Ronald S. Waife

Following the examples of these six companies might change your organization for good.

Move away from the "service" model if it means being subservient.

In contract research and contract bridge, the cards aren't as important as the people holding them.

Arbitrarily scheduled meetings eat away at valuable time otherwise spent actually getting things done.

Moving ineffective personnel out of critical positions can be a difficult but necessary management task.

Postmarketing research is conducted differently than preapproval research, but data gained using different standards can be difficult to integrate.

If it?s not clear who?s in charge, then no one is?and process improvement can be undermined.

It may seem impossible to do what we know is right?to try to save time and money by spending time and money.

Putting staff training at the bottom of your list of important tasks is a self-defeating attitude in the business world.

Commitment, skill, leadership, a clear focus, performance metrics, and a proven process will keep your cross-functional team from dysfunction.

To judge the value of process improvement, companies need to understand the cost of doing business. The problem is: they don?t.