I blog therefore I am?

Okay!  I must admit I have no experience with blogging.  I’ve been an adult educator for over 25 years serving in various training roles in business and education.  Let me state here why I’m blogging now and what you can expect from following this blog.  I’m blogging to engage in a dialogue about training matters that effect small business.   My hope is that if you agree with my point of view and you need assistance with some facet of training in your business that you’ll contact me and give me an opportunity to serve you.   Many of the topics I’d bring up have application to all types of businesses but it’s the small business owner(s) that I’m hoping might follow me and join in the conversation.    I must warn you that I can be quite passionate in my beliefs, just ask anybody who watches the Green Bay Packers with me.  I believe in telling things from my perspective, how else can we communicate, but I am also opened minded and flexible and can admit when I’m wrong.

Before I begin my blog posts I think you should know what my experience is and what my biases are.  I have a varied professional background: Accounting, Management, Systems Analysis, Trainer, Project Manager, Procurement, and Customer Service.  I was raised in Wisconsin and educated to be a disciple of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, by Dr. Marilyn Hart, Professor of Operations Management at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh who herself worked with Dr. Deming.  Dr. Deming for those of you who don’t know was the American statistician who American business snubbed in the 1950’s and went onto Japan after World War II to teach them how to improve their product quality and productivity.  The Japanese learned their lessons so well that they caught and passed America in the production of such things as automobiles, televisions and electronics just to name a few industries.  Dr. Deming was famous for his “14 Points of Management”, are you familiar with them?

I believe American business is falling behind our global competitors because too many business executives, managers and owners either don’t educate themselves on basic business principles such as management, customer service, systems improvement etc. or they don’t put what they have studied into practice. Most I would guessimate 95% of business leaders care more about their job, salary and benefit package than they care about the business entity they are running and the people that work for them.   As a business professional I have been responsible for major system upgrades, training initiatives and employee mentoring.  I believe in most situations not all, that the best management approach is a “participatory management” approach and not a “my way or the highway”, command and control approach.  It is from this perspective that I’ll be writing in this blog and I hope to write as one colleague might write to another about topics that interest both parties.  I hope you enjoy the postings and find the topics meaningful and offer your comments when you feel the need.  Thanks for reading I’ll begin my topical discussion next time.  All the best! Jerry