It’s common for organizations to begin their Lean journeys focusing on production, operations and Lean tools. It’s only after toiling at it for a couple of years that they realize they should’ve focused sooner on the human capital aspects of creating lasting change. Commonalities between operational improvement and managing involvement are significant, particularly with regard to three critical work streams often overseen by the Human Resources (HR) arm of human capital [Read more]
Everyone owns their own shop
May 14, 2012 By 2 Comments
Hail the shop owner. The relentless, never-ending driver of continuous improvement. The person who, with utter conviction and dedication, is constantly seeking a way to increase sales, improve quality, gain word-of-mouth, lower costs, retain staff and improve customer experience in every way.
These folks understand that value is what customers are after – and that the only obstacle between delivering that value and mucking around with sub-standard nonsense is their own pride of ownership. People who are proud of their shop always want to have that pride. They want it to sustain and grow. They never want to see their pride diminished.
In your workplace, do people act like shopowners? [Read more]
Quick thoughts on the definition of excellence, and the weekly rewind
April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
It’s one of those days where what should be, and what is, are at odds with each other again…..
“Excellence” is something that ought to be defined objectively. There ought ot be agree-upon standards for excellence. In some cases there are, such as in sports where Excellence is defined as a team championship. Even then, however, