Too many good ideas

Lesson Learned #24 Here’s a joke we often hear: Consultants take your watch, tell you what time it is, and then keep your watch.” It’s funny and, like most jokes, it’s at

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Addition is easier than subtraction

Lesson Learned #31 It’s a lot easier to add cost when times are good than it is to reduce cost when times are bad. Maybe one of the more obvious lessons we’ve learned

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Operations needs to own the project

Many companies have corporate improvement teams of one kind or another, such as quality or Lean or Six Sigma or some combination. And sometimes they bring in outside consultants to serve a similar role.

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Too many reports, too little time

Lesson Learned #8 When we work for an organization we always look closely at how managers plan, execute the plan and then report on the results. We’ve learned over time that the

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Clients Don’t Care What Consultants Think

Lesson Learned #4 One of the key things clients expect in a performance improvement project is that their managers will take ownership of the changes that are required to improve performance. That’s not

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Are you recognizing your employees effectively?

Appearance, environment, history, politics, and what’s going on in someone’s personal life all shape how we judge others. So the real challenge for managers is to be fair in determining what exactly “merit” refers to when a he or she recognizes, rewards or meters out consequence.

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Loyalty matters

Loyalty tends to be stronger to those closer to you or with whom you share some kind of common objective.

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