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Today I’m hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #148

The Management Improvement Carnival is a great practice started by John Hunter of the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog. The Carnival allows us to share what we’ve been reading in other blogs on topics such as lean, continuous improvement, Deming, Innovation, systems thinking, and more. I have previously hosted #80 and #103, but you can see all previous posts in the archive.

Here’s some of what I’ve been reading lately:

1. On the Harvard Business Review blog, a site with a wide range of contributing authors, Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer write Down with Knee-Jerk Downsizing, with research on how downsizing often leads to unintended results.

2. Michael Baudin writes about the use of sports metaphors in Black belts, scrums, and other metaphors. His opening sentence says it all: “To be useful, a metaphor must help understanding.” Too often, metaphors are cute but not useful.

3. It’s always nice to see Karen Wilhelm at Lean Reflections getting back to some blog posts. Here she shares some interesting lessons from the AME conference in Be the product in the process.

4. John Hunter, creator of the Management Improvement Carnival, helps demystify the near slogan of respect for people, in Practical ways to respect people.

5. Old Lean Dude, aka Bruce Hamilton, aka “Toast Guy”, writes in Illogical Progression on how hoshin gets used as an organization progresses on their lean journey.

6. Mark Graban of LeanBlog.org, where I started guest blogging long ago, writes Data without context isn’t very helpful. I love this because people think data is king, but it’s not. It’s meaning that is king.

7. With more on the theme of data, I ran across this interesting post titled How succinctly can I explain why pie charts are evil? While not achieving the succinctly goal, it explains well an overall pet peeve of mine, misrepresentation and misinterpretation of data.

8. Matt Wrye, a lean practioner blogging at Beyond Lean, writes Hired for one. Promoted for another. It’s a reflection on the balance between technical and relationship skills.

9. And on The Lean Edge, a collaboration among lean authors, Pierre Vareille asks “how can lean survive a change in top management?” Responses so far include Steve Spear, Jeff Liker, and myself.

10. Since I’m just back from the 1st Lean for HR Summit, I thought I would also showcase an HR-oriented blog. This one from Emily Douglas challenges HR to step up to the plate in The HR Puzzle.

11. Here’s a simple but vital point about meetings that everyone should be living, from Cameron Herald, in What is Your Meeting Closer?

12. So, what did I miss? Add your favorites in the comments section.