to seek out upgraded technologies that could improve your business’ overall operation.

Hammer 67

Hammer Efficiency Tools Innovation 67

Harvard Business Review

JULY 18, 2014

He had grown up in northwestern Germany, where his father owned mills that heated small amounts of charcoal and iron together to make steel that could be hammered and sharpened into knife blades. Their biggest customers were blacksmiths who hammered a few inches of heated iron bar into a horseshoe or a hinge.

Industry 8

Industry Hammer Transportation Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 11, 2017

It was part of a larger overhaul that included automating some distillery operations, which gave it better data and helped slash energy and water use. Henriquez says there was a deeper problem than just economic conditions: It had lost its connection to the founder’s 19th-century ideals about craftsmanship, humility, and quality.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Payback Period Brand Energy 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

When I ask leadership development clients to describe the type of motivation they’d like to see in their teams, they mention qualities such as persistence, being a self-starter, having a sense of accountability for and commitment to achieving results, and being willing to go the extra mile on projects or to help other team members.

Motivation 8

Motivation Hammer Video Objective 8

Deming Institute

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

He did not believe the results and instructed the team to repeat the assembly operation. Pipp’s documentation of the striking difference in the assembly process within Toyota, by comparison to Ford, was to be found again in the early 1980s when teams from both Ford and General Motors began to routinely visit Toyota’s operations in Japan. .

System 74

System Productivity Products Deming 74

Harvard Business Review

MAY 14, 2015

They expect quality, and use it both as a selection criteria for purchase and as a constraint for sustained use. There are all sorts of contexts where speed is more important than this form of quality, and that means that this design approach isn’t for everyone or every situation.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Reis Definition 8

Strategy Driven

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

The receptionist or telephone operator. Return on quality product. Big companies hammer their entire workforce to make certain that their customer satisfaction scores are high or higher, when they could be (should be) creating an internal training program that begins with the word wow, and progresses upward from there.

ROI 50

ROI Customer Loyalty Airlines Loyalty 50

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 14, 2016

Nineteen days later, as rescue crews grew desperate, a 24-year-old field engineer named Igor Proestakis decided to travel to the site with what he hoped was a breakthrough idea: using a particular drilling technology, called cluster hammers, to cut through the collapsed rock. So what is holding these engineers back?

Engineering 8

Engineering Project Benchmarking Hammer 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 7, 2011

In addition to laying out an approach for making one-time improvements, Reengineering's high priest (the late Michael Hammer) had advice for organizations wanting to sustain improvement. What's more, the company helped develop Hammer's PEMM concept and is now training Lean managers.

Six Sigma 15

Six Sigma BPM Process Hammer 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 23, 2017

They may be flesh and blood to the senior team and the assistants in the C-suite, but to people in outer orbits, from operational departments to business units, they are imaginary constructs. He instructed employees to take hammers in hand — not to fix the flaws but to destroy the imperfect products. They’re mental images.

Stage-Gate 8

Stage-Gate CEO Insurance Hammer 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 27, 2015

By comparison, think of the long strides many businesses have made in reengineering their supply chains, boosting product quality, and rolling out lean six sigma. In our experience, it can take several months for a company to hammer out its defini­tion of innovation. These efforts have paid huge dividends.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Engineering Supply Chain 8