Short Takes
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
January 17, 2012 | 8:54 pmSays psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led [a] study published yesterday…
’The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing,’’
Can you “figure out” why this is utter nonsense? I should as obvious as monkey see, monkey do. With this sort of thing passing for science, we are surely doomed.
- The Mark of Cain
November 9, 2011 | 3:13 amWatching Herman Cain duel with his female accusers is like watching the Jerry Springer Show. Not a pretty picture. If you partake, be sure an wash you hands afterwards.
- The Truth About Sovereign Debt
November 1, 2011 | 4:01 pmDuring the housing bubble people bet on rising home prices by taking out loans on to-good-to-be true terms and investment banking made bets on the rising home prices by lending on to-good-be-true terms. Everyone drank the Kool Aid. Prices went down. Having made bad bets, home owners should default on their loans and bankers should take their losses. This is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
The nations that joined the EU placed bets on rising economic prosperity that would come from joining the EU and adopting the Euro and borrowing from the EU banks on to-good-to-be-true terms. The EU investment bankers made speculative bets on EU member nations by lending them billions on to-good-to-be-true terms. The borrower economies went down not up. Everyone drank the Kool Aid and having made bad bets the borrowers should default on their loans and the bankers should take their losses. This too, is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
So how do the bankers hold the world hostage to their bad bets? They claim they are too big to fail. In other words, the only game they know is heads they win, tails we lose.
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- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
Author Archives: Business Consultant
Motivation vs. Removing Obstacles
As is clear in his notorious 14-points, Dr. W. E. Deming was adamantly opposed to the use of motivational incentives by management. He saw goals, targets, performance evaluations, and pay-for-performance schemes as destroyers of the system of people. He said … Continue reading
What is leadership and why does it always arise in every human enterprise?
In my post, “Forward Thinking about Leadership” I proposed a set of questions that come to mind when we begin thinking about leadership as part of a system rather than as a set of personality attributes assignable to individuals. Here … Continue reading
Forward Thinking about Leadership
This past weekend, I happened upon a blog entry by Ron Pereira on his LSS Academy site, entitled Level 5 Leadership. The Level 5 reference is from a bestselling business book called “Good to Great“, by Jim Collins. Ron posed the following … Continue reading
Enterprise Methods: Stop Tampering with the System of People
W. E. Deming was clear in his 14-Points that he was adamantly opposed to the use of performance appraisal systems and the use of deferential rewards and punishments given on the basis of goals and targets . But the use … Continue reading
Enterprise Methods: End the Reign of Terror
I woke up this morning and made my way out the front door to pick up the daily newspaper on my driveway. Near my front gate, an Orb spider was weaving a wonderfully symmetrical web across my path. I stopped … Continue reading
Enterprise Methods: What Business Are You In?
Many of the businesses I have visited have produced what they call a “Mission Statement”. These are typically pledges of goodness that come to be displayed prominently on a wall plagues and Web pages. Most are assertions of commitment to … Continue reading
Enterprise Methods: The Nature of Enterprise
In business, we become habituated to thinking that is too abbreviated. We fall into a mind-set that our enterprise is about financial profit and rivet our attention on doing whatever it takes to maximize the bottom line. Of course, some … Continue reading
Enterprise Methods: The Power of Aiming
On this blog I have devoted a great deal of time to the abstraction of theory. In my “Methods of Enterprise” posts, I will be departing from this indulgence and in order to offer some specific methodologies for improving an … Continue reading
The Ascent
While the muse is with me, I am frantically putting together a new book entitled “The Ascent: Riding the Brink of Chaos”. It’s a book intended for leaders of, and participants in, enterprising organizations that want to systematically undertake continuous … Continue reading
Deming’s Theory of Knowledge
In 1997, television journalist Clare Crawford-Mason, gave a speech to the Deming Institute in which she discussed the philosophical discoveries she made since her interviews with Dr. W. E. Deming in the documentary, “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We“. She began,
” I met Dr. … Continue reading
A Systems View of Leadership
The role of leader is and must be a part of any system of enterprise—any collaborative effort applied to raising the value of inputs into outputs of greater value—and the role of leader only has meaning and can only be … Continue reading
Merit Pay for Teachers – By what Measure?
President Barack Obama is currently touting the benefits of pay-for-performance compensation for teachers. Someone needs to slap him upside the head. Get ahold of yourself Barack!
As W. E. Deming often said, “By what measure?”
Pay for performance always creates perverse incentives … Continue reading
Reflections on Pay for Performance
You deserve a break today.
In the summer of my first year as an undergraduate student I worked at a Coca Cola bottling plant. It was fascinating to observe the hourly workers’ ability to dope out the bottling line and self-organize. … Continue reading
PDSA – Hammers and Saws
PDSA = HAMMER
PROBLEM SOLVING = SAW
PDSA is a method that drives forward by constructing new knowledge. It begins with theory. Corrective action is a problem solving method that a is reactive, rear view mirror process. The method begins with … Continue reading
Liars, Blowhards, Con Artists, and Management Consultants
Matthew Stewart has written a truth-telling expose in which he explains that the high priests of business management, the MBAs, consultants, and other shamans, have no clothes! In a monumental act of misdirection he, or maybe his editors, choose to … Continue reading →