Category Archives for "Techniques and Methods"

Listen Speak and Speak While Listening

ListenSpeak™?Imagine knowing how to communicate verbally with just about anyone, confident that the meaning, what you want to say, is fully understood.  Listenspeak™ is the discipline of keeping whom you are talking to in mind as you talk with them; after all, it’s what they heard, not what you meant to say that matters. It is […]

Clean Your Supply Pipes

In the dark side of big business, cost accounting rules, and demons with pocket protectors lurk, ready to pounce, shrieking, cut, cut, cut! Despite ample evidence to the contrary, many privately held businesses think they have to follow the “common wisdom” too often repeated; “watch your pennies the profits will take care of themselves.” So they […]

5 Steps to Find What Matters Most in the Workplace

5 STEPS TO FIND WHAT MATTERS IN THE WORKPLACE THE VITAL FEW AND THE TRIVIAL MANY A RENAISSANCE IDEA IN TODAYS WORKADAY WORLDThe problem isn’t that people aren’t  working hard enough, it’s that they are working on the wrong things. How can you find the Vital Few hidden in the sometimes overwhelming, brassy and glittery […]

Problem Solving Techniques: Digesting

After a good meal, you need to digest. And, after a good session of the Problem Solving Techniques SimplyLooking™ and Mapping, you need to digest what you observed.You have probably uncovered what some would call problems, but should call opportunities after a good session of SimplyLooking™. Choose one example that surfaced or emerged while observing, […]

5 Things You Need to Do to Manage Naturally

5 Things Management needs to do includes control, but not the way you think. Real control has more to do with making certain everyone has the training, the tools and the material that they need to carry out their duties, than ordering them around.

Effective Sell Sheets

Your name on the tip of their tongues  There are only 2 reasons a buyer asks for a sell sheet, but more on that in a minute. Is it our product or service, or the slick graphics that sells? Right or wrong, it is a lot more effective to try and say things in a […]

RUN CHART IN EXCEL

Weekly tricks of the trade: How to do a run chart in Excel to See Instantly and Understand Next Steps Start with a table of dataIn this case I downloaded the Department Store Inventory Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2003 to 2013. Basically it is a formula that stores can use […]

SWOT NOT, USE A PROBLEM SOLVING MATRIX

Swot is up with that?I don’t know for sure what the mark of a really good analyzer is, but I know with the mark of a bad one is, and that’s making things more complicated than they need to be. The SWOT is a great example. Matrices are great for analyzing data, but can be […]

5 Steps to Find What Matters Most in the Workplace

5 STEPS TO FIND WHAT MATTERS IN THE WORKPLACE THE VITAL FEW AND THE TRIVIAL MANY A RENAISSANCE IDEA IN TODAYS WORKADAY WORLDThe problem isn’t that people aren’t  working hard enough, it’s that they are working on the wrong things. How can you find the Vital Few hidden in the sometimes overwhelming, brassy and glittery […]

Listen Speak and Speak While Listening

ListenSpeak™?Imagine knowing how to communicate verbally with just about anyone, confident that the meaning, what you want to say, is what is understood.  Listenspeak™ is the discipline of keeping whom you are talking to in mind as you talk with them; after all, it’s what they heard, not what you meant to say that matters. […]

Listening Skills Responding Reflectively

Effective listeners are not born good listeners, they learn how to listen. In this post we will explore how responding reflectively is an important listening skill… not the way most of us do it, is it?Reflection, or reflective response technique, borrowed from counseling techniques, is designed to elicit as full a sense as possible of […]

Listening Skills Lead to Better Working

Effective listeners are not born good listeners, they learn how to listen. Listening is a skill, one of the basic building blocks of communication,and one of the most difficult to learn and practice. Hearing alone is not listening. You can’t listen and think about other things, or formulate responses before hearing them out, and hear […]

Operational Definitions NOT Standards

Some of the confusion you face at work is created by you, some by others, but most of it comes from different people understanding the same words differently. To work together we need to define things clearly, in a way everyone agrees to and understands, in writing. Taking the lead from Science, as Dr. Shewhart […]

A Change Management Tool that Works

Change Management Made Easier: The Force Field Map What do I mean by a Force Field Map? A Force Field Map is a visual “map” of the forces driving and resisting change. DiscussionIf you are suffering like Sisyphus trying to drive Change Management, you need this tool: The Force Field Map. First you list the forces, […]

Working Too Hard? You are Momentum Blind!

