CoREM Workshop for October 2

Join us October 2nd for a reprise of a special CoREM “action learning” event:

The Beer Game: A Participative Lesson in Systems Thinking and Supply Chain Management

Free Registration: Contact Brien Palmer at brienp@adelphia.net or 724-733-5007.

The audience will play the (in)famous Beer Game: a logistics exercise developed by MIT’s Sloan School of Management. You and the other participants will sit at prepared tables and take roles within the organizations in the chain of commerce between brewery and consumer: brewer, wholesaler, retailer, etc. You will respond to orders for beer by building your inventory, brewing more beer, etc. The effects of your decisions (and those of the other participants) will comprise the “market” for this brand of beer. Can you anticipate and react to events effectively? Can you keep the system running smoothly? Can you keep a straight face in the face of the pressure and the hilarious actions of other teams?

The Beer Game was featured and popularized in Peter Senge’s best-selling book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization. On a more local scale, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette covered CoREM’s first public presentation of the Beer Game several years ago with a cover story in the Sunday business section.

Art Davidson and other CoREM members will lead the audience in an exciting and memorable event. Please register ASAP as the table space for participants is definitely limited.

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Date and Time: October 2^nd, 2007, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Place: Forbes Road Career and Technology Center in Monroeville (directions follow)

Sponsor: CoREM (the Council on Realizing Excellence in Management)

Cost: free

Registration: Contact Brien Palmer at BrienP@adelphia.net or 724-733-5007.

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Directions to Forbes Road Career & Technology Center

The Center borders Boyce Campus of CCAC. Address: 607 Beatty Road, Monroeville, PA. 412-373-8100 From Downtown Pittsburgh: Go east on Interstate 376 (Parkway East) approximately 15 miles and get off the Parkway in Monroeville at exit 14B (Plum), just past exit 14A (Rt. 48). Proceed north through the intersection with the traffic light to the stop sign at Beatty Road. Van Horn’s Funeral Home will be on the far left corner. Turn right on to Beatty Road and drive to the second stop sign (Community College of Allegheny County--Boyce Campus entrance). Turn right and go approximately 100 feet. Turn left into the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center entrance (Gateway Press building is on the right).

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CoREM is an all-volunteer, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. All our revenues come from membership dues. If you find our services valuable, please sign up for membership and submit your tax-deductible $35 fee. (Make checks out to “CoREM”.) Give it to our treasurer Dennis Snedden or send it to him at 613 Library Av., Carnegie, PA 15106-2910.

CoREM provides a forum for the critical study of original and effective leadership methods and principles through collaboration and lifelong learning, to benefit individuals, organizations, and our communities. See CoREM’s programs since the start of 2007 at the CoREM blog: Leading Leaders and Leadership.

CoREM Event for September 11,2007

Can you get financial support for your college bound kids? Come to the next workshop and learn systems thinking can help!

Register free by calling Brien Palmer 724-733-5007 or email bplamer@interlinkbusiness.com.

Using Systems Thinking to Plan for College Costs

CoREM Members and Friends,

Our September workshop will deliver a "triple play" for CoREM: a great speaker, a topic of immediate interest for many of us, and the opportunity to learn about a profound thinking tool.
The Topic: Most of us with children look forward to a good college education for them, but dread the costs. This session will directly address effective approaches to planning and paying for that education.

The Learning: Systems Thinking was popularized in management by circles by Peter Senge, W. Edwards Deming and others. It emphasizes how to conceive of events and situations as parts of an inter-related whole, and how to address problems and opportunities by dealing with the systems of which they are a part.

The Speaker: For most of us, Dr. Ned Uber needs no introduction. He has been involved in CoREM and its predecessor organization since its inception in 1991. He has given several memorable presentations and is one of our most popular speakers. Ned has the ability to make complex ideas understandable in an engaging and very participative manner. He currently serves as a MEDRAD Fellow at Medrad, winner of the 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Come and hear a great speaker address a meaningful topic using innovative thinking tools--a quintessential CoREM seminar! See below for registration details.

