H0LIDAY MINI-NEWSLETTER
SHIFT YOUR FOCUS FOR 2010
FOR BETTER PRODUCTIVITY & COMPETITIVE POSITIONING
2009 Observations. It’s been a roller coaster 12 months. For some there have been more valleys than peaks. But it is no surprise. The declines we experience are generally predictable. Yes, we should have seen these challenges coming! The reason is simple. If we create a system (a company, an organization, a school district, a bank, a military unit, a government agency) and it 1.) doesn’t give the stakeholders the results it wants (success, profits, great service, quality products) and it 2.) impacts many other systems and destroys enterprises and people’s lives (like the credit/bank/financial institutions debacle that has impacted the global economy), we need to change the system! Unfortunately, especially in America, we blame people who are generally working IN the system. We blame and judge and rank and rate the individuals and try to hold them individually accountable for the System. Yet the System was created by the senior executives and can only be changed and transformed by those executives, if they understand systems thinking and have the courage to do the work of leadership.
Organizations are self-destructing in this country. In almost 20 years of consulting, I observe at least 60 to 80 per cent of the work in organizations full of waste and inefficiency. Organizations lack focus and strategic direction, collaboration, leadership with systems knowledge, effective communication and data driven decisions.
Organizations are full of management fads, “best practices,” arrogance, poor financial structures that sub-optimize the entire organization, tasks and checklists, people working hard with best efforts and stressed out in automatic-pilot mode. Fear is running rampant. From the CEO to the newest employee, people are making poor or no decisions.
If your organization needs different results in 2010, the strategic thinking and learning of your executive team needs to be turned upside-down. If your organization does not have a clear purpose, strategies and methods, and a collaborative culture of change and adaptive, developing leadership throughout your enterprise, you won’t make it. 2010 will be another year full of challenges, struggles, fear, and missed opportunities.
Do you want 2010 to be a banner year? It can be. But it will mean a Commitment by the leadership team to transform, not merely change. With new knowledge from the outside (and it will only come from the outside from consultants who have knowledge you do not have . . . philosophy of leadership and methods . . . and experience significantly transforming organizations), that you can achieve the results you haven’t yet attained.
Call us today at 408-247-7757 to plan for a stellar 2010!
IN MEMORY . . . WE WILL MISS YOU, OUR DEAR FRIEND RUSS!
On October 26, 2009, the world lost a great systems thinker, mentor, teacher and friend: Dr. Russell Ackoff. At the age of 90 and after a short illness he passed away, leaving us with great thinking, his writing, and lively, insightful stories. His Memorial Service will be held on Feb. 12, 2010 (what would have been his 91st birthday) at The Wharton School, Huntsman Hall, 38th and Walnut St. Philadelphia, PA.
PROFOUND QUOTES:
“Everyday I think about what Dr. Deming meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.”
Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda
Founder/Chairman, Toyota
“If you can’t get past fear, you can’t affect any type of profound change.”
Dennis O’Donoghue
VP, Boeing
“American management, are you listening? What can you learn in order to lead?
America’s competitive edge is based in rapid learning and improving together, faster!”
Marcia Daszko
Commonly heard new term in organizations: “one throat to choke”
(does that give you a warm fuzzy feeling about bounding out of bed in the morning and rushing into work and experiencing joy and pride in working, learning and improving together?)
For the manager, employee, friend who has everything & loves learning, buy them:
The “DEMING OF AMERICA” DVD
Have you ordered your copy? Buy it today on this web-site! Only $95.
The best video sharing Dr. Deming’s ideas with U.S. leaders
NEW OFFERINGS FOR 2010:
SENIOR LEADERS’ ADAPTIVE LEARNING
FOR BETTER QUALITY, PRODUCTIVITY, & COMPETITIVE POSITIONING:
From Aim to Strategy to New Results
3-day intensive, dynamic, hands-on learning session with global thinkers
Santa Cruz, California
2010 Session Dates:
March 3-5
September 15-17
Course Fee: $22,000.
(Includes: seminar, class materials, field trips, meals)
*****
DEVELOPING NEW SUPERVISORS, TEAM LEADERS, AND MANAGERS:
New Thinking and Skills for New Roles and Rapid Change
2-day on-site or near your facility
Call for pricing that includes up to 24 attendees, class materials and travel.
