Discussing Operational Excellence, Project Management, and everything else that comes to mind.
TweetWhen trying to overcome a person, team, or even an entire company that is not performing up to snuff, there is almost always an effort to find a one-time, quick fix that solves the problem. At such time, consultants are brought in, or experienced internal personnel are reassigned, so that the problem can be dealt [...]
Tweet Shuffling the pieces around creates new statements. Back in April of this year, when I started to develop this blog, I wrote a series of posts on Elephant Biting. The concept behind these posts was simple: You can’t take on an entire, big problem all at once. Those problems need to be handled little [...]
TweetA couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about Rube Goldberg Leadership, in which I related management and leadership practices to the 7 Wastes concept found in Lean thinking. That proved to be a fairly popular post by my modest standards, so I thought I’d take another swing at relating some more intangible activities to [...]
TweetHow to stand out from the crowd when everyone else is moving about as quickly and rapidly as possible? While everyone is flapping, shouting, kicking, rolling, and running about attempting to get noticed, who will actually be the one to draw attention to their ideas? The answer is simple: The one who isn’t doing any [...]
TweetWe need more tourists at work. While the hospitality industry would certainly agree, that’s not what I have in mind. What we need are people to walk around, keep journals of what they see, and share their experiences with others. When trying to generate improvements, people often get stuck when trying to look at their [...]
Tweet“Focus on the customer” might be an overused phrase. It also might be entirely wrong. At the very least, it’s inaccurate. Consider this familiar, but still powerful, example: You work in a hardware store. One day, Bill comes in and indicates he wants a drill. What does Bill need? You might be tempted to say [...]
TweetVery often, many of the solutions we develop when attempting to deal with a problem don’t result in long-term improvements. Instead, they are band-aid approaches that only attempt to keep today’s fires at bay. Unfortunately, those fires tend to rekindle, and we approach them, yet again, with another round of short-term “solutions.” In order to uncover systemic [...]
TweetAny time we take on a large project, there are always times when we feel like we’re getting stuck. Rather than letting frustration or despair sink in, sometimes we simply need to approach the task from a different perspective. Every process we engage in involves an element of learning. Often, those frustrating periods of apparent [...]
TweetThe way in which you approach a problem determines the way in which you solve it. One of the most important lessons you will ever learn, is how to make your own rules. In order to overcome obstacles and transform situations, others and yourself, you have to go beyond what you are told to do [...]