Date: September 11, 2007
Time: Program - 4:00-6:00 PM, Social time - 6:00-6:45
Place: Forbes Road Career and Technology Center in Monroeville (directions follow)
Sponsor: CoREM (the Council on Realizing Excellence in Management)
Cost: free
Registration: Contact Brien Palmer 724-733-5007 or bplamer@interlinkbusiness.com.
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Directions to Forbes Road Career & Technology Center
The Center borders Boyce Campus of CCAC. Address: 607 Beatty Road, Monroeville, PA. 412-373-8100

From Downtown Pittsburgh: Go east on Interstate 376 (Parkway East) approximately 15 miles and get off the Parkway in Monroeville at exit 14B (Plum), just past exit 14A (Rt. 48). Proceed north through the intersection with the traffic light to the stop sign at Beatty Road. Van Horn’s Funeral Home will be on the far left corner. Turn right on to Beatty Road and drive to the second stop sign (Community College of Allegheny County--Boyce Campus entrance). Turn right and go approximately 100 feet. Turn left into the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center entrance (Gateway Press building is on the right).
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CoREM is an all-volunteer, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. All our revenues come from membership dues. If you find our services valuable, please sign up for membership and submit your tax-deductible $35 fee. (Make checks out to “CoREM”.) Give it to our treasurer Dennis Snedden or send it to him at 613 Library Av., Carnegie, PA 15106-2910.

CoREM provides a forum for the critical study of original and effective leadership methods and principles through collaboration and lifelong learning, to benefit individuals, organizations, and our communities.

Co

CoREM Workshop, August 7, 2007.

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

Free Registration: Contact Kathi Bretcko at 724-733-5007 or bpalmer@interlinkbusiness.com.




Jim Creiman and CoREM will review The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, a #1 New York Times Bestselling Book authored by Thomas L. Friedman.

Globalization is not only here to stay, but the changes of the last 25 years are only a warm-up for the next 25. Computer and telecommunications technology and its access by millions of individuals in emerging economies has flattened the economic playing field. A highly educated, ambitious and motivated workforce roughly twice the size of the US workforce has entered the world economy. Rapidly expanding global competition now reaches down to the individual job. And, according to Friedman, this crisis is happening while Americans sleep. What should we tell our children? How can we prepare them ... and ourselves?

Thomas L. Friedman is Foreign Affairs Columnist and a three-time winner of the Pulitzer prize for his work at the New York Times. He authored three previous best-selling books.

To sign up for this free session, contact Brien Palmer at 724-733-5007 or bpalmer@interlinkbusiness.com

About the speaker: Jim Creiman is a Fellow Engineer in Supplier Assurance for a Fortune 100 corporation with a global supply chain. Jim has more than 25 years of experience in quality and is the current chair of the Pittsburgh Section of the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

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Date: August 7, 2007
Time: Program - 4:00-6:00 PM, Social time - 6:00-6:45
Place: Forbes Road Career and Technology Center in Monroeville (directions follow)
Sponsor: CoREM (the Council on Realizing Excellence in Management)
Cost: free
Registration: Contact Kathi Bretcko at 724-733-5007 or bpalmer@interlinkbusiness.com.
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Directions to Forbes Road Career & Technology Center
The Center borders Boyce Campus of CCAC. Address: 607 Beatty Road, Monroeville, PA. 412-373-8100
From Downtown Pittsburgh: Go east on Interstate 376 (Parkway East) approximately 15 miles and get off the Parkway in Monroeville at exit 14B (Plum), just past exit 14A (Rt. 48). Proceed north through the intersection with the traffic light to the stop sign at Beatty Road. Van Horn’s Funeral Home will be on the far left corner. Turn right on to Beatty Road and drive to the second stop sign (Community College of Allegheny County--Boyce Campus entrance). Turn right and go approximately 100 feet. Turn left into the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center entrance (Gateway Press building is on the right).
- - - - -

CoREM is an all-volunteer, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. All our revenues come from membership dues. If you find our services valuable, please sign up for membership and submit your tax-deductible $35 fee. (Make checks out to “CoREM”.) Give it to our treasurer Dennis Snedden or send it to him at 613 Library Av., Carnegie, PA 15106-2910.

CoREM provides a forum for the critical study of original and effective leadership methods and principles through collaboration and lifelong learning, to benefit individuals, organizations, and our communities.

CoREM Workshop, July 10, 2007.

To sign up for this free CoREM session, contact Kathi Bretcko
at 412-720-3450
or
KBretcko@InterLINKbusiness.com.

Selling Ideas to Management

So you have an idea. A GREAT idea. Now you have to sell it to your management….

Who hasn’t been in this position? Who hasn’t been frustrated by management’s inability to understand and to do the right thing? How many opportunities have been wasted by lack of approval of a good idea? And how much personal frustration has this caused over a career?

