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    New Blog Address: management.curiouscatblog.net

    Thursday, October 28, 2010

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    Saturday, August 30, 2008

    Curious Cat Management Improvement blog

    Saturday, February 17, 2007

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    Tuesday, June 27, 2006

    New Blog Site

    New posts will be made to our new: Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. We hope you will find the new site valuable.

    Thursday, June 22, 2006

    Hospitals, Heal Thyselves

    Hospitals, Heal Thyselves by Cal Thomas:

    This proven system does not require more staff or expensive consultants and it certainly does not need another bureaucratic, costly and inefficient government agency, which can only make things worse. Improvements can be made, says Mr. Dobyns, starting today and in every hospital in the country. Costs will decline. "So the question now becomes, can we afford not to heal our hospitals? We can, if we want, not do anything. But if we decide not to do anything, we have to accept that every day -- every day -- 500 people will die in hospitals in the United States who did not have to. You and I might be among them."


    via Great Exposure for the "Good News" DVD

    More on Obscene CEO Pay

    Study site: CEO-worker pay imbalance grows includes the graph above.

    Unfortunately this reverse robin hood (steal from the workers, stock holder, customers...) and give to the CEO tale continues. Hopefully someday soon we can at least turn the momentum in the right direction (stopping these incredibly excessive "pay" packages). Even then it will take quite a deal of reducing these ridiculous "pay" packages to reach some sense of decency. CNN article based on the report: CEO Paycheck: $42,000 a day by Jeanne Sahadi:

    Put another way, the average worker -- who earned $41,861 in 2005 -- made about $400 less last year than what the average large-company CEO made in one day. That assumes 260 days of pay (52 weeks x 5 days a week).

    The CEO-to-worker pay differential in 2005 was the second highest on record. The highest was 2000, when the average CEO earned 300 times what the average worker made.

    In 2002, the differential fell to 143 as the bear market took its toll on stock-related compensation. Nevertheless, between 2000 and 2005, median CEO pay rose 84 percent to $6.05 million on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to EPI.

    Missing link: CEO pay and results

    Home Depot CEO stifles debate about pay

    Excessive Executive Pay - link to a study with even more obscene data than that in the graph above.

    CEO Pay: Obscene from Apr 2005

    Tuesday, June 20, 2006

    Dr. Shigeo Shingo

    Norman Bodek responds to, Shigeo Shingo's Influence on TPS by Art Smalley, with: Dr. Shigeo Shingo - The Greatest Manufacturing Consultant. As the title shows this article focuses on the contributions of Dr. Shingo. I still find the original article interesting and valuable. I don't think the original article denigrates Dr. Shingo. It is true the emphasis is different in the two articles however it seems to me the difference is not that large in truth. The largest difference is to what extent Dr. Shingo's contributions (which it seems to me are stated pretty similarly) are admired, it seems to me.

    Both support the idea that Dr. Shingo offered valuable contributions. Norman Bodek obviously believes Dr. Shingo deserves more credit than the original article. At least to me though the differences between the articles is much less than the agreements.

    Thursday, June 15, 2006

    New Lessons on Competition from Mother Nature

    Surviving the Fittest: New Lessons on Competition from Mother Nature by Joel A. Barker

    As a result of this emerging body of research, we now must reexamine our competitive paradigm and factor in the new information. It is now clear that 'the fittest' not only don't win all the time, but are only a piece of the more complex system. This information can lead to new strategies for small companies and new insights for the big companies that presently dominate their industries.


    An interesting short article with some ideas to think about.