2020 has been a year of unexpected losses and shocks in so many fields. How can we move forward in a way that can truly help us to rebuild without repeating old mistakes? How can we make sure that any “new solutions” introduced can be for the benefit of everyone and not just a tiny […]
Out of the Crisis
This week, the Intelligent Management team is in Italy for week 4 of total lockdown. We hope that all our subscribers and readers and their families are safe and healthy and have the opportunity to practice the social and physical distancing that is gradually producing its first results in Italy. May we all emerge from […]
Why Management Urgently Needs the Scientific Method
The following is an excerpt from Dr. Domenico Lepore’s new book ‘Moving The Chains’. Before I began working in the field of management, I was educated as a physicist. However, it is not necessary to be a scientist to appreciate that from Galileo Galilei and Newton onwards, all the things that we know (as opposed […]
Educating Executives for Systems Leadership in the Digital Age
The Managing Director of the World Economic Forum recently published an article called ‘Why the World Needs Systems Leadership, Not Selfish Leadership’ The article concludes: The self-important don’t always win. Selfless leadership can create systemic change that spreads happiness – instead of hoarding it. At Intelligent Management we have been educating executives to be Systems […]
Achieving Predictability in Uncertain Times? Learn to Understand Variation
We live in such astonishingly uncertain times. So let’s do something that’s good for our mental and emotional health and lend some attention to an aspect of management that’s grounded in science and related to predictability. This is strongly connected with our previous post about Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the father of Quality and the […]
Dr. Who? Deming’s Teachings about Management are More Relevant than Ever
If we want to manage our organizations more effectively, profitably and respectfully, we need to heed the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, American physicist and statistician, and the man who helped Japan rebuild itself after World War II. Though Deming is regularly quoted in articles and blog posts, sadly it is often out of […]
The Transformational Message of Deming for Today’s Fragmented World
“It would be better if everyone worked together as a system.” These few, simple words reveal a mindset and worldview capable of transforming everything we do. Transforming what? A divisive, zero-sum-game way of doing business and managing/controlling people towards one of whole systems optimization. This is not idealism. This is applying systems science to human […]
Optimize Performance and 1+1 Equals More Than 2
We posted an interview with W. Edwards Deming “”the man who transformed Japan into a formidable business competitor “on LinkedIn this week entitled “Management Today Does Not Know What its Job Is”. Part of the problem is that managers “don’t have the required knowledge or abilities.” Let’s look at some of the necessary knowledge that has […]
The Age of Management Crisis and the Knowledge We Now Need
We are living in an age of “management crisis”. This is because so many leaders are unaware of the appropriate knowledge to manage the complexity of the Digital Age. Fortunately, this knowledge already exists. Knowledge, Theory and Experience Management knowledge can only come from solid theory; this knowledge advances thanks to the continuous feedback that takes […]
Making Another World – Transformation Today
A recent comment on LinkedIn asks what Dr. W. Edwards Deming meant when he said, “We are here to make another world.” As we start a new year, it’s highly appropriate time to look at that phrase. Dr. Deming was a physicist and statistician whose work founded the Quality movement. He is perhaps best known […]