When Deming proclaimed costs are not causes he was trying to make quite obvious and clear (to those willing to listen) that focusing on outcomes is no way to manage and improve a system. Focusing on results will not cause better results; only focusing on and understanding the system of causes will lead to lasting improvement. However, in spite of the hundreds of thousands of business minded people attending his seminars, to this day management of and by outcomes (aka metrics, analytics) remains the go-to practice. I suppose Yogi Berra was right, if people don’t want to come out to the ballpark nobody is going to stop them! Continue reading
Month: August 2013
Removing The Public from Public Education
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men” (Plato). We (as a society) should be outraged over what people in high places are trying to do to (our) public education. Continue reading
On Being Instrumental, A Tool
We’ve all heard in so many ways by so many that the customer is important to (our) business. Why is the customer important to business? Simply, the customer is the one who purchases the goods or services that a business sells; customers can bring profit to a business! That is to say, customers are instrumental to revenue generation that in turn can lead to profit. So all you customers out there must feel pretty important, huh? Continue reading
Gregory Gull 