Root Cause Found - Now What?Once the root cause of a problem is found, correcting is often more than a quick fix. In case studies of problems, the Tylenol Crisis of 1982 is one that shows many good choices. One of Johnson & Johnson's core values was "protect people first, property second" and when it was discovered that cyanide was placed in capsules AFTER the product was delivered and Johnson & Johnson was not to blame, they still assumed complete responsibility, recalled all capsules, and later re-entered the product with the "safety cap" we all know.
Contrast this with the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill where Exxon NEVER took responsibility for what happened and dragged the cases through the courts for over 20 years. Exxon was found at fault with insufficient supply of trained crew and inadequate equipment on the ship.
Taking responsibility for a root cause is not the same as taking blame although the reaction is often similar.
When the root cause is found and you are ready to act, take a couple deep breaths and look at the opportunity to really make a difference. Simple steps to get started will include:
1. Document the cause
2. Come up with possible solutions
3. Test to find the best solutions
4. Create a procedure to follow
5. Test the procedure
6. Roll out the solution - make a fanfare!
7. Evaluate after the solution is implemented.
Solutions are often easier than we think and Johnson & Johnson shows that by taking responsibility, you can come out with new "social capital".
Copyright 2010 Linda Fayerweather MBA EA
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz
Business Plans Make Profit!
Have you read "Think and Grow Rich"? If not or you want to share a copy with a friend, here is an opportunity for a free copy - just pay the shipping and handling of $4.59. This book is currently selling for $12.95 on Amazon. Just go to: http://www.FreeTGRbook.com/ChangingLanes and follow the directions.
Halloween Business Lessons from my Two Year Old
My daughter and I just got back from Trick-or-treating and I'm not sure who got more out of it. First, she handled herself better than some of the adults. And second, I'm absolutely amazed by the maturity of children when they have no fear. I couldn't help but compare how she acted with how some people approach their business.
We've been practicing saying "Trick or Treat" for about a month. She has a pretty good "Thank you" when she stands still long enough. While we were out tonight she showed patience, perseverance, and tenacity. Some would notice that these are things that her elders sometimes take for granted.
So here are the invaluable lessons that she taught me:
1. Dress for success. 2-year old Lady Bugs are adorable. She played the part with enthusiasm.
2. Practice. She knew what to say the moment the door was opened.
3. No Fear. Just Action.
4. Tenacity. She didn't get upset when a door didn't open. She just shrugged like she couldn't fathom why the door wouldn't open to someone as cute as her AND she moved on to the next door.
5. Salesmanship. She looked the person straight in the eye and waited while candy was put in her bag. THIS IS IMPORTANT: She never closed the bag until the other person was done putting candy in it!
6. She said "Thank you" clearly and sincerely.
She raked in the candy and that taught me my final lesson for the night. A Kit Kat and a 3 Musketeers, even of the mini variety, can keep a 2-year old up WAY past her bedtime.
Copyright 2010 Todd Pillars teaches business owners and sales professionals how to create a network of endless referrals, easier and faster than they ever thought possible. Contact him today at 419-855-2273 or todd@toddpillars.com. You can also find out more information about his Endless Referrals Workshops and FREE Mastermind Groups at http://www.toddpillars.com/
Monday, November 01, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Root Cause & Burning Down the House
Root Cause
In health issues, the difference between treating symptoms and curing a medical problemseems obvious. We know that taking painkillers for a broken toe, will not cure the toe but will dull the pain.
Moving into the world of business, finding the root cause is like finding the medial problem. When a problem arises at work, how you approach it will either fix the surface issues with the problem likely happening again or you can find and treat the root cause by developing a process to eliminate the problem.
Using Root Cause Analysis helps answer questions of why the problem incurred in the first place:
Determine what happened
Determine why it happened
Figure out what to do to reduce the likelihood that it wil happen again
Most root causes will fit into these three areas
1. Physical causes - Something broke or didn't perform. The brakes were faulty; the door won't latch properly; the faucet is leaking.
2. Human causes - Someone did something wrong or just didn't do something that was needed. Human failures have their own causes including "I forgot", "I thought so-and-so was doing that", "That's not in my job description", "Sue did it that way" and . . . a myriad of other excuses when things go wrong.
3. Organizational causes - A system, process or policy that staff use to make decisions is faulty or no longer is applicable but still being used. This often has "but we've always done it that way" in the excuses.
Root Cause Analysis can be applied to almost any situation. Asking questions is essential to getting to the bottom of a problem. Questions are essetial and be wary of finding blame. Blame will often help mask a root cause.
Copyright 2010 Linda Lucas Fayerweather MBA EA
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz
Business Plans Make Profit!
