The passage below is taken from the novel "Gadsby: Champion of Youth", written in 1939 by Ernest Vincent Wright. Can you work out what is so very unusual about it? It looks ordinary enough and you would be right in thinking there is nothing grammatically wrong with it. It is most unusual though. Why?

Answer at the bottom of this column

"Gadsby was walking back from a visit down in Branton Hill's manufacturing district on a Saturday night. A busy day's traffic had had its noisy run and, with not many folks in sight, His Honour got along without having to stop to grasp a hand, or talk; for a mayor out of City Hall is a shining mark for any politician. And so, coming to Broadway, a booming bass drum and sounds of singing told of a small Salvation Army unit carrying on amidst Broadway's night shopping crowds. Gadsby, walking towards that group, saw a young girl, back toward him, just finishing a long, soulful oration. "

Force Field Analysis is a technique developed by Kurt Lewin that displays the Driving (Positive) and Restraining (Negative) forces surrounding any change. This is then displayed in a "balance sheet" format using the length and width of arrows to show the relative strength and weighting of each positive and negative force.

It can be very useful when it is difficult to understand the relationships between positive "Helping" forces and negative "Hindering" forces or when the key Hinderers need to be identified in order to diminish or eliminate them.

It forces people to think together about both the positive and negative facets of a desired change, encourages consensus on the relative priority of factors on both sides of the balance sheet and provides a starting point for action, particularly in identifying the key hindering forces.

It is very easy to do with a flip chart, but there is also force field analysis software available that makes it easier to calculate the relative strengths of the driving and restraining forces.

For more information follow this link.

The letter "e" is the most commonly used letter in the English language, yet there is no "e" in the whole passage, nor indeed in the whole novel, which contains 50,110 words.  Ernest Vincent Wright did this quite deliberately and with a lot of effort.  Any piece of text that avoids the use of "e", whether a single sentence or longer text, such as this, is known as a lipogram.

Come down from the Ivory Tower - leading from the bottom

Whilst many employees will tell you they prefer a "hands off" management style, that allows them to get on with  their job without someone breathing down their necks and continually interfering, nevertheless occasionally coming down from your ivory tower, rolling up your sleeves and mucking in can help boost morale and improve team performance, as long as it is not seen as underhand or micro-management.

It can also be a real eye-opener as far as practical issues on the ground are concerned. Many renowned and successful leaders make a habit of doing this e.g. Richard Branson will occasionally do something like man a Virgin check-in desk. Sometimes, especially if you are a very senior person in a large organization, it can be best to do this incognito, as in Channel 4's Undercover Boss series. There is no substitute for spending time inside the operation when it comes to understanding the nuts and bolts of what really goes on and how you can influence this possitively.

Having a go at doing an employee's job, or helping them out at times of resource pressure, will help you better understand the effort they are making and the skills and knowledge they need and put you in a much better position to appreciate their efforts and suggest appropriate development. This in turn will make them feel more valued and confident in what they do and much more likely to "go that extra mile" when required. It will also help you spot barriers to effective performance (e.g. inefficient processes or systems, communication issues) and, in some jobs, bring you face to face with the customer at the front line, an experience for which there is no substitute.

But before you roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, you need to be sure you are doing it to demonstrate willingness to help and to learn, rather than to spy and criticise. Just do it once in a while, or you could end up micro-managing instead, which will not only be exactly what your employees will tell you they don't want, but will also distract you from your true management role.

Here are some simple Do's and Don'ts -

The Silver Lining Principle -

good ways to give bad news

In these times of economic hardship, having to deliver bad news is sadly not uncommon. In fact, it is easy for employees to feel that all news is bad news and become stressed and de-motivated, leading to increased levels of sick absence and lower productivity. Similarly, delivering bad news to customers (e.g. price increases, stricter payment terms) can leave them feeling dissatisfied and more inclined to go elsewhere. So how can employers and managers soften the blow when delivering bad news and make it much more palatable?

We are all familiar with good news/bad news jokes and often the best comedy is that which is closest to true life. So, just as a piece of concurrent bad news is set up to take the shine off the good news for comic effect, so a piece of good news in real life can make bad news more palatable. This is the "silver lining principle". Separating out any small gains or advantages and presenting them independently of the bad news, helps divert focus on the "cloud" by creating separate focus on "the silver lining".

Here are some tips and examples -

Dr. Armand V Feigenbaum , born in the USA in 1922, was the originator of "Total Quality Control", later referred to as total quality management (TQM).

He defined it as:

"An effective system for integrating quality development, quality maintenance and quality improvement efforts of the various groups within an organisation, so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels that allow full customer satisfaction".

His most famous book "Total Quality Control" was completed whilst he was still a doctoral student at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Sloan School of Management, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first edition being published in 1951 under the title" Quality Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration". He went on to join the General Electric Company and from 1958 to 1968 was their worldwide Director of Manufacturing Operations and Quality Control, where he had extensive contacts with such companies as Hitachi and Toshiba. This led to his work being discovered by the Japanese at about the same time as Dr. Joseph M Juran visited Japan. (see Quality Guru Series no. 4 in our July 2010 newsletter).

Since then Dr. Feigenbaum has become one of the world's leading thinkers and leaders in the quality field and his ideas have influenced the way companies approach quality around the world. Total Quality Control, many times updated and revised, has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Dr. Feigenbaum argued for a systematic or total approach to quality, requiring the involvement of all functions in the quality process, not just manufacturing, from customer specification and sale through design, engineering and assembly, and ending with shipment of product to a customer who is happy with it. The idea was to build in quality at an early stage, rather than inspecting and controlling quality after the fact.

The latest edition of Total Quality Control defines ten crucial benchmarks for total quality success.

1. Quality is a company-wide process.
2. Quality is what the customer says it is.
3. Quality and cost are a sum, not a difference.
4. Quality requires both individual and team zealotry.
5. Quality is a way of managing.
6. Quality and innovation are mutually dependent.
7. Quality is an ethic.
8. Quality requires continuous improvement.
9. Quality is the most cost-effective, least capital-intensive route to productivity.
10. Quality is implemented with a total system connected with customers and suppliers.

These provide a way of totally focusing the company on the customer - whether it be the end user or the man or woman at the next work station or next desk.

Dr Feigenbaum also emphasises that there are three keys to achieving the quality competitive leadership that is so crucial in modern global markets.

1. a clear understanding of international markets and of how people buy in these markets
2. a thorough grasp of a total quality strategy that provides the business foundation for
3. hands-on management know-how for creating the necessary company environment for quality and for establishing the stretch goals required for quality leadership

Dr. Feigenbaum was the founding chairman of the International Academy for Quality and was the president of the American Society for Quality Control from 1961-63, which presented him with the Edwards Medal and Lancaster Award for his international contribution to quality and productivity. In 1988 he was appointed to the board of overseers of the United States Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Programme and today he is President and CEO of General Systems Company Inc., a Pittsfield, Massachuesetts engineering firm that designs and installs operational systems. If you would like to know more about him or General Systems Company Inc., then follow this link.