About Kevin McManus and Great Systems!
Hi! I’m Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer for Great Systems. Please let me take a few minutes of your time to tell you more about Great Systems. My focus at Great Systems is simple. I help leaders at all levels build better organizations. Together, we work to develop and deploy proven Leader Standard Work best practices for all formal leaders. Leader Standard Work is an essential element to develop more effective and engaged teams, design excellent work processes, and sustain great results. The tools, blueprints, and workflows on this site help you reduce waste and errors. More importantly, you create time for continuous improvement and your pursuit of operational excellence
EXPLORE MORE: How Great are Your Work Systems?
Do you spend lots of time and money on lean six sigma projects, process audits and corrective actions, employee engagement and recognition, problem and root cause analysis, and reliability efforts? How often do these process improvement approaches give you the results you desire? I can quickly help you install, improve, and get much more value from the resources you invest in these approaches!
How to Improve Your Key Work Systems
All organizations have key work systems. However, they may not perform at their optimum level. Examples include those organizations use for leadership, planning, and measurement. Also, work systems that leaders use for job design, training, process improvement, customer satisfaction, communication, and associate engagement often have weak designs. The amount of waste that is essentially built into these systems probably costs you a lot of non-value added time and money each day! Since 1980, I continue to search for the best work systems. I know that I have found some great ones.
I discovered many of these best practices during my twenty years of service as a Malcolm Baldrige National Performance Excellence Award Examiner. During this time, I was able to visit 14 different high performing organizations as a leader or member of a site visit team. Plus, I found additional best practices while providing over 10,000 hours of TapRooT® root cause analysis training over the past eighteen years.
What have I spent my career doing?
For over forty years, I helped manufacturing, process, and service organizations improve their work processes and systems. Past work team roles include Industrial Engineer, Production Manager, Plant Manager, Training and Development Manager, and Director of Quality. I have more than 20 years of service as an Examiner (1998), Senior Examiner (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003), and Alumni Examiner (2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) for the Malcolm Baldrige National Performance Excellence Award. Plus, I served my last three years on the National Baldrige Judges Panel.
Also as a volunteer, I served as Vice President of Continuing Education on the IIE Board of Trustees. Also, I served as national Board President and Executive Director of the Association for Quality and Participation. I am a ATM-Silver certified Toastmaster. I have taught over 430 courses as an international certified trainer for the TapRooT® root cause analysis process. Most importantly, I take time to “sharpen my saw” every day!
What are my product and service offerings?
I work with organizations in three possible ways. Primarily, I provide virtual training and coaching to help you assess and improve work system and work team effectiveness. In each case, I use a team-based, highly interactive design to encourage involvement and the opportunity for skill practice. I design my books and workbooks to include (1) only the key information you need for success and (2) effective application exercises. My intent is to give you, the customer, the greatest value I can.
What are my key “high performance” beliefs?
The works of Deming, Covey, Robbins, and Senge form a foundation for what it takes to be a high performer from a beliefs perspective. Have you read the books that these four men have written? If so, you get a pretty good overview of what I believe “works at work” as well. Most important are my beliefs in (1) the untapped potential of all human beings, (2) the use of measurement and dialogue to understand systems, and (3) the need for simple systems.
Why should you do business with Kevin McManus and Great Systems?
- I have helped over 250 PROJECT TEAMS implement one or more process improvements
- I have more than 10 years of practice using process improvement tools AS A FRONT LINE LEADER (Plant Manager and Production Manager)
- Kevin has taught hundreds of courses and helped thousands of organizations find the true systemic root causes for thousands of incidents as a certified VIRTUAL TapRooT® root cause analysis trainer
- He has more than 20 YEARS of service as a National Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Award Examiner, with three years as a Judge
- Kevin has 15 years of leadership with, and was a principal designer of, the AQP / ASQ International Team Excellence Award criteria
- Kevin has over 30 years of process improvement tool application and practice in a variety of organizations. He has never worked for a company that did not have a formal approach to process improvement in place!
How do I measure high performance?
For almost forty years, the Malcolm Baldrige National Performance Excellence Award criteria continue to evolve and improve. Today, I feel the Baldrige process represents the best model to assess performance excellence. In other words, if your organization can score well against the Baldrige criteria, then you will be a high performer.
I have learned a lot about the criteria as an Examiner, Senior Examiner, Alumni Examiner, and Judge. Plus, I have found ways for small and medium-sized groups to use the criteria and improve their work systems. In turn, their performance improves over time. Simple systems, when leaders design and implement them correctly, can yield great results.
Most importantly, I believe that an organization’s people – its associates and customers – serve as the best gauges of high performance. Fortunately, the design of the Baldrige criteria takes this critical human dimension of high performance into consideration. For example, two of the six Process categories focus on customer engagement and workforce engagement. Plus, two additional Results categories exist to drive the evaluation of results for each of these areas.
Check out my Great Systems home page!
Giving Back
Giving back is fundamental to building great communities. Plus, I believe that service is the price we pay to live on the face of this earth. I was raised to support volunteerism, and I have done so consistently through my life. The more you give, the more you get back.
Great Systems recognizes the excellent efforts the following groups make towards improving our quality of life.
Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Program
Additional Work Systems Improvement Links
Here are some additional links to resources that can help you further improve the effectiveness of your personal, team, and organizational work systems.
The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers
Performance Excellence Northwest Quality Award
Taproot Root Cause Analysis Training and Software
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
Keep improving!
Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems
Please email your questions to me at kevin@greatsystems.com
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