Burning Down The House
Election Day is almost here, and that means it's time for candidates to start flinging you-know-what at each other like monkeys at the zoo. Taxes are a key issue this election, so it's no surprise that candidates are scouring each others' tax returns for anything they can use for political ammunition.
Former Portland Trailblazer center Chris Dudley is running for Governor of Oregon. He's a Republican, so you would expect him to oppose higher taxes. But he's come under fire, almost literally, for some personal tax planning that may have saved him as much as $140,000.
In 2002, Dudley paid $1.12 million for a 4,927 square foot house on nearly two acres overlooking Oswego Lake Country Club. Most of his prospective constituents would have been perfectly happy with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, three fireplaces, and a four-car garage. But Dudley wanted something bigger. He could have renovated the existing house. He could have bulldozed it and started new. But neither of those would have been tax-deductible. So instead, Dudley donated the house to the Lake Oswego Fire Department. Firefighters used the house for a series of drills in June, 2004, and Dudley took a charitable deduction for the house's $350,000 appraised value.
Back in 1973, the Tax Court issued a decision specifically approving this strategy (Scharf v. Commissioner, TC Memo 1973-265). But since that decision, Congress has changed the law on losses related to demolition of property, and the IRS has cracked down on similar gifts. Earlier this year, the IRS won a high-profile cases against former Ohio State quarterback and ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstriet, who claimed a $330,000 deduction for donating his Columbus-area home to the Upper Arlington Fire Department. However, the Tax Court's decision in Herbstriet's case turned on the validity of the appraisal that Herbstriet used to establish the value of the donation, and noton the validity of the strategy itself.
The Dudley controversy is actually a great example of what goes into proactive tax planning. Charitable gifts are typically allowed only for gifts of "complete interests" in property. Does burning down a house qualify as a gift of a "complete interest"? And gifts of property are generally valued at "fair market value." How much was Dudley's house really worth? Would anyone pay $350,000 for the house without the land underneath it? Would the fire department actually pay that much just for live fire training?
Clients sometimes mistakenly believe that taxes are just about "the numbers." But tax law and tax planning are really about far more.
What sort of expenses are deductible from your income?
How can you justify them to an increasingly skeptical IRS?
And how can you document them to protect your deductions?
Copyright 2010 Tim Pinkelman, CPA
Accounting Center & Tax Services, Inc.
419-882-9255 or 734-847-0400
http://www.accounting-centers.com/
In health issues, the difference between treating symptoms and curing a medical problemseems obvious. We know that taking painkillers for a broken toe, will not cure the toe but will dull the pain.
Moving into the world of business, finding the root cause is like finding the medial problem. When a problem arises at work, how you approach it will either fix the surface issues with the problem likely happening again or you can find and treat the root cause by developing a process to eliminate the problem.
Using Root Cause Analysis helps answer questions of why the problem incurred in the first place:
Determine what happened
Determine why it happened
Figure out what to do to reduce the likelihood that it wil happen again
Most root causes will fit into these three areas
1. Physical causes - Something broke or didn't perform. The brakes were faulty; the door won't latch properly; the faucet is leaking.
2. Human causes - Someone did something wrong or just didn't do something that was needed. Human failures have their own causes including "I forgot", "I thought so-and-so was doing that", "That's not in my job description", "Sue did it that way" and . . . a myriad of other excuses when things go wrong.
3. Organizational causes - A system, process or policy that staff use to make decisions is faulty or no longer is applicable but still being used. This often has "but we've always done it that way" in the excuses.
Root Cause Analysis can be applied to almost any situation. Asking questions is essential to getting to the bottom of a problem. Questions are essetial and be wary of finding blame. Blame will often help mask a root cause.
Copyright 2010 Linda Lucas Fayerweather MBA EA
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz
Business Plans Make Profit!
Burning Down The House
Election Day is almost here, and that means it's time for candidates to start flinging you-know-what at each other like monkeys at the zoo. Taxes are a key issue this election, so it's no surprise that candidates are scouring each others' tax returns for anything they can use for political ammunition.
Former Portland Trailblazer center Chris Dudley is running for Governor of Oregon. He's a Republican, so you would expect him to oppose higher taxes. But he's come under fire, almost literally, for some personal tax planning that may have saved him as much as $140,000.
In 2002, Dudley paid $1.12 million for a 4,927 square foot house on nearly two acres overlooking Oswego Lake Country Club. Most of his prospective constituents would have been perfectly happy with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, three fireplaces, and a four-car garage. But Dudley wanted something bigger. He could have renovated the existing house. He could have bulldozed it and started new. But neither of those would have been tax-deductible. So instead, Dudley donated the house to the Lake Oswego Fire Department. Firefighters used the house for a series of drills in June, 2004, and Dudley took a charitable deduction for the house's $350,000 appraised value.
