Headline: “Business Metrics Gone Awry: The Dark Side of Relying Solely on KPIs” Subheading: “Corporate Missteps Highlight the Pitfalls of Blindly Chasing Key Performance Indicators” We read about it all the time; in a shocking turn of events, the business world is abuzz with meteoric fall of some company and its CEO, its CFO, or...

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In my book, “State of Readiness” is a brief discussion on “Effects Chains” (pgs 271-277); which is really a re-branding (for purposes of sensibilities) of “kill chains” that I borrowed from military parlance and adapted to business. In the context of the military, a kill chain refers to a series of stages or steps that...

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This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. As I engage with both executive teams and board members around the country, I’ve come to gain a depth of understanding of the challenges faced within the machinery of healthcare organizations operating system. Exacerbated by the great resignation and silent quitting...

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Why It Matters. MIT Sloan experts offer a systematic approach to organizational resilience that can help leaders manage risk and rebound rapidly when catastrophic events strike. Consider the recent system failures at Southwest Airlines that put the brakes on holiday travel. Or the Deepwater Horizon oil spill or the Norfolk Southern freight train derailment, both of which rapidly became...

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In this conversation, Alan shares his life’s journey as a pilot. From earning his pilot’s license before most people earn their driver’s license all the way to becoming a research pilot for NASA and it’s SOFIA program. I met Alan while I was on assignment in Denver. He and his team from NASA were also...

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to significantly impact the field of continuous improvement by providing organizations with new tools and techniques to identify and eliminate waste and improve performance.  Some ways that AI can be used in continuous improvement include: It is worth mentioning that AI is not a silver bullet, the success of...

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This article is provided courtesy of CERM® Risk Insights, and publication of the CERM® Academy, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. Safety and sustainability are the major considerations within the growing electric vehicle industry, there is lots of excitement and lots of challenges in the fast-moving electric vehicle industry and both descriptions quickly work...

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I was in Denver recently and started chatting with people at the bar (as I am apt to do, from time to time).  Regardless of what it might sound like, I meet some rather interesting folks (who are fellow road-warriors like me) and I strike-up some even more interesting conversations. On this particular occasion, I...

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The war in Ukraine is exacerbating the rise in energy prices and disruptions to supply chains that have emerged during the pandemic. These two factors will weigh on the evolution of transport prices and logistics costs in general. Two years after the outbreak of the pandemic, which generated an awareness in Europe of issues concerning strategic...

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Nearly half of the employees who voluntarily left the workforce during the pandemic aren’t coming back on their own. Employers must go and get them. Here’s how to start. No, you aren’t imagining it: workers are leaving your company faster than you can replace them. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 4.3...

This post Gone for now, or gone for good? How to play the new talent game and win back workers appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Entrepreneurship, innovation, talent and cash flow are not enough for your commercial success.  As a founder, business owner, investor or advisor, you need to develop and implement ‘business exit intelligence™’ for your ‘smarter business exits.’  By keeping an eventual exit in mind, you can develop your own ‘design thinking’ to give unique context and insight...

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Can we achieve operational excellence (minimize costs, maximize profits, continuously improve productivity and quality), at the same time do it ethically and legally? Should we? At the end of the year, I am retiring officially but intend to continue volunteer work like writing, helping young professionals, speaking at business events, and part-time consulting. As leader...

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Earlier this year I shared a tale of woe.  One of my long-term clients had suffered a ransomware attack due mostly to the negligence of the business leadership to be respectful of the need to maintain their information technology infrastructure and be vigilant against external threats from bad actors (along with internal threats from system...

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I recently came off a project with a metal fabrication company that was in severe distress. I was originally introduced to the company in October of 2020 by a mentor of the owner who thought they could use my help.  At the time, the owner believed he had the situation under control; he did not. ...

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As a business leader, you have had to deal with numerous challenges in recent years: the Covid-19 pandemic, criminal cyberattacks, extreme weather events, geopolitical tensions, and more. Now you can add inflation woes to your list of potential challenges. Shifting Central Bank Priorities In the 2010s, inflation in major economies was largely at historically low...