2009 Deming Institute Fall Conference Held at Purdue University
On Oct. 9-11th, 2009, the Deming Institute Conference was held at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. It was hosted by the Organizational Leadership and Supervision Department in the College of Technology. More than 120 people attended the two-day event; many were Purdue students while others came from across the United States and from several European countries.
The 2009 theme was, “Transformation—Bring Back the Individual.” Planning Chair Dick Steele and Purdue Dean Dennis Depew opened the conference reception on Friday evening. Diana Deming Cahill and Dr. Bill Bellows gave a warm welcome Saturday morning to the conference attendees. Some of the speakers were well-known to the Deming community and others were new to the conference and brought a wealth of new topics: Dr. Mike Tveite, David Langford, Mary Jenkins, Dr. Melvin Villareal, Dr. Curt Wegner, Jan Santerre, Dr. John Edelman, Bill Cooper, Andrew McKeon, and Kevin Cahill. Dr. Jim (Doc) Windle and Dan Robertson moderated two panel discussions.Presentations can be viewed on the Deming Institute web-site at www.deming.org
Mark your calendars. The next Deming conference in the U.S. which will be hosted by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Oct. 30-31, 2010. The Annual Transformation Forum will be held in Wyboston Lakes, UK on May 11-13, 2010. The In2In Thinking Forum will be held April 17-18, 2010 in Canoga Park, CA. The Deming research conference will be held at Fordham University in New York City on February
22-23, 2010.
KEYNOTE SPEAKING AND FACILITATION
Marcia Daszko and our associates are dynamic Keynote speakers for conferences, association meetings, and corporate leadership off-sites. Schedule them to address your group on some of the hottest Leadership and Innovation topics facing our world today. If you’re not getting the results you want and need to transform your leadership and innovate for rapid, adaptive change, call 408-247-7757 to invite them to bring new thinking and ideas to your organization.
Marcia Daszko, (right) guiding San Francisco Peninsula Design Workshop
for California High Speed Rail project.
BOOK REVIEW: LINKED By Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Connections. Relationships. Networks. Everything in the world affects everything else. Described in Linked as a new science of networks, the interdependencies are delightfully shared. While author Barabasi is a scientist, he is also an elegant writer. The book is full of analogies, stories, examples, and imagery that bring science and math alive in a non-threatening way.
Barabasi invites his readers to think about the relationships and interdependencies in life by relating one story after another from all walks of life. Whether talking about the number of documents on the Web or in the Library of Congress, or gold mines in the Rockies, or the mail system, or the cattle herds on the prairies, there is a link. This is his story, drawing links and describing the stories in a riveting way. This book is an amazing learning journey, navigating over continents, through social networks and multiple disciplines to tie it all together coherently.
CHOOSE A RIVETING NEW FOCUS!
Yesterday was June, and suddenly it’s already time to reflect on “What did we do and learn in 2009?” and “What are our plans for 2010?” If your year has been busy, you may have been in reaction mode, making lists of tasks to do but not getting much accomplished, feeling overwhelmed and burned out.
Have you taken time to plan ahead? Have you asked tough questions you couldn’t answer? Have you brought your team together to work on those solutions? Have you made choices and responded rather than reacted? Have you focused on learning? Have you cared about working and improving life and work together with others?
It will soon be a new day, a new month, a new year. Personal transformation, a different way of thinking, behaving, working and leading can bring you and your team and organization a different level of progress and success.
Every leadership team has an opportunity to make the time and engage in strategic thinking about what is important, what direction you want to go, your areas of focus and how to accelerate the smooth momentum for all employees to engage and contribute for a new level of success.
If you have not answered all of the questions you have, if you have not achieved the results you want, it is time to have the strategic conversations you need to have for the future, next week or next year, or next decade. New continual learning with a focus on improving quality is a never-ending journey.
Schedule your Strategic Thinking & Planning session today.
Call us at 408-247-7757.
Marcia Daszko & Associates can guide you through the process, introduce new learning, and help your team focus and prepare for a more robust year!
HAPPY AND SAFE HOLIDAYS TO YOU!
REMEMBER TO MAKE QUALITY TIME TO SHARE WITH THOSE WHO ARE LESS FORTUNATE, A NEIGHBOR OR CO-WORKER OR FRIEND. . .
