“Failure is never a stranger for long”

In the nineteen-nineties, a McKinsey study of companies that had put quality-improvement programs in place found that two-thirds abandoned them as failures. Toyota’s innovative methods may seem mundane, but their sheer relentlessness defeats many companies. That’s why Toyota can afford to hide in plain sight: it knows the system is easy to understand but hard to follow.

I hope my employer will stick with the program, but that is just half of the issue. The employees have to buy into the concept of continuous change. This means management not pushing for the big win and staff constantly looking for opportunities to constantly get better at their jobs. I have reservations at work, but I will try to lead by example.

Urban school district graduation rates at a glance

A look at graduation rates for the main school systems in the nation’s 50 largest cities, according to a report released Tuesday by the America’s Promise Alliance. Researchers estimated the likelihood that a 9th grader would complete high school on time with a regular diploma. They used school enrollment and diploma data but did not use data on dropouts as part of its calculation.

City Principal School District (03-04 percentage)

Columbus, Ohio Columbus Public Schools – 40.9 –

41%. I had no idea that Columbus Public Schools only graduated 41% of students.

In the more than two centuries since then, we have struggled to balance the same forces that confronted Hamilton and Jefferson – self-interest and community; markets and democracy; the concentration of wealth and power, and the necessity of transparency and opportunity for each and every citizen. Throughout this saga, Americans have pursued their dreams within a free market that has been the engine of America’s progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and opportunity for generations of Americans. A market that has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery.

Barack Obama highlights the positives of a free market. I can understand why people like to listen to him. The man can speak.

People tell me, well, these are bad guys, and corporate guys who just want to buy the right to pollute are bad, too, and we should not be giving them incentives to stop. But we need to address the problems that exist, not drown in fear or lose ourselves in morality. Behavior changes when you offer incentives. If you want to punish people for being bad corporate citizens, you should go to your local church or synagogue and tell God to punish them. Because that is not our problem. Our problem is global warming, and my job is to reduce greenhouse gases at the lowest possible cost. I say solve the problem and deal with the bad guys somewhere else.

That is my belief as well. I come from the Realist school. We need to focus on outcomes; especially with a challenge as big as the future of our planet.

The second article I found recently was in Wired. Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund is a private enterprise focused on environmental causes. He is willing to work with companies to gain positive environmental outcomes. One minor qualm with this assessment by Mr. Krupp:

Wired: But won’t our economy get hammered by China and India?

Krupp: It’s inevitable that those countries will adopt caps, too. We will gain a competitive advantage by going first. The real question is, do we want to import clean tech from Germany, Japan, and China or export it to the rest of the world?

I guess I do not see cap adoption inevitable in India and China, but the first mover advantage may ensure a thriving American business sector for the foreseeable future. The Environmental Defense Fund‘s motto is “Finding the Ways that Work”. That is certainly something that I agree with.