Our next CoREM presentation will offer you an opportunity to learn some immediately-applicable practices and principles to get management’s support for your ideas. In this fast-paced and highly participative session, Brien Palmer will offer you approaches informed by his 25 years as a practicing consultant. Come prepared to be challenged (hint: it’s not all management’s fault).

The workshop is based on a full-day seminar that Palmer has given for hundreds of people from all around the world. He presented a one-hour version of the program last month at the American Society for Quality’s International Quality Conference, and got comments like these:

° Excellent presentation skills; high energy level; good material; audience involvement. Very well attended – Great content with lots of tips for success.
° Very down to earth; good use of humor. Focus on consultative agreement; Good workshop topic
° Entertaining, valuable with excellent delivery AND tools to easily apply. Thank you!!!
° Outstanding speaker!! Motivating, useful information, practical
° Appreciated hearing success and failure experiences. Brien came across as being very genuine/real.
° The speaker has given me hope for myself!


To sign up for this free session, contact Kathi Bretcko at 412-720-3450 or KBretcko@InterLINKbusiness.com.

About the speaker: Brien Palmer is managing partner for InterLINK Management Consulting (www.InterLINKbusiness.com). He is also a board member and co-founder of CoREM, and author of Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Organizational Resistance to Change http://www.asq.org/quality-press/display-item/index.html?item=H1202&author=Brien%20Palmer.

Palmer describes himself earlier in his career as the “world’s worst” salesman. His learned comfort in selling ideas to senior executives is proof that anybody can do it.

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Date: July 10, 2007
Time: Program - 4:00-6:00 PM, Social time - 6:00-6:45
Place: Forbes Road Career and Technology Center in Monroeville (directions follow)
Sponsor: CoREM (the Council on Realizing Excellence in Management)
Cost: free
Registration: Contact Kathi Bretcko at 412-720-3450 or KBretcko@InterLINKbusiness.com.
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Directions to Forbes Road Career & Technology Center
The Center borders Boyce Campus of CCAC. Address: 607 Beatty Road, Monroeville, PA. 412-373-8100
From Downtown Pittsburgh: Go east on Interstate 376 (Parkway East) approximately 15 miles and get off the Parkway in Monroeville at exit 14B (Plum), just past exit 14A (Rt. 48). Proceed north through the intersection with the traffic light to the stop sign at Beatty Road. Van Horn’s Funeral Home will be on the far left corner. Turn right on to Beatty Road and drive to the second stop sign (Community College of Allegheny County--Boyce Campus entrance). Turn right and go approximately 100 feet. Turn left into the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center entrance (Gateway Press building is on the right).
- - - - -

CoREM is an all-volunteer, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. All our revenues come from membership dues. If you find our services valuable, please sign up for membership and submit your tax-deductible $35 fee. (Make checks out to “CoREM”.) Give it to our treasurer Dennis Snedden or send it to him at 613 Library Av., Carnegie, PA 15106-2910.

CoREM provides a forum for the critical study of original and effective leadership methods and principles through collaboration and lifelong learning, to benefit individuals, organizations, and our communities.

June 5 CoREM Meeting does Deming's Red Beads!

Schedule yourself and a co-worker to experience again:


Deming’s Red Bead Experiment

Free Registration: Contact Brien Palmer at
bpalmer@interlinkbusiness.com
or 724-733-5007.

June 5, 2007

-Presented by the CoREM Board, this is an event rescheduled from last February. That’s when extreme cold forced a cancellation (though a small group of intrepid CoREMers came
anyway).

Who should attend: Owners, executives, and frustrated managers from all types of rganizations, from service to manufacturing, to retail, to non-profit, to health, education and government. Every organization has red beads.

This is CoREM’s own version of the classic demonstration by W.E Deming of the role of variation in the typical American style corporate culture, using a small tub of red and white beads. The workshop will literally require hands-on participation by the CoREM audience. Those attending will take away with them a deep, visceral understanding of American business practices, and how they can be improved.

CoREM will bring in The Allegheny Albino Bead Co. (AABC) to the Forbes Road Technology enter to recruit workers for their new plant, to make white beads for their very selective customers. The recruits will undergo thorough training, and be given precise instructions on how to operate the equipment, and specific goals for production, all in accord with the principles of Peter Drucker’s Management by Objective (MBO). AABC will hire only those few applicants who show in actual product runs that they have what it takes to produce white beads, and not red ones. AABC will give everyone present an opportunity to try out the equipment, and to sample the motivational slogans and posters that AABC is famous for.

