A seminal article appeared in an American management journal in the late 1980s: The Germ Theory of Management by Myron Tribus.

When I read that article, I was amazed to learn that when germ theory was discovered in the late 1800s, it was not welcomed by the medical profession! Tribus drew a brilliant analogy between the response of 19^th century physicians to germ theory and the response of modern management professionals to Deming’s insights on the effects of variation on business management. (more…)

September 26th, 2008 Posted to Blog | Comments (3)

How do you decide how many salespeople you need? What their quotas should be? How big their territories should be? For that matter, when you are launching a product or expanding into a new market, how do you know whether your new salespeople are doing the right things or even whether they are doing things right?

A European scientific instruments company called me recently. Verne (not his real name) was the general manager of their U.S. sales and service organization. He was hiring marketers and salespeople to sell his company’s products to both the university and corporate environments. While revenues were growing, they were not growing enough. He knew more salespeople were necessary for his company to grow, but he also knew they alone would not be sufficient for it to grow. (more…)

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September 2nd, 2008 Posted to Blog | Comments (1)