​Natural Laws are observable facts that explain our world. Newton was the king of putting them down. Alright, at the subatomic level, where Quantum rules, and I don’t mean James Bond, Newton may not be right, but in the material world, the one we live and work in, his laws are better than right, they […]

Infographic: SimplyLooking™ for Millenial Managers

SimplyLooking™ is easy to over-complicate, and can seem mysterious, but you shouldn’t. It is stunningly simple and really only helps us use the abilities we already have. What you will learn in the following info graphic may have roots in a host of ancient traditions, including Sufism, Zen and Chinese Buddhism, but it is nothing more […]

A Fishbone Diagram for Cause and Effect: Tricks of the Trade

​After a good session of SimplyLooking™ and mapping you need to digest. To ensure you consider every possible cause, make it visual; start with The Fishbone, or Cause and Effect Diagram. A Fishbone or Cause and Effect Diagram traces all influences that lead to a particular result: People, Processes, Inputs, Tools, Culture, Measures and Environment. […]

Tricks of the Trade: Visual Tools

There are simple visual tools and complex ones: ones for recording observations, for clarifying data, and ones to help us improve, by theory and testing. Not using them? You are flying blind! Charles Green Half of Tap Dance Phenoms Chuck and Chuckles Ain’t no maps on my taps! I have already posted three in my […]

Mapping: Tricks of the Trade

If you don’t “map” it, you won’t remember it. Visualizing then mapping what you observe at work will help you remember what you observed, to be able to share it with those you work work with. What is mapping? Nothing less than scribbling, or doodling, but instead of your imagination, you are drawing what you […]

How to SimplyLook ™

The Second in a two part post. The first explains why, this one how. For Part One click! Part of my job as a Chef was to stand at the front of the kitchen near the doors to the dining room during a banquet and inspect the plates as they left the kitchen. The waiters […]

Blindsided by Nagging Problems? Simply Looking is the Key

The first in a two part post. Second part is linked at end of post.​The problem with using foreign words is that we tend to invest them with something magical, putting them out of our reach, or into the hands of paid experts, even when the concept is really very simple.Gemba is a Japanese word […]

Concept Maps

A concept map is a way to clarify connections and relationships by making them visual. It can be a very useful tool when figuring out where to start when faced with a messy complex problem, and in planning and strategy to avoid the mistake of focusing on the parts and missing the whole. Visual tools help […]

Weekly Working Secret: The Flow Chart

If it is all about FLOW, then this must be an important tool, but before we begin, lets agree on one thing: You cannot model reality in every detail. The beauty of the secrets I share are in their simplicity and elegance: only as complicated as is needed and no more. Simple Flow ChartsDefinition: A […]

Checksheets are not checklists

​ Check Sheets Definition: A checksheet is a simple form that makes gathering data easier. They are different than checklists, that help us remember things. Simple and yet very useful, they can be used lots of ways to help make things run better. They are best used by the same person at the same location […]

Checklists –remember every time!

IN A NUTSHELL People tell me they think checklists are for dummies. In fact, they are for smarties. Checklists shine for any repeatable process that is important and repeated, or for things you do every once in a while, to help you remember.  My First ChecklistThe first checklist I ever saw on the job was […]

Problem Solving at Work –better measures

Follow what is RealWe seem to be possessed by a mania for measuring. Perhaps it is computers making it easier for us to amass data, and tease it for meaning. Measure the wrong things and you will get the wrong things no matter how strong are your problem solving skills in the workplace. Or is […]

Get Your Point Across without Acronyms

Acronyms are created to help us remember things more easily. When I learned how to drive for instance, they taught us an acronym PEAK, which stood for: Park, emergency, Accessories, and Key. That silly little acronym has saved me a great deal of trouble over the years. You see, training works, even communication skills training.Acronyms […]

Practicing What I Preach, and it worked!

In the past I would think that I could solve any problem that I confronted, and would stubbornly keep moving forward, refusing to see the signs, blaming myself perhaps; this week I did something very different, something that I’m very proud of. I practiced what I preach. I was working my computer and the computer […]

A Simple Tool For a Complex Problem

Cultivating Skills in Other PeopleA simple tool for growth built on a deep foundation: Applying Erickson’s “Stages of Psychological and Social Development” to solve every day working problems.​When people aren’t “performing” the way we would like them to, you probably tend to deal with the situation pretty much the same way. That can be a […]

The Circular File

Mr. Pareto figure out that only 20% of causes are responsible for 80% of results. If that is is so, and it is, then only 20% of most memos, emails sms’s, faxes and calls you get really matter.Weekly Productivity Tip #1:​If you find yourself drowning in memos, tweets, emails, messages of all kinds, try this […]

A New Way to Manage

​©2011-14 Dan Strongin, All Rights ReservedA manager’s first job responsibility is to see to the design of a good system, with well thought-out and tested processes that meet the needs of customers, and a vibrant dialogue between all the parts. Once up and running, their second responsibility is to ensure it is stable, in other […]

Clean Your Pipes

In the dark side of big business, cost accounting rules, and demons with pocket protectors lurk, ready to pounce, shrieking, cut, cut, cut! Despite ample evidence to the contrary, many privately held businesses think they have to follow the “common wisdom” too often repeated; “watch your pennies the profits will take care of themselves.” So they […]