Saturday, August 26, 2006

Non-leadership example I've been trying to figure out what happened to all the momentum that OMAC once had and speculated that it may have something to do with being subsumed by ISA. Keith Campbell, retired Hershey engineer, former leader of OMAC for Packaging and now a consultant working with education initiatives, commented on that post: You're right about OMAC losing something during the two years. Although ISA may have had an impact, it should also be noted that significant changes in OMAC leadership took place over the same period. LCMS support vanished with the demise of LCMS. Hershey changed direction and gave up its leadership role and participation in the Packaging Workgroup. Jim Ramsey, Terry Gustafson, Ken Ryan and I all left leadership roles. At the last OMAC meeting that I attended, a couple of us showed up willing to accept new roles had there been clearly defined objectives that the Advisory Board and the membership were committed to. There weren't. Some of the initiatives that were formerly OMAC sponsored have since taken on a life of their own beyond OMAC such as the education initiatives that Ken Ryan, PMMI and I continue to work on. I believe that success of any organization depends upon mission, vision, goals, strategy, leadership, dedicated workers and a continuous stream of small wins. OMAC should evaluate if each of these is in place. So, I reflected further. At the last OMAC meeting I remember, an executive with an automation company was crowing about getting a vote through on a set of recommendations that was pretty much "political" in the sense of trying to give his company validation over competing companies. Of course that attitude by leadership of a collaborative organization destroys that organization. I sensed right away that other supporting companies had lost interest in supporting both the organization and especially that one executive. So, I think Keith has a good point. The latest leadership has an agenda that may not be one that involves the greatest number for the greatest good. That is a sad thing, because a lot of good came from the previous two generations of leadership. It's time for either a thorough house cleaning of leadership--or a new industry organization. We need to get people working together for the good of the industry at large. Meanwhile, I applaud the work that Keith and Ken Ryan (Alexandria Technical College in Minnesota) are doing. 12:04:17 PM    comment []

Globalization Fed Chief Gives Seminar on History of Globalization. Ben S. Bernanke warned that governments need to help people cope with the disruptions of new competition. By EDMUND L. ANDREWS. [NYT > Business] This is an important message. I'm not sure when the NYT puts it behind a paywall, but Bernanke took a view that rapid globalization is a fact right now and that governments need to help their citizens cope and not be protectionist in policies. One thing that governments can do is assuring good university education availability and continue to promote the need for education to young people. Another thing is negotiate level playing fields for things like environmental protection. But mostly, they need to promote manufacturing in their countries to assure a future. And us (wherever you are located)? We need to continue to improve our manufacturing businesses and continually make them competitive in the face of this growing global competition. Where once you may have had 2-3 competitors, now you may have 50 or 100 or more. We've got to stay sharp. 7:34:29 AM    comment []