In the March/April 2024 issue of Car & Driver magazine, Jamie Kitman points out the gains and pains within the current four-wheel EV landscape. Kitman’s Upfront article, Alternating Current provides the painful reality of “piss poor planning” (my words, not his) within the hallowed walls of auto OEs, again. As history seems to always repeat itself, once again the lack of reality has bit auto manufacturers in the ass. When global governments started mandating zero-emissions by 2035, the OEs’ jealousy of Tesla gained unprecedented momentum.
Commandant General Robert Neller is looking to encourage innovative and creative thinking and challenging the status quo. Typical talk for a Fortune 500 CEO, but truly earth-shattering for an organization build on following rules, listening to superiors, and following orders without question. The admission of a problem is the first step to change.
When developing plans, it is critical to develop goals. Developing clear, specific goals helps you focus and ensure you operate effectively and efficiently. Time is the most valuable resource you have and you must create a clear roadmap to achieve business success. Developing SMART goals ensures you stay laser focused on achieving your targets.
As a business professional, you can develop a kaizen philosophy learning from stand-up comedians. Don’t laugh, successful comedians live and breathe based on a mindset (and practice) of continuous improvement. Never being satisfied with their current work, they continually refine and change their jokes and stories. They embrace failure based on “bombing” and then going back and rewriting their jokes.
When conducting market research (MR), two key areas to be aware of are biases and ethics. Bias is defined as prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group; typically in an unfair way. Ethics are the moral principles that govern your behavior or how you conduct an activity. In this age of fake news, it is critical to ensure your research minimizes bias (yours and respondents) and you conduct ethical research. Conducting your research with minimal bias and with an ethical behavior is critical as a provider of market information to drive decision making, solve problems, or identify new opportunities.
It is never a bad time to start a side hustle. The ability to learn new skills, earn additional income, or help others is critical for personal and professional growth. A side hustle is not about quitting your job (at least not initially), it’s about starting a side project(s), in addition to your full-time job. Examples could be starting a landscaping business, house painting, building man caves, or teaching at a local community college. A side hustle does not have to take the place of your full-time job, but it can provide you with a platform to eventually operate your own business full-time (if that is your ultimate goal).
Dr. W. Edwards Deming, primarily known as the God of Quality and the usage of statistical control techniques, focused on areas where management needs apply energy; understanding of statistical control techniques, the realization of everything being a process, and the importance on focusing on people, not technology, costs, or other variables. Deming felt that true organizational change had to come from the top-down.
Taiichi Ohno was the incredible mind behind the Toyota Production System (TPS), the system that brought Lean into the mainstream and developed the foundation for one of the world’s largest and most successful automotive brands. Beyond Ohno’s innovative approach to manufacturing and leadership, he focused incessantly on the importance of creativity and ideation for continuous improvement. �
Innovation - another one of those annoying buzz words that everyone throws around. However, innovation is critical for long-term growth, but unfortunately true innovation is not done enough, or not done correctly, or is focused on the wrong things. Innovation refers to something new or updated that provides value to individuals or groups. The father of modern management, Peter Drucker recognized the importance of innovation within many of writings.
