SIX SIGMA IN THE NEWSROOM

Perhaps the biggest change to the practice of journalism in the time I was at NBC was the absorption of the news division into the pervasive and all-consuming corporate culture of GE. GE had acquired NBC back in 1986, when it bought RCA. By 2003, GE’s managers and strategists were getting around to seeing whether the same tactics that made the production of turbine generators more efficient could improve the production of television news. This had some truly bizarre consequences. To say that this Dateline correspondent with the messy corner office greeted these internal corporate changes with self-destructive skepticism is probably an understatement.

Six Sigma–the methodology for the improvement of business processes that strives for 3.4 defects or fewer per million opportunities–was a somewhat mysterious symbol of management authority at every GE division. Six Sigma messages popped up on the screens of computers or in e-mail in-boxes every day. Six Sigma was out there, coming, unstoppable, like a comet or rural electrification. It was going to make everything better, and slowly it would claim employees in glazed-eyed conversions. Suddenly in the office down the hall a coworker would no longer laugh at the same old jokes. A grim smile suggested that he was on the lookout for snarky critics of the company. It was better to talk about the weather.

While Six Sigma’s goal-oriented blather and obsession with measuring everything was jarring, it was also weirdly familiar, inasmuch as it was strikingly reminiscent of my college Maoism I class. Mao seemed to be a good model for Jack Welch and his Six Sigma foot soldiers; Six Sigma’s “Champions” and “Black Belts” were Mao’s “Cadres” and “Squad Leaders.”

I suppose there’ll be someone out there screaming that comparing Jack Welch to Mao is offensive rhetoric, but if you think that the media was complicit in the run up to the Iraq War (duh!), what we have here is a difference of degree, not kind. Vice versa, there are people who remember Mao fondly, and may take umbrage at the comparison to Welch, who never wrote poetry. We remind these readers that Wallace Stevens said that money is a kind of poetry, and invite them to fight it out with the fans of neutron Jack. UFOB will provide a venue and sell tickets, of course.

(L'articolo continua sotto al box in cui ti segnaliamo che alla collana di libri QualitiAmo si è aggiunto un nuovo titolo).

LA COLLANA DEI LIBRI DI QUALITIAMO

"La nuova ISO 9001:2015 per riorganizzare, finalmente, l'azienda per processi" - Si aggiunge alla collana dei libri di QualitiAmo il primo testo che svela i segreti della futura norma.
Dalla teoria alla pratica: il secondo lavoro di Stefania Cordiani e Paolo Ruffatti spiega come migliorare la vostra organizzazione applicando la nuova norma attraverso i suggerimenti del loro primo libro
(Vai all'articolo che descrive il nuovo libro)

"Organizzazione per processi e pensiero snello - Le PMI alla conquista del mercato" - Da una collaborazione nata sulle nostre pagine, un libro per far uscire le PMI dalla crisi.
L’ideatrice di QualitiAmo e una delle sue firme storiche spiegano come usare con efficacia la Qualità.
(Vai all'articolo che descrive il primo libro)

This leaves one wondering how one applies a technique developed to reduce manufacturing defects could be applied to investigative reporting content production for television. What counts as a defect in content? What data is measured? Is anything measured at all?

Forgive my scepticism, but it seems like a fig leaf for authentic happiness coaching, another politically correct/self-esteem boosting program for the recidivist looting members of the white community. I think recent meltdown in the real estate and related derivatives markets has shown the limits of these programs, and we can no longer afford to indulge the bleeding hearts of those who say that but for an abandoned sleigh, a pension fund might have been saved. No more, I say! We have had the compassionate eggheads have their way; now it’s time for ours. Enforced rustication, a lean diet, hard work, and stern discipline is what must be tried next. While I understand the virtue of compassion, there is a time when criminals must be repaid in kind, with no rehabilitation expected or intended. Punishment is what the recidivist whites need, and we will throw our support behind any candidate who will finally stem the tide of fuzzy-thinking, bleeding heart non-solutions. There is no alternative.

PER SAPERNE DI PIU':