Securities Market Line

     A customer of Cummins Engine Company, a western truck fleet, was experiencing frequent engine failures. Evidence suggested that the drivers were abusing engines, and that such abuse was occurring shortly after the vehicles left the company’s home terminal. When Cummins investigated, it discovered that the dispatchers, hidden safely behind a large glass pane, were taking their own sweet time compiling the drivers’ trip tickets. Furious about this seemingly deliberate foot-dragging, the drivers would storm out of the dispatch room and vent their frustrations on the trucks. The solution? The company removed the glass pane in the dispatch room. It totally transformed the relationship between drivers and dispatchers. “Often invisible barriers between people are the root cause of performance problems in business,” writes Schutz. “The driving force is stifled.”

     Four of the most powerful words in the world are I need your help.
     Leo Brewer, a friend of Schutz, bought a Cummins distributorship in St. Louis, Missouri. He needed to make significant improvements, though, and was out of money. Together with Schutz, he cooked up a plan. He went back to the filthy and neglected facility, gathered his crew in the shop area, and told them that he, his wife, and his children were coming in on Saturday morning to clean, and that anyone who wanted to could show up and pitch in. To make a long story short, they did. Then, the next weekend, they joined together to repaint. “The camaraderie of those two weekends resulted in more than just a clean shop,” writes Schutz. “It established the basis of a new culture, a new relationship between management and labor, and the company took off to new heights of performance.”

      Company icons are powerful. Don’t underestimate that power.
      When Schutz joined Porsche in 1981, the company was planning to discontinue the Porsche 911. Although there were practical reasons to put it on the chopping block–it was hard to drive and had an engine that could barely meet upcoming noise and emissions regulations–the decision was harming morale. A deep sense of loss and grief pervaded the entire company. Schutz describes the “moment of decision” when Porsche reversed its plan. “I noticed a chart on the wall of Professor Bott’s office,” he writes.

      “It depicted the ongoing development schedules for the three primary Porsche product lines: 944, 928, and 911. Two of them stretched far into the future, but the 911 program stopped at the end of 1981. I remember rising from my chair, walking over to the chart, taking a black marker pen and extending the 911 program bar clean off the end of the chart . . . The Porsche 911, the company icon, had been saved, and I believe the company was saved with it.” Read the rest of this entry »

     The news about G8 are seen everywhere these days.Because they will have many activities.In fact,I am not very familiar with this org,so I want to collect some information about G8.(See more on wikipedia.org)

     The Group of Eight (G8, and formerly the G6 or Group of Six) is a forum, created by France in 1975, for governments of eight nations of the northern hemisphere: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; in addition, the European Union is represented within the G8, but cannot host or chair. “G8″ can refer to the member states or to the annual summit meeting of the G8 heads of government. The former term, G6, is now frequently applied to the six most populous countries within the European Union (see G6 (EU)). G8 ministers also meet throughout the year, such as the G7/8 finance ministers (who meet four times a year), G8 foreign ministers, or G8 environment ministers.

     Each calendar year, the responsibility of hosting the G8 rotates through the member states in the following order: France, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada. The holder of the presidency sets the agenda, hosts the summit for that year, and determines which ministerial meetings will take place. Lately, both France and the United Kingdom have expressed a desire to expand the group to include five developing countries, referred to as the Outreach Five (O5) or the Plus Five: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa. These countries have participated as guests in previous meetings, which are sometimes called G8+5. Recently, France, Germany, and Italy are lobbying to include Egypt to the O5 and expand the G8 to G14. Read the rest of this entry »