“The decision to say Yes or No depends upon the cost and benefit of saying Yes.”
Introduction
We live in a hectic 24–7 world. Information overload and burn-out are signs of stress. This stress is induced by the availability of information and the apparent speed with which events unfold and are communicated globally. Why would one take on more responsibility? Or more things to do? We’ll explore the idea that by saying Yes more often than saying No results in more opportunities being attracted to you. By attracting opportunity, we can start new businesses, grow existing businesses, and help bring prosperity to the world.
Yes vs. No
Jerry thought that the audit had gone pretty good. Ralph had called several weeks before and setup the on-site audit. Ralph is a Quality Engineer for one of Jerry’s largest customers, a privately owned company with an eccentric and visionary CEO. Let’s call this company “CT”. Making a good impression could mean developing a good customer relationship and future business.
The Audit — The introductory meeting is well stocked with a continental breakfast and plenty of coffee. As Quality Manager for Acme Corporation, Jerry begins the meeting by introducing the Management Team: Amy, the Operations Director and her team- Jason…
The Ishikawa Diagram has been an old standby in Quality Management and other applications of structured problem solving for quite awhile. You may know this technique by another name: the fishbone diagram, the cause and effect diagram, 6M’s, etc.
Let’s use a children’s story, the Pied Piper of Hamlin, to illustrate the use of this technique. As the story goes, the good people of Hamlin were plagued with rats. The rats were eating all the grain and food in town. The angry people went to the Mayor, insisting that the Mayor do something about this horrible problem. The Mayor had…