At the end, the AABC cordially invites the members and friends of CoREM to a de-briefing, to obtain feedback on hiring practices, performance appraisals, and any other advice on how to identify, attract, and retain those rare exceptional workers that they need.

This workshop is being presented by the CoREM Board (in alphabetical order):

Arthur Davidson, President

Adele Lynn, at Large

Brien Palmer, Public Relations

Marilyn Reeder, Vice President

Dennis Snedden, Treasurer


Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Time: Program - 4:00-6:00 PM, Social time - 6:00-6:45

Place: Forbes Road Career and Technology Center in Monroeville (directions follow)

Sponsor: CoREM (the Council on Realizing Excellence in Management)

Cost: free

Registration: Contact Brien Palmer at Bpalmer@interlinkbusiness.com or 724-733-5007.

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Directions to Forbes Road Career & Technology Center

The Center borders Boyce Campus of CCAC. Address: 607 Beatty Road, Monroeville, PA. 412-373-8100

From Downtown Pittsburgh: Go east on Interstate 376 (Parkway East) approximately 15 miles and get off the Parkway in Monroeville at exit 14B (Plum), just past exit 14A (Rt. 48). Proceed north through the intersection with the traffic light to the stop sign at Beatty Road. Van Horn’s Funeral Home will be on the far left corner. Turn right on to Beatty Road and drive to the second stop sign (Community College of Allegheny County--Boyce Campus entrance). Turn right and go approximately 100 feet. Turn left into the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center entrance (Gateway Press building is on the right).

- - - - -
CoREM is an all-volunteer, nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization. All our revenues come from membership dues. If you find our services valuable, please sign up for membership and submit your tax-deductible $35 fee. (Make checks out to “CoREM”.) Give it to our treasurer Dennis Snedden or send it to him at 613 Library Av., Carnegie, PA 15106-2910.

CoREM provides a forum for the critical study of original and effective leadership methods and principles through collaboration and lifelong learning, to benefit individuals, organizations, and
our communities.

May 1 2007 CoREM Workshop and Election!

CoREM Presents:

The Art of War

by Sun Tzu

Presented by Douglas Rosensteel, BHD Technologies

Free Registration: Contact Brien Palmer at bpalmer@interlinkbusiness.com or 724-733-5007.

On May 1, put on your armor, bring your broadsword, and prepare to do battle. CoREM is presenting Sun Tzu's Art of War, the epic work that has been translated into the language of management. Sun Tzu said, "Your skill comes from five factors. Study these factors when you plan war. You must insist on knowing your situation." Our presentation will begin with a discussion of the five factors and how they apply to leadership. It will end with a battle -- Deming vs. Sun Tzu. Come ready to choose sides. There can be only one! Or can there?

Douglas Rosensteel, a CoREM cofounder and President of BHD Technologies, Inc. is an organizational consultant with extensive experience as a practitioner. Specializing in Executive Assistance, his approach to organizational improvement is a unique combination of statistical method, human psychology, and systems thinking. He is certified through the Institute of Management Consultants as a Certified Management Consultant (CMC.) Prior to becoming a professional consultant, he held a variety of positions in industry. In 1984, he began studying the work of W. Edwards Deming, which led to a yearlong private tutorial with Dr. Gipsie B. Ranney, one of Deming’s colleagues. The tutorial focused on Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge and Dr. Peter M. Senge’s Disciplines of the Learning Organization.

Date: May 1, 2007

Time: Program - 4:00-6:00 PM, Social time - 6:00-6:45

Place: Forbes Road Career and Technology Center in Monroeville (directions follow)

Sponsor: CoREM (the Council on Realizing Excellence in Management)

Cost: free

Registration: Contact Brien Palmer at bpalmer@interlinkbusiness.com or 724-733-5007.

Directions to Forbes Road Career & Technology Center

The Center borders Boyce Campus of CCAC. Address: 607 Beatty Road, Monroeville, PA. 412-373-8100

From Downtown Pittsburgh: Go east on Interstate 376 (Parkway East) approximately 15 miles and get off the Parkway in Monroeville at exit 14B (Plum), just past exit 14A (Rt. 48). Proceed north through the intersection with the traffic light to the stop sign at Beatty Road. Van Horn’s Funeral Home will be on the far left corner. Turn right on to Beatty Road and drive to the second stop sign (Community College of Allegheny County--Boyce Campus entrance). Turn right and go approximately 100 feet. Turn left into the Forbes Road Career & Technology Center entrance (Gateway Press building is on the right).

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