robert young
Posts: 361
Nickname: funbunny
Registered: Sep, 2003
|
|
Re: The Management Myth
|
Posted: Mar 5, 2010 11:41 AM
|
|
> For example, The Managementh Myth takes punk rockstar jabs > at W.E. Deming. Why not actually read what Deming has to > say? His process control theory approach to management is > fairly unique and does not get much mainstream attention. > Even today, Six Sigma overlooks a lot of his teachings > s and advice on how to manage subordinates and fairly > evaluate their performance against your own performance as > a manager.
At my last, good riddance, employer, they took a failed manager (MBA, of course) and sent him to be the Six Sigma guy, even though they knew full well that I was trained as econometrician and would have enjoyed going back to that, or in addition to my regular duties. After he started pestering me about his SS (cool acronym, just now noticed as I typed!!) homework. It's clearly another faux "technical skill" along the lines of ISO-900X stuff from the 90's. I suppose I shouldn't been surprised, having gone through the ISO-9000 stuff. They ignored Deming, too. By the way, I studied with him; he worked just about until he croaked.
I saw within the last year Google recently > hired a Six Sigma guru to help cutback on how Google > employees were allowed to use their 20% time (e.g. getting > additional resources from other employees). The > explanation of the decision and how the guru was going > about things just struck me as "odd". He might be doing a > great job short-term - industry insiders certainly say > that Google's recent ability to withstand the recession > can be directly attributed to him - but cutting costs is a > hard way to determine long-term profitability. > > For Deming, Raphael Aguayo has a very approachable book, > and Deming later went on to write two books of his own, > describing how he helped the Japanese improve quality and > eventually dominate the American car market. Of course, > part of the American car companies problems were > self-inflected: no reasonable company could sustain GM's > salaries and benefits packages, and among unionized middle > class workers, the American autoworkers union was simply > the upper crust.
You're wrong on that last part: it was the very existence of a blue-collar middle class that made the US economy strong (when it was). To understand that, one need only compare economic progress in plantation style countries to the US and Europe post WW-II. These economies, up to the first oil shock in 1973, grew internally and organically, due almost entirely to a 600 lb. gorilla middle class. Without that, you end up like China, where the few exploit the many in the export of widgets to ... wait for it .... middle class economies. Without the US and Europe, China would still be in the 16th century. Pillage enough of the Western middle classes, and the whole edifice crumbles. Wait, it is. Fancy that.
|
|