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Summary.    Summary: These are unprecedented times in the world of cybersecurity, with ransomware attacks up 150% in 2020 and growing even faster in 2021. Most audit committees and senior management who have to make decisions around cyberattack say they never imagined they’d be in a discussion on whether and how much ransom to pay to...

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In this episode of Supercharged Supply Chain, Ron and Joseph will discuss the notion of “resiliency”.  How to build a robust enough supply chain so that any shocks can be recognized before they become a critical threat and, if the threats become a reality, how can a company best prepare to cope and avoid possible...

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Our supply chains operate in a world that is full of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity; a VUCA world where; V = Volatility: there is a lack of stability with what being known today changes often without warning. U = Uncertainty: there is a lack of knowing all of the variables and being able to accurately predict operating conditions....

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Be aware that criminals are attempting to exploit COVID-19 worldwide through a variety of scams. If you think you are a victim of a scam or attempted fraud involving COVID-19, you can report it without leaving your home by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at 866-720-5721 or submit the...

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IBM X-Force has released a report on malicious cyber actors targeting the COVID-19 cold chain—an integral part of delivering and storing a vaccine at safe temperatures. Impersonating a biomedical company, cyber actors are sending phishing and spearphishing emails to executives and global organizations involved in vaccine storage and transport to harvest account credentials. The emails...

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As the United States and the world deal with the ongoing pandemic, the FBI’s national security and criminal investigative work continues. There are threats you should be aware of so you can take steps to protect yourself. Children who are home from school and spending more time online may be at increased risk for exploitation....

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By any definition, by any stretch of the imagination, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a transformational event that has affected, either directly or indirectly (probably both) each and every person on the planet.  That the “story” of COVID-19 is being knocked off the front page by the media (like “climate change” before it) and replaced...

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The COVID-19 pandemic is transforming the way businesses operate faster and more profoundly than possibly any other event in the history of the world.  For instance, in 2019, if we were to tell business leaders that the bulk of their white-collar workforce would be working from home for an extended period of time, the echo...

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Joseph Paris invites Andrew Chrostowski, Chairman of the Board and Acting CEO of RealWear to “State of Readiness”.  We start with discussing what RealWear is all about – and it is one of the coolest systems I have seen for employee-enablement.  RealWear had designed and developed ruggedized head-mounted wearable Android-class tablet computer that frees a worker’s hands for dangerous jobs.  Being...

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Unless you are a person that firmly believes there will be a second wave – or even that there might be a second wave –  the reactions and measures taken to the COVID-19 pandemic are starting to calm down and the world is beginning to unwind the measures that have been put in place; albeit...

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By some estimates, work-related stress drains the US economy of nearly 300 billion dollars a year — and it can hurt your productivity and personal health too, says wellness advocate Rob Cooke. He shares some strategies to help put your mental, physical and emotional well-being back at the forefront.  Click here to watch….

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With the COVID-19 pandemic, we have entered a very strange time, a transformative time.  Regardless of the immediate effects that are largely transitory (such as the rationing of certain products, the closing of restaurants and shops, and the recommendations and orders from authorities to stay in our homes); there will be real and significant changes...

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Daniel has spent his entire professional and personal career in the field of Industrial Engineers.  In this episode, we explore the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a “Black Swan” event, on the way businesses might operate post-pandemic.   We start by discussing how telephony in education and the corporate world will be embraced more readily...

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It is undoubtedly and incontrovertibly true that global extreme poverty has declined as capitalism has driven globalization – the trade between and among nations – to increase over time.  Certainly, there are arguments to be made that the growth in wealth has also been increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer people, but the world...

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Imagine you are a tenured CEO of a company. You have led your organization through many adverse events.  You have followed a playbook, and moved to a “command and control” style to address the cascading effects of various perils. But now you’re dealing with a crisis unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. There is no playbook...

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