People - Part II

People - Part II

As my head spins about all the productivity and measurement programs available to all organizations, listed below, there is one element required in all of them - People.

• Lean
• Kaizen
• Six Sigma
• ISO
• Scrum
• Agile
• Waterfall
• KPI
• Plethora of smaller metric tools

I have worked with startups, small and medium size businesses (SME), and large corporate internal departments and not one of them can exist, improve, or grow without people. Yes, you can use software to measure productivity, output, KPIs, etc., but a person needs to interpret and make business decisions based on the data.

True confession; I love the show The Profit. Marcus Lemonis displays personal strengths and weakness in helping businesses survive, aka humanity. Spoiler Alert: here is the theme prevalent in most episodes - weak and/or change resistant leadership, lack of basic business financial acumen, and most importantly, people skills.

The purpose of this blog post is to repeat my personal business axiom, "If the people grow, the company will grow." Invest in your people, which can be as simple as listening to them. You may not need any of the programs listed above.

Toyota Lessons

What have we learned, from the Toyota quality meltdown? In the 80's Japanese cars were superior to American cars in quality. 30 years later, the Japanese manufacture many cars and parts in America. The quality of the two countries have converged.

Here are the questions:

- Where did Kaisen, Six Sigma, ISO, Lean Manufacturing get us? Companies have spent millions of dollars on these programs to increase quality, from car manufacturers to advertising agencies.

- Where is the cost/quality line on ROI?

- What is customer satisfaction worth?

- What is the cost of "packaged" practices (besides hanging a banner on your building)?

Which is a good business practice?
A. Listen to your people to improve quality
B. Buy the latest "management del ano" book and force it on your company associates

(Hint: Who will implement the program?)