Aaron U. Bolin, Ph.D.

Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work by Dan Roam (List Price: $29.95; 2011 Portfolio/Penguin) This book actually delivers on the title promise. Dan Roam provides an application-oriented structure to turn weakly-presented ideas into really elegant communication tools. If you've read the Back of the Napkin  or Beyond the Back of the Napkin , then you'll recognize his engaging style that mixes text with oddly compelling simple drawings. In Blah Blah Blah, he extends his earlier work and reinforces the same basic message: words go better with pictures. I am a fan, and I really liked the overall book. In terms of criticism, the presentation felt a little padded in some parts -- saying in 5 pages what could be said in 5 words. I also missed the exercises that Roam included in his other volumes. In this book, readers are more passive; the text was less interactive. This book would be useful to anyone who routinely presents information: teachers, executives, stu

The Primes: How Any Group Can Solve Any Problem by Chris McGoff (List Price: $29.95; 2012 Wiley). Would you pay for a list of generalities that described the way groups operate? Groups sometimes need a leader. Groups sometimes must choose between competing priorities. Groups sometimes experience interpersonal conflict. If such a list of generalities is useful to you, then The Primes delivers. If, on the other hand, you want practical and application-oriented instruction in group problem solving, then The Primes misses the mark. Don't get me wrong, Chris McGoff's commentary on his list of group generalities is very insightful. His accompanying pictographs adds real value to the discussion. I liked the book, but I am struggling a little bit with who would benefit from reading it. For a very experienced change practitioner, I think The Primes would be useful as a way to stimulate thought and reflection. I think most other audiences would find that the book does not deliver o

I had the opportunity to attend an executive leadership conference recently as a fly-on-the-wall. That is, I was not a participant, but I was present for the extended discussions. From those discussions, I culled the following quoted words of executive wisdom. 1. Truth has a date-time stamp. Shared as an explanation of why direction and guidance from leadership sometimes change. Implication: get over it and get on with it. 2. The ball that you stop looking at is the one you drop first. Shared as a counter to a request from subordinates to identify what the priorities are (and thereby eliminate non-priority tasks). Implication: tactical priorities are not static. 3. Better is the enemy of good enough. Shared as a counter to the suggestion that a plan should not be executed until perfected. Implication: waiting for a perfect plan kills momentum; it is better to move forward with a partial solution now. 4. Slow down to go fast. Shared as a counter prem

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers by Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Oglivie (List Price: $29.95; 2011 Columbia Business School Publishing). My expectations for this book were quite high -- I wanted the promised thinking tool kit for managers in a fun-to-read package as advertised in the book title. I was a little disappointed. It is a good read, and the authors did a nice job of making the book visually compelling. I was disappointed in the depth of the content though. The authors presented what I felt was a very surface-level explanation of the design process. The primary "tool" was a phased approach to design that separated creativity from concept development from sales pitch: not exactly a revolutionary design strategy. I am struggling a little bit with the question "who would I recommend the book to?" It is generally well-written, and the illustrative stories are also kind of interesting. In all fairness, some of the organizing outlines

After completing the one-day Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics course yesterday, I felt compelled to comment on the course techniques from a Continuous Process Improvement perspective. In a very simple sense, the course is a Lean Six Sigma project on the reading process. The reading techniques eliminate a lot of variation in the process, cut out some non-value added reading steps, set a reading takt time using a 'pacer', and provide clearer instructions to the 'users' of the reading process. After completing the material, I really did double my reading speed and increase my comprehension. The Evelyn Wood reading process (like most post-improvement processes) really is better and faster. Next, I went home and did the thing that frustrates every CPI practitioner: I abandoned the new and improved process in favor of the more familiar though less efficient pre-improvement process. I read a book using my tired, broken-down method. It was a little eye opening to realize that even

Yellow Belt students "manufacturing" Lego (TM) pyramids are very intense (from our March 27-29, 2012 class). We ran the process simulation across three rounds. In the first round, the five student teams collectively delivered 25 pyramids. After training and the application of process improvement techniques, production skyrocketed. In round three, the same five student teams delivered 245 pyramids. Although we fell short of the 250 pyramid goal, we were successful in eliminating waste, reducing process variation, and managing the system constraints. Increasing production in a simulated environment by 1,000 percent is difficult but achievable. Now, we've just need to take the lessons back to the real world and apply them.

We took a different approach to Lean Six Sigma training for the Society of Hispanic Engineers Eastern Leadership Technical Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico on February 24, 2012. We did three things that were just a little bit different from our normal approach: 1. We adapted the Navy's Lean Six Sigma curriculum to offer it in a workshop format. The hands-on nature of the workshop format aligned well with the typical curriculum already, but we had to make some adjustments for the space and time constraints of a conference workshop. 2. We simplified the process simulation just a little bit to minimize the materials requirements. We put together a meaningful simulation experience using only a single piece of paper. It made it a lot easier to travel with the materials. 3. We increased the enrollment cap from 20 seats to 60. The 20 seat limit was originally set to make the instruction highly interactive. To maintain the interactivity, we incorporated more co-facilitators for th