Back in 1973, the Tax Court issued a decision specifically approving this strategy (Scharf v. Commissioner, TC Memo 1973-265). But since that decision, Congress has changed the law on losses related to demolition of property, and the IRS has cracked down on similar gifts. Earlier this year, the IRS won a high-profile cases against former Ohio State quarterback and ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstriet, who claimed a $330,000 deduction for donating his Columbus-area home to the Upper Arlington Fire Department. However, the Tax Court's decision in Herbstriet's case turned on the validity of the appraisal that Herbstriet used to establish the value of the donation, and noton the validity of the strategy itself.
The Dudley controversy is actually a great example of what goes into proactive tax planning. Charitable gifts are typically allowed only for gifts of "complete interests" in property. Does burning down a house qualify as a gift of a "complete interest"? And gifts of property are generally valued at "fair market value." How much was Dudley's house really worth? Would anyone pay $350,000 for the house without the land underneath it? Would the fire department actually pay that much just for live fire training?
Clients sometimes mistakenly believe that taxes are just about "the numbers." But tax law and tax planning are really about far more.
What sort of expenses are deductible from your income?
How can you justify them to an increasingly skeptical IRS?
And how can you document them to protect your deductions?
Copyright 2010 Tim Pinkelman, CPA
Accounting Center & Tax Services, Inc.
419-882-9255 or 734-847-0400
http://www.accounting-centers.com/
Monday, October 18, 2010
Waste and Wasting
The Seven Deadly Wasters - Lean Waste Identification
When someone asks me "what is Lean Office or Lean Service" I will go to the short answer and say "Lean is a continuous improvement process that helps businesses put systems in place leading to sane employees, happy customers and increased profits."
The true key to Lean is a identification and elimination of waste! Muda is the Japanese word for waste and the seven deadly wastes identified by Taiichi Ohno (1912-90) of Toyota are:
1. Overproduction: Anything that is more than customer demands. Overproduction can hide other defects.
2. Waiting or Delay: Waiting for anything - people, materials, machines or information are all wastes. Often in a service business waiting can lead to taking the "low hanging fruit" or business that is easy to get but often not matching your perfect customer.
3. Unclear communication: Communication needs to be clear and understandable to staff, customers and vendors. The time spent re-communicating is better spent building strong relationships.
4. Over processing: This can be anything from re-entry of data to duplication of a task by different department.
5. Inventory: Having too much or not enough of supplies. Running out of toilet paper or having toner for the "old" copy machine still on the shelf are great examples of inventory tracking.
6. Unnecessary Movement - waste of motion: This can be from bad ergonomics to poor layout of business machines.
7. Defects or Errors: The cost of redoing or correcting anything! As my dad would say, "Linda, if you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you find time to correct it?"
Start small this week and see what errors you can detect in your company. Identification is the first step to correction. Before you "start correcting" look around and make sure you find the ROOT cause! We will talk about that next week.
Copyright 2010 Linda Lucas Fayerweather MBA EA
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz
Business Plans Make Profit!
Waste Management
In a 2007 study on municipal solid waste (MSW), Americans generated roughly 254 million tons of solid waste. Further, 169 tons were discarded into the municipal waste stream to be disposed of for energy recovery efforts like recycling or becoming contents in our landfills. Many people assume that "junk" mail makes up the bulkof the MSW. Here's the real deal about what's going into our landfills and recycling efforts:Making the most of marketing has become a opportunity of looking where the discards end up.
2.1% Standard Mail
2.2% Disposable Diapers
2.3% Plastic Bags, Sacks & Wraps
2.3% Magazines and Newspapers
3.0% Glass beer and soft drink bottles
4.9% Corrugated Boxes
5.5% Furniture & Furnishings
6.9% Yard Trimmings
18.2% Food Scraps
Copyright 2010 Rebecca Booth
Marketing Goddess
Imagine That!
419.855.3399
Celebrating 13 years of delivering results for our clients.
http://www.rebeccaboothmarketinggoddess.com/
Source: 2007 MSW Characterization Report. Source Note: "The items show here do not represent all items in MSW, and therefore do not total 100%.
Muda QuotesWasteful Quotes! Who would have thought this was such a popular topic. Enjoy.
