179 Posts found for Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little)

Five years ago, after the bursting of the previous stock market bubble, the Prism article “Back to Basics” took a close look at the rules of the game followed by companies that have achieved long-term success. In this article the authors take a second look at the companies they analyzed back then – and draw some fresh conclusions about how long-term commercial success is built. … [ Read more ]

Content: Related Content | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Best Practices

The discovery of black swans in Western Australia was a shock for scientists. Today those unexpected birds have become a symbol for the disruption of the bell curve that is used for most forms of variation. Bhopal, Exxon Valdez and Société Générale have shown that, in business, the highly improbable can occur, with devastating consequences. In this article the authors take a closer look at … [ Read more ]

Content: Related Content | Authors: David Lyon, Eleonor Kramarz, Geoff Stevens, Philip W. Beall, Rodolfo Guzman | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Risk Management

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Business cares so much about quality because quality — however defined — can be clearly linked to some measures of economic value and business success. Given the relationship between quality — once achieved — and value, corporations have good reasons for remaining committed to the quality vision. But many firms are having a hard time applying quality principles throughout their operations.

Many of the TQM projects … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Tamara J. Erickson | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Management, Operations, Strategy

The purchasing function is acquiring high priority in the eyes of senior management for a number of reasons. First, increasingly global strategies for marketing and manufacturing require equally global approaches to sourcing. The skills and knowledge required for effective worldwide sourcing are quite different from those typically found in a domestic purchasing organization. Furthermore, in a global company, purchasing plays a far greater role in … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Roy D. Shapiro | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: International, Management, Operations

People follow people they like. And they like people who know how to have fun. Life is too short to treat your work as a life-or-death situation. Those leaders who learn to bring some fun to the workplace will always be welcomed. What it really comes down to is learning to enjoy people and relish life while working together. Your work shouldn’t be your life, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Leadership, Work

People don’t know how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

The data that we observe, whether personally or organizationally, is selected, filtered, and interpreted through our assumptions and beliefs. To a great degree we “see what we believe” and are unable to perceive data that lies outside our existing mental models. Our current way of thinking, whether it be personal or collective, governs our perception of reality and thus holds great influence in our ability … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Thought

What passes for a conversation in most organizations is not a conversation about facts, but a conversation about competing interpretations of the facts masquerading as a conversation about facts. So, here it is the job of a leader to encourage people to make the distinction between their observations and their interpretations of their observations.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Leadership, Organizational Behavior

Leadership arises from a commitment to achieving a result that truly matters to you. If your vision requires the help and support of others, then in all likelihood you will be seen as a leader. My working definition of leadership is simply this: Leadership is what the rest of us call it when we see someone doing something they love and we want to help. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Leadership

The relationship between leader and follower is intimate. To study the leader in isolation is misleading. Leaders make leaders, followers make leaders, the times make leaders. All are important.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Leadership

The prevailing view in North America is that the individual makes himself or herself a leader. I think it’s more accurate to say that leadership happens when someone takes a stand in favor of a desired future that other people also desire, either actively or latently. While the act of taking this stand is resolute, essentially individual, and often quite solitary, leadership also has a … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Leadership

If leadership is not primarily a set of skills and behaviors, what is it? How about this: leadership is a conversation about truly important things between people who come to care about those things. As my colleague Eliot Daley says: Leaders give people permission to “care out loud.” We study what great leaders said, because what they said is important and the fact that they … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Leadership

The distinction between process and procedure is essential. Procedures contain only explicit knowledge. Processes embed procedures in tacit knowledge of both the expert and the social kinds. Many of the problems of reengineering can be traced to the treatment of processes as though they were procedures – i.e., as though people’s tacit knowledge didn’t matter.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Knowledge, Process

Learning can be initiated by curiosity (“Is there a better way to do this?”); by happenstance (“I was visiting a customer’s factory, and guess what I learned!”); or by daily experience (“I tried a modification to the sales pitch, and it worked!”). It can also be initiated by crisis (“We are losing market share and money. We must become customer-focused, efficient, and fast.”). However, transformational … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Change Management, Learning

…hierarchical organizational structures, with companies divided into functional areas, isolate both functions and people and diminish the vital exchange of ideas.

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

The need to forgo customer input, so to speak, may be the most disheartening premise of a successful radical innovation journey. Granted, listening to the customer is the fundamental driver of short-term business performance. But doing so also narrows eyesight and leads to fatal inertia when markets or technologies shift. Today’s customer preferences have no inherent predictive value for tomorrow’s markets. Radical innovation asks for … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation

In order to discover radical innovation opportunities, a company should not only acquire the competencies of the future but also weed out those of the past. In particular, it needs to overrule so-called “best practices” with “next practices.” This is not easy when leaders have blessed best practices as knowledge jewels that shall be protected and handed down to new generations of professionals and managers. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Best Practices, Innovation

This artilce is ostensibly about TQM and offers its five pillars of successful quality processes (customer satisfaction, total involvement, measurement, systematic support, and continuous improvement). That’s not why you should read this article. You should read it because it also offers a generally applicable framework for implementing change, projects, etc.

Content: Article | Author: Donald L. Weintraub | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Change Management, Operations

Leading companies now recognize that commitment to the environment can help them not only avoid costly problems or liabilities, but also identify environmentally based opportunities for competitive advantage. These opportunities take two forms: cost reduction and differentiation of products, processes, or services. For example, Du Pont reports saving $1 million a year in one plant by using less of one raw material, cutting the plant’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Jonathan B. Shopley, Karen Blumenfeld, Ralph Earle III | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Social Responsibility (ESG)