The paradoxical nature of a constraint is that it constrains or limits us, but we can use that very limitation to unleash potential we would otherwise not access.
Navigating Our Beliefs to Make Good Decisions
Today’s blog post is by Dr. Giovanni Siepe Galileo’s Legacy: Modern Science “I believe in Humanity, which means to say I believe in human reason.” This powerful quote from Berthold Brecht’s play ‘Life of Galileo’ deserves some consideration. I agree with Galileo, of course, in his determination to believe in reason and his unshakable faith […]
Sell More of What Your Company Does with the Resources You Already Have (External Constraint) – A Systemic Approach Part 16
The customer is the most important link in the chain. This is what Dr. Deming used to say. Accordingly, a successful organization must have a built-in mechanism in the way it operates that allows it to understand and satisfy the needs of the customer. Having a reliable method is the most effective way to use […]
Don’t Get Stuck on the Path to Change – Leverage Your Human Constraint
“The only thing that does not require maintenance is obsolescence”, as W. Edwards Deming used to say. This is a fundamental truth: if we do not evolve, we regress. What makes everything more complicated is the pace at which we must evolve to survive. Technology speeds everything up, including the world of technology itself. Digital […]
Leadership Thinking and our Human Constraint
Our lives today are filled with unprecedented levels of rapid change and complexity. Unintended consequences can quickly emerge from inadequate leadership thinking, and we are living with these every day. So we have an urgent need to learn to think in a “joined-up” way. The definition of ‘joined-up thinking” is: “thinking about a complicated problem in […]
The Human Constraint – Going Beyond What We Think Is Possible
Our lives today are filled with unprecedented levels of rapid change and complexity. Unintended consequences can quickly emerge from inadequate leadership thinking, so we must urgently learn to think not just in a “joined-up” way but in a systemic way. This means developing the skills to: understand and analyze our current reality, as individuals and organizations; […]
Dr. Who? Deming’s Teachings about Management are More Relevant than Ever
If we want to manage our organizations more effectively, profitably and respectfully, we need to heed the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, American physicist and statistician, and the man who helped Japan rebuild itself after World War II. Though Deming is regularly quoted in articles and blog posts, sadly it is often out of […]
Why Do We Get Stuck on the Path to Change? The Human Constraint
Why is it so difficult to change, even when we know how to make it happen? Why is it so difficult to embrace newly learned and valid concepts and apply them? There are reasons why people resist change and there are also practical ways to work towards achieving an agreed upon goal. This was part […]
The Danger of False Assumptions – Learn to Think Better
How can people keep thinking something when evidence around them is screaming a different reality? How can we make sure that thinking blocks don’t happen to us? It’s more common that we would like to believe. We may want to be independent thinkers, but we end up following the crowd, arriving at conclusions that are […]