President Elect Obama's change strategy ... By What Method?

President Elect Obama exemplified many of the finer qualities of leading change. Below are some of the ones I identified during his campaign:

Leader in Managing Change:
- Have a clear understanding of what is changing
- Know who will be impacted
- Anticipate how staff members will be affected
- Know what staff members have to gain and lose
- Assess where individuals are in their transition process
- Facilitate the transition of staff members
- Lead and Manage your own personal transition
- Communicate changes and resulting benefits to staff, customers, and other key stakeholders
- Lead and Manage the work activity coverage during the transition
- Keep the pressure on to keep people moving forward

Ten Characteristics of an Effective Change Leader:
- Gains support from and confidence of others
- Listens and collaborates effectively
- Takes Accountability and Risk
- Provides constructive feedback to others up & down the chain of command
- Builds relationships with customers, peers and team members it inspires and motivates
- Communicates openly, early and often
- Builds commitment face to face it provides clear direction
- Clarifies roles and responsibilities
- Replicates the model way for your team
- Shows others by example
- Instills Credibility & Trust
- Creates opportunities for small wins
- Recognizes - plans for fun to help boost morale

"Changes that result in improvement come from application of knowledge"

- Dr. Walter A. Shewhart"

Want Change?

"Challenge Conventional Wisdom with Profound Knowledge to Seek Creativity and Innovation"

- qualityg

Michigan Elected Officials to lead the way out of our Economic Mess?

I am very sour on our elected officials in Michigan. Every time I see Senator Carl Levin and Congressman John Dingell I think if you guys are so important/powerful in Washington how come our state is in the pits and why is it so difficult to get funding to pull us out of this mess or assistance to bring businesses back to Michigan?

Our state should qualify for FEMA dollars. We didn't have an Explosion of a natural disaster but an Implosion of our governmental system.

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team on Thursday named Gov. Jennifer Granholm and former Michigan Congressman David Bonior of Macomb County to Obama's economic advisory team.

I guess they need Michigan folks to show them what not to do.

Senators Obama & McCain ---> Who are in your Cabinet?

Why is it we never hear about who the next president elect is going to appoint to serve in their cabinet? Why is it I never hear this question asked in a debate or town hall meeting?

I don’t like to vote for just what one person says or stands for when it comes to politics. I need to know who is going to administer and carry out these promises, hopes and wishes.


I don’t buy that candidates don’t know yet or they have a few names for each position and don’t want to offend someone by mentioning their name (s).


I guess we all should be like Lemmings jumping off a cliff and assume the cabinet members named once the next president is elected will have a pill for all that ails the country.

EVALUATING TEAM EFFECTIVENESS

What (We always know the What) should be included in every leaders business plan are objectives to improve team effectiveness form a CEO’s own team to the day-to-day workforce teams that drive the company’s overall efficiency. What is usually lacking is a method (How) or means of evaluating the effectiveness of the team’s efforts.

Company leaders must be the driving force behind organizations efforts to instruct its employees to use their own experience and knowledge to prevent and solve problems and improve quality. The Corporate Quality or Lean Six Sigma departments should not be the drivers of this type of action in a business plan.

What follows are some “How’s” that should be part of each leaders business plan for day-to-day efficiency and overall effectiveness of their operations.

Level of Empowerment - The ideal: A well led organization teaches its employees to use their own knowledge and experience to solve problems and improve effectiveness. It authorizes them, within guidelines (empowerment without parameters = CHAOS), to weigh evidence, reason systemically, solve problems, take action, and assess consequences. In this way it mobilizes the intelligence, energy, and commitment of all its employees, from the front line to top management. Follow what I call the 6Es for employee development – Envision - Enlighten - Enable - Empower - Execute -Encourage.

Customer Tools/Techniques - Has the team used appropriate quality analytical tools in reaching its objective? These may be “standard” tools identified by name, or tools of the team’s own devising. Can evidence be found that the team’s use of quality tools/techniques have been transferred to their day-to-day work operations?

Customer/Supplier-Driven Goals - What evidence does the team display that they know who their customers are, what the team’s customer requirement are, and that the team’s efforts are driven toward meeting those requirements? Likewise, the team should also identify who their suppliers are and do they have evidence that they have communicated their requirements to them? They should be skilled in “Systems Thinking” and SIPOC + CCCC concepts (See my posts relating to these topics - check label section).

Leadership - Is there proof that the team was actively supported in its efforts by senior management; or that the team, in its own efforts provided leadership for others?

Standardization/Replication - Is there evidence that shows the team’s improvement efforts have been standardized and replicated in the appropriate areas?

On-going Continual Improvement – Is there proof that result’s are not of a one time request, ad hoc, or isolated event, or is it part of their day-to-day efforts for continual improvement?

Meaningful Data - How meaningful (i.e.; customer) are the data used in measuring the magnitude of the improvement achieved in the day-to-day work efforts and towards the organization’s overall goals and objectives (They must be aligned). Do you have a means for managing this data and information in an improvement way (Process Measures) or is it all after the fact result measures

Organizational Impact - How important was the team’s achievement to the organization, taking into account both direct and indirect effects on cost of quality?

Developed by qualityg

Wall Street Roller Coaster

Just about everyday you can read, hear or see headlines referring to stocks going up or down by some TV Business station, Wall Street Article or an article by some so-called newspaper business writers.

I suppose if you would try explaining to your viewers, listeners and readers about common and special cause variation it would all start to make sense as to why their stock and sales goes up and down in a mostly random type situation.




What we need is a Wacko Charismatic Statistician to entertain the public public so the business stations and writers won’t scam them as to what is really going on with facts and figures when it comes to stocks and wall street cost predictions.

So please, please will you folks Please Shut-Up until you know what you are talking and writing about. Use some trending facts instead of your week-to-week and month-to-month analysis that don’t mean squat!