It never ceases to amaze me the continued focus on theory instead practical application. Why in the world do we have regulating and certification bodies that are built on the theory of a body of knowledge? Certainly, I’m not suggesting that a body of knowledge isn’t important, rather, there is little focus on the practical application in real world situations.
This is especially true of Sigma and project management. Everything revolves around the premise that you have support and everyone is one the same team. For the vast majority of situations however, this is wishful thinking and not reality
Those of you who have read this blog for any time realize that I’m not to understanding of management. This is no doubt due to spending years working on projects that benefit a company only to see them derailed for personal gain by middle managers.
Although the projects we’re worthy and in some cases very significant in returning some of the competitiveness back to the company, some managers were always willing to put personal position over business need.
This was essentially true in companies like DEC. The old Digital Equipment in the end was so top heavy that they needed a meeting to decide what day of the week it was. And to make matters worse, everyone including the janitor had to sign off before the memo could go out stating today was Wednesday.
Ok, it’s exaggerated….but not much.
Do you see yourself or your company in this scenario? If so, realize that sooner or later you too will go the way of DEC.
Chief executive officers at 367 top U.S. corporations were paid, on
average, $431 last year for every $1 paid to their companies’ average
production worker, according to publicly available information jointly
compiled in September by Institute for Policy Studies and United for a
Fair Economy. In 1990, the ratio was about $100-to-$1. (If the federal
minimum wage had increased since 1990 by the same rate as the multiple
for CEOs’ pay, it would have risen from $5.15 an hour to $23.03, but, of
course, it’s still $5.15.) [New York Times, 9-4-05]