"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." Charles Darwin
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." Ronald Reagan
"Architecture is the art of how to waste space." Philip Johnson
"Be in the habit of getting up bright and early on the weekends. Why waste such precious time in bed?" Marilyn vos Savant
"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." Thomas Szasz
"Don't waste your time away thinkin' 'bout yesterday's blues." Jon Bon Jovi
"Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste." Benjamin Franklin
"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." William Shakespeare
"Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have." Dale Carnegie
When someone asks me "what is Lean Office or Lean Service" I will go to the short answer and say "Lean is a continuous improvement process that helps businesses put systems in place leading to sane employees, happy customers and increased profits."
The true key to Lean is a identification and elimination of waste! Muda is the Japanese word for waste and the seven deadly wastes identified by Taiichi Ohno (1912-90) of Toyota are:
1. Overproduction: Anything that is more than customer demands. Overproduction can hide other defects.
2. Waiting or Delay: Waiting for anything - people, materials, machines or information are all wastes. Often in a service business waiting can lead to taking the "low hanging fruit" or business that is easy to get but often not matching your perfect customer.
3. Unclear communication: Communication needs to be clear and understandable to staff, customers and vendors. The time spent re-communicating is better spent building strong relationships.
4. Over processing: This can be anything from re-entry of data to duplication of a task by different department.
5. Inventory: Having too much or not enough of supplies. Running out of toilet paper or having toner for the "old" copy machine still on the shelf are great examples of inventory tracking.
6. Unnecessary Movement - waste of motion: This can be from bad ergonomics to poor layout of business machines.
7. Defects or Errors: The cost of redoing or correcting anything! As my dad would say, "Linda, if you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you find time to correct it?"
Start small this week and see what errors you can detect in your company. Identification is the first step to correction. Before you "start correcting" look around and make sure you find the ROOT cause! We will talk about that next week.
Copyright 2010 Linda Lucas Fayerweather MBA EA
http://www.changinglanes.biz/
419-897-0528
linda@changinglanes.biz
Business Plans Make Profit!
Waste Management
In a 2007 study on municipal solid waste (MSW), Americans generated roughly 254 million tons of solid waste. Further, 169 tons were discarded into the municipal waste stream to be disposed of for energy recovery efforts like recycling or becoming contents in our landfills. Many people assume that "junk" mail makes up the bulkof the MSW. Here's the real deal about what's going into our landfills and recycling efforts:Making the most of marketing has become a opportunity of looking where the discards end up.
2.1% Standard Mail
2.2% Disposable Diapers
2.3% Plastic Bags, Sacks & Wraps
2.3% Magazines and Newspapers
3.0% Glass beer and soft drink bottles
4.9% Corrugated Boxes
5.5% Furniture & Furnishings
6.9% Yard Trimmings
18.2% Food Scraps
Copyright 2010 Rebecca Booth
Marketing Goddess
Imagine That!
419.855.3399
Celebrating 13 years of delivering results for our clients.
http://www.rebeccaboothmarketinggoddess.com/
Source: 2007 MSW Characterization Report. Source Note: "The items show here do not represent all items in MSW, and therefore do not total 100%.
Muda QuotesWasteful Quotes! Who would have thought this was such a popular topic. Enjoy.
"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." Charles Darwin
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." Ronald Reagan
"Architecture is the art of how to waste space." Philip Johnson
"Be in the habit of getting up bright and early on the weekends. Why waste such precious time in bed?" Marilyn vos Savant
"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." Thomas Szasz
"Don't waste your time away thinkin' 'bout yesterday's blues." Jon Bon Jovi
"Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste." Benjamin Franklin
"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." William Shakespeare
"Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have." Dale Carnegie
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Gary went for a ride!
 |
| That is my office window upper left! |
This front pond started with 3 gold fish which are considered lucky and 3 is an auspicious number. Several years later, I added some minnows after fishing and two of those minnows were really very small blue gills, a variety of sun fish. After eight years, they've never produced young, have eaten the goldfish, and do a great job of keeping the mosquitoes at bay. My daughter named them Barry and Gary Bluegill. Barry will actually get 80% of his body out of the water for a worm. Not as cute as a dolphin, but he is really cute to me.
So while scooping out the sludge, I look carefully to make sure that I don't accidentally catch a fish. By the way, sludge is smelly, really smelly but also it is very rich in nutrients which is why it needs to be removed from the pond to save the oxygen in the pond. With each scoop, I'd look carefully for movement and then dump it in the wheel barrow. With a full load, I headed to the garden to dump this free fertilizer. You guessed it, Gary, the small blue gill had been in the wheel barrow for who knows how long, swimming and breathing in the muck and now he was flopping around in my garden. I carefully scooped him up and returned him to the pond.
So what does this have to do with business? I think it is just as simple as don't throw out the baby with the bath water or if you dig enough in a pile of smelly stuff you might just find a prize. Have a great weekend.
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