“Opinion Data” Still Prevails in the US

When power and hierarchy run an organization ideology, opinion and assumption become the staples of decision-making.  The loud mouth with position becomes the voice of direction . . . but hardly reason, logic or truth.  I have long used the phrase “opinion data” to describe the phenomenon used in executive and other management meetings.  This, of course, is an oxymoron as no data exists.

“In God we trust, all others use data” – W. Edwards Deming

The lack of relevant data I find in organizations is astounding.  Unless you want budget/financial data or other useless data in lagging measures that can’t tell us how to improve only how to keep score.  The result is opinion data prevails in corporate America and no where is it more prevalent then in the executive ranks far away from the work and measures that matter.

Too many IT organizations are selling Business Intelligence (BI) systems that lack one important ingredient – intelligence.  More of the wrong data that doesn’t matter to customers or to what actually makes profit. Data should help lead to better decisions, work designs and profit.  Data can help uncover facts, but here in the US . . . they do not.

Data needs context and only those that interact with customers in service industry can give us context.  No knowledge of the work, will give you no useful data.  How often might you find management in the work? Never mind an executive.  No knowledge of the work leads to bad decisions, poor work designs and lower (if any) profit.  Management reports are a poor substitute for knowledge.

Conversely, I have seen multiple front-line workers find a problem or set of problems that require management intervention and the need for data to get what they need to do their job requires reems of data for justification.  Lower in the hierarchy, workers fill out forms and are scrutinized by management lackeys.  It is what Ross Perot might describe as “forming a committee on snakes, rather than killing the snake.”

Opinion data will some day be viewed as an archaic management practice.  However, where power and hierarchy rule the day . . . facts become an obstacle.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to link perspective to performance.  Read his column at Quality Digest and his articles for CustomermanagementIQ.com. Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

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Atlanta Cheating Scandal – A Messy and Predictable Result

Let’s be clear.  A good person working in a bad system will lead to poor results.  The whole Atlanta School system– and education systems like them – have created environments where the system is dictating performance . . . and survival in that system.  The Atlanta education system created the environment for administrators and educators to cheat.

These systems designed in this fashion need to be eliminated in education systems, government and private industry.

The US has created a culture of cheating by the way we have contrived and managed systems.  Lance Armstrong, the recent KPMG scandal of insider training, an assortment of jailed CEOs and manipulation of every day measures to survive or get ahead are results of these poorly contrived and managed systems.  Our short-term thinking for immediate gain is like a boat anchor hanging around our societal necks.

Pay for performance or any derivation of pay for performance like:, administrator and educator rewards tied to test scores, school funding tied to test scores, school takeovers tied to test scores and graduation rates,  etc. will lead to cheating and/or manipulation – if not for personal gain, for survival.  I wrote about this back in 2009  (see A Step Back: Pay for Performance in Schools).  We are making our own bed and we have to continue to sleep in it.  We are better than this.

The current education system is expensive to boot.  The added attorney costs and inspection costs to avoid cheating and manipulation make this design inefficient and not just ineffective.  Now, we may have more expenses to jail “cheaters.”

To improve education, we need to  change our perspective and contrive better educational systems.  The culture of cheating and manipulation comes from our current culture.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his column at Quality Digest and his articles for CustomermanagementIQ.com. Reach him on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

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Management’s Predictable Response to Trouble

Management with a conventional perspective in their approach attack problems predictably .  .  . predictably wrong. If revenue is the problem, set a target for more revenue.  Expenses to high set a target for to lower costs.

The real question that eludes such approaches is ” by what method?”

Subordinates are left with new targets and no method.  This is not good management.  Can we even call this management?

Conventional methods for increased revenue call “pushing” sales to customers.  Some so dysfunctional in one telecomm that customers are pushed products for mobile phones that don’t even fit.  However, revenue gets recognized and the cost problem created (returns)  is for another month or another group that is responsible for costs.

Reducing expenses?  Cut back on travel, office supplies, maintenance, outsourcing and if things are bad – heads must roll.  All short-term thinking and lead to increased costs later.

They above examples are the scarcity mentality we live with today.  No real growth or understanding of where costs manifest themselves.  Innovative methods to address revenue and cost issues are lacking.  Yet, the more service organizations that I study I find literally hundreds of opportunities.  However, most organizations don’t know how or where to look.

Work design, flow and an understanding of customer demand are where the hidden gems lie.  Six Sigma and Lean have  tools to get to these gems, just they are usually the wrong tools for the job.  Knowing how and where to find the gems allows you to go find them and quite simply  . . . pick them up.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his column at Quality Digest and his articles for CustomermanagementIQ.com. Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

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EA Sports – Worst Company in America?

What makes a company the worst in America?  The Consumerist website has determined EA Sports is this years winner of the Golden Poo award – for the second year in a row.  EA Sports soundly defeated perennial powerhouse Bank of America.

I like to read the Consumerist as you get some really good info on what problems organizations have in delivering product and/or service.  I see many of these problems with organization obsessed with revenue and costs – where they should be focused on the customer and let revenue and costs take care of themselves.  Unfortunately, too many executives only get targets for revenue and expenses that lead to bonuses.  This leads to a short-term focus and an internal view.  Consumers feel the pain.

There are few companies (and I haven’t found one) that deliver really good service and mostly for the reasons I have noted above.  All organizations in the US are struggling with an environment that has been shrinking.  The shrinking has to do with our collective approach to management and a scarcity mentality.  Budgets are part of this thinking.  Growth and innovation takes a back seat to budgets and shrinkage.  Businesses fight over market share rather than ways to grow.

This is a disease that began here in America.  EA Sports in the eyes of consumers that frequent the Consumerist have spoken.  However, so are your customers – are you listening?  Do you know how?

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his column at Quality Digest and his articles for CustomermanagementIQ.com. Reach him on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.Enhanced by Zemanta
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Indiana Education – Raising Standards Can’t Replace Better Method

No one I know takes standardize tests for a living

No one I know takes standardize tests for a living (Photo credit: Ken Whytock)

It is a predictable solution for the uniformed . . .  raise standards and education will improve.  Education a man-made crisis and the solution is to leave more children behind.  If your learning isn’t up to snuff, you get “extra help” in No Child Let Behind and this program has led to more “problem” children.  In Indiana we are basing teachers effectiveness on test scores to standardized testing.  Winners and losers and, of course, more funding.

The US population are collective suckers for wasting away tax dollars.

Standardized testing and raising standards misses the mark and costs billions.  Seriously, what to either of these have to do with learning.  Children memorize information, but this is not learning.  Learning requires discovery and enthusiasm . . . how many kids in today’s schools can’t wait to go back tomorrow?  The exciting part is reserved for sporting events, not education.  The barriers are standardized tests and standards.  Little emphasis on learning, just memorization.

The characteristics of memorizing information does not translate  to what we need in the US job market.  Critical thinking requires a different type of learning missing from our hand-tied education systems . . . and the children suffer.

Better thinking and methods is required in education, not “raising standards.”

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his column at Quality Digest and his articles for CustomermanagementIQ.com. Reach him on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn atwww.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.Enhanced by Zemanta
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