Bill Waddell in a blog post over at Evolving Excellence yesterday wrote a paragraph I'd like to highlight:

American companies, particularly GM where the ROI concept was elevated to an art form long ago, do not put market share or cash flow at the top of the list. They measure themselves by Profits and ROI. With inventory as an asset and full absorption accounting allowing them to take overhead costs away from the profit calculation and park them on the balance sheet in the inventory account, an opposite set of management practices makes sense. Instead of eliminating the waste of setup time and defects, the numbers are better (at least in the short term) when you simply amortize them over big batches of production and move the cost out of the profit calculation.

The above paragraph brings up the advantage throughput accounting has over traditional cost accounting by putting the spotlight on the deficiencies of the alternative which encourages local optimizations all over the place while failing to foster investments that would yield a much better payback.

Jim Shore's most recent blog entry in his change diary contained a hidden gem:

I heard an interesting definition of "introvert" and "extrovert" once. I don't remember where. The definition went like this: for an extrovert, socializing with strangers boosts their energy. For an introvert, socializing with strangers drains their energy. Sounds right to me.

That's one of the best definitions I've heard for the difference between extroverts and introverts.

What we could think of as "energy levels" with people at work is not something to dismiss off-hand. A modern day (read: live and breathing) philosopher once mentioned that we would be wise to acknowledge how we can affect other people's energy through our actions if we want to support a smooth, effective working environment. Poking a coworker in the right way at the water cooler could uplift him energy-wise for the whole day while rubbing him the wrong way might do the opposite--with dire consequences to the project's progress.

Small things matter. Do you remember an occasion where someone gave you a small compliment and that was all that was needed to make you feel like a king for the next couple of hours? Is there anything preventing that from happening at work, every day, for everyone?