Anaheim and LA Chapter of Apics Present

"Managing to Lead; Lessons in Leadership from an Inflatable Pig"

Presented by Bob Mitchell (bio)

“Managing to Lead; Lessons in Leadership from an Inflatable Pig”

This is a true story of good management intentions resulting in less than favorable results. Dr. W. Edwards Deming often said that good intentions and best efforts don’t necessarily result in the best output. Without an understanding of and appreciation for the system, people would often make mistakes in their decision making.

Dr. Deming also said; “Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people.” As we walk through the story of the inflatable pig we will explore the intentions of management and the output of the system management put in place. Along this journey we will discuss several failure modes in management and leadership to help us to be more thoughtful in our own decision making and thus, better leaders.

We will learn that there can be two realities at work; the one the leader(s) think is real and the one that really is! Then; we can ask ourselves “do I want to be a leader of a reality that only exists in my own mind?” Outside of work, this is called lunacy. Inside, it is often called “leadership.”

Join us for an evening of good food, friends, and fun as we discuss subject we have all experienced.

Presenter: Bob Mitchell, Operations and Supply Chain Professional

A W. Edwards Deming, Eli Goldratt and Peter Senge fanatic. Born in Kansas, raised in Thousand Oaks, CA.

Started work at Rockwell at age 18. Thirty-six years experience in quality assurance, manufacturing process development, control and continuous improvement. LSS Blackbelt and TOC practitioner. Have a Masters in Total Quality Management, a Bachelors in Business Administration, Associate Degree in law enforcement. Certified Quality Manager, Certified Quality Auditor, Commercial Pilot, Flight and Ground Instructor.

Currently serving as the V.P. of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs for Sechrist Industries, the world’s leader in Hyperbaric Medicine. Prior to Sechrist Bob was Senior Vice President of Global Quality and Regulatory for DJO (formerly known as DonJoy), a one billion dollar Orthopedic Medical Device manufacturer where he was responsible for product quality and regulatory affairs for business units worldwide. Prior to DJO Bob was Sr. V.P. of World-wide Quality and Regulatory Affairs for VIASYS Health Care; a medical device manufacturer of Respiratory, Neurologic, and Orthopedic medical devices. The team grew this company to $800m, sold it to Cardinal Health and Bob was “off to pursue new opportunities” as they say. Also served as Head of QA/RA for the Irvine Mallinckrodt Medical Device plant as well as Customer Program Quality Manager for Printronix in Irvine. Mallinckrodt sold to Tyco, was shut down and moved to Mexico. Between Mallinckrodt and VIASYS Bob worked for Amgen for two years heading up parts of their Lean Six Sigma experiment. Before all this Bob spent 20 years at Rockwell International in various quality assurance and continuous improvement roles. Bob has three young adult children and three grandsons and a forth coming soon. Bob enjoys riding motocross bikes and restores vintage race bikes. He raced the Lake Elsinore Grand Prix in November and plans to race many Gp's in 2012.