Ryan Scholz

The quality movement began in the United States in the early 1980s. Led by W. Edwards Deming, Phil Crosby, Joe Juran, and others, companies throughout the country began to understand concepts around process improvement and reduction in variation as the way to simultaneously improve quality and reduce costs. Prior to...

Performance appraisals are probably the most disliked and dreaded tasks that a manager has to perform. Employees look forward to performance appraisals about as much as they do having a root canal and at least with a root canal the patient is given anesthetic to lessen the pain while undergoing...

A vast majority of people at all levels of an organization will accuse their boss of micromanagement. However, those managers who think their boss micromanages them do not think that they micromanage. They believe that they are just exercising good control over their areas of responsibility. One of my favorite quotes...

Almost every senior leader in his or her career will face a tough decision. Some may be "bet the company" type of decisions. Probably the most familiar case which comes to mind was Johnson and Johnson's recall of Tylenol in 1982. At the time, Tylenol accounted for 17 percent of the...

First, let me admit that I am a total neophyte when it comes to social networking. I got involved with LinkedIn about a year because some of my business colleagues were on it and told me that I should sign up as well. I got a Facebook account a few...

In my most recent book, Straight Talk From Corporate America's Ten Most Requested Speakers and Trainers, I am interviewed on the subject of aligning culture and strategy. In this article, I will share some of the thoughts from the book and additional thoughts not in the book. The first point, and...

How to balance work life and personal life - this is a question and issue that many people face. However, the first question that should be asked is - "what does work-life balance really mean?" In some cases the term "work-life balance" has been come to mean flexible work schedules and...

When asked to sum up his fifty years of work in the field, notable psychologist William James said, "people tend to become what they think about themselves." The corollary to this is that people tend to become what we expect of them. In his 1957 work "Social Theory and Social Structure,"...

Employee loyalty depends primarily on the relationship between the employee and his or her immediate supervisor. While the supervisor's skills and attitudes play an important role is establishing credibility with subordinates, management practices can also have a significant impact. Over the years, I have personally coached hundreds of first-level managers and...

A recently published study by the Achilles Group highlights a key issue faced by many businesses. When top level executives at small to medium sized businesses were asked to identify the biggest business challenge they face, 40 percent said that finding and retaining the talent necessary to sustain and grow...