1. A Message from the President The Butterfly Effect: Managing Your Organization as a System  Because most things in life are part of larger systems, some seemingly trivial events can have significant impact.  For example, in 1961, mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz took a shortcut in entering data in a weather prediction model.  He innocently entered .506 instead [...]

Because most things in life are part of larger systems, some seemingly trivial events can have significant impact. […]

1. A Message from the President: If All You Have is a Hammer…The Importance of Having a Full Improvement Toolkit 2. Network Events Nov. 5 Knowledge Forum: Everything I Always Wanted to Know About Customer Make-or-Break Moments (SE MN) Rochester Community and Technical College (RCTC), Rochester MN Nov. 7 Knowledge Forum: Minneapolis Minneapolis Community and Technical College, [...]

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” so the saying goes.  In other words, each tool – be it for carpentry, cooking, or process improvement – has a distinct purpose, and tools are sub-optimized if they are used for anything other than that distinct purpose.  […]

A Message from the President: Chillax: 13 Ways to Reduce Workplace Stress Network News and Events Learn What Drives Organizational Excellence: 2013 MN Performance Excellence Award Evaluator Application Deadline 10/1  Strategic Planning: the Glue that Holds it All Together (Rochester) 10/1 Creating a Great Customer-Inspired Experience (St. Paul) 10/2 Managing Relationships in K-12 Schools (& [...]

Perfect Vision: The Power of Leading Indicators to Predict Future Outcomes Although our beloved Minnesota Twins are suffering a third straight year without playoff baseball, many pennant races are in the final stretch.  In channel surfing a couple of nights ago, I caught some of the Texas/Kansas City ball game, in which the Rangers pitcher, [...]

A Message from the President: Chillax: 13 Ways to Reduce Workplace Stress Network News and Events Creating a Great Customer-Inspired Experience (Minneapolis) 09/10 Continuous Improvement at Dunwoody (Minneapolis) 09/05 Listening to the Voice of the Customer (Rochester) 09/10 Leveraging Peer Insights Inside Your Organization (St. Paul) 09/11 Personality Assessment & Applications — MNODN (Minneapolis) 09/12 [...]

Chillax: 13 Ways to Reduce Workplace Stress Quick trivia: from what movie does the line “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” come?  It comes from the 1976 movie, The Network.  Winner of four Academy Awards and with an all-star cast, The Network is a satirical film about a [...]

A Message from the President: Thinking Inside the Box: How Organizational Innovation Really Works Network News and Events Lean Six Sigma Forum (Shakopee) 7/31 The 55 minute solution to your business problem (Minneapolis) 8/1 Beyond Baldrige: Managing Quality and the Client Experience at IBM Rochester 8/13 Leading with Courage and Candor (St. Paul) 8/14 Minnesota [...]

Thinking Inside the Box: How Organizational Innovation Really Works A recent Wall Street Journal article captured the challenges most organizations face in trying to be innovative. Authors Drew Boyd (a former J&J executive and current professor at University of Cincinnati) and Jacob Goldenberg (a professor at Hebrew University) reveal a startling statistic. They have asked [...]