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An Unorthodox Tip for Improving Productivity and Eliminating Writer’s Block: Listen to the Earworm
(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to) The other day I read a news article or blog post (or something; I can’t remember) that explained one reason we get irritating songs stuck in our heads. The post was based on a research paper by Williamson et al. (2011) in the journal Psychology of Music. Usually, when…
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Pareto Charts in R
A Pareto Chart is a sorted bar chart that displays the frequency (or count) of occurrences that fall in different categories, from greatest frequency on the left to least frequency on the right, with an overlaid line chart that plots the cumulative percentage of occurrences. The vertical axis on the left of the chart shows…
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Management Improvement Carnival #161
It’s been a long time! Although I haven’t served in this role since the spring of 2009, I am pleased once again to host ASQ Influential Voices blogger John Hunter’s Management Improvement Carnival, featuring some interesting or noteworthy articles that have been posted over the past couple weeks. Be sure to check out previous installations of…
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How Do You “Sell” Quality?
In his March 2012 question to the ASQ Influential Voices, CEO Paul Borawski presents a question that he deals with regularly – and that industry has been challenged with for several decades: “How do I convince senior executives (often CEOs) and public officials that quality is important and an essential strategy for–pick your ending–performance excellence,…
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Your Password as a Mantra to Improve Quality Consciousness
How many times a day do you type in your password? Is it a good password? Is it a password that’s helping you focus the attention of your unconscious on the stuff you want to attract into your business or your life? A password is essentially a mantra – a “word or sound repeated to…
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The Poison of Performance Appraisals – Part II
(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to) In May 2011, I wrote The Poison of Performance Appraisals – Part I, where I reflected on the concept of performance reviews as one of Deming’s Seven Deadly Diseases. This morning, I was reading a recent post by the President of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, Paul Kuchuris. Originally…
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Inspiration Stimulates Productivity and Engagement
(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to) I saw this on Facebook earlier today: Jeannette Maw loved this from Jason Fried’s Rework: “When you’re high on inspiration, you can get two weeks of work done in 24 hours. Inspiration is a time machine that way. Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But…
Quality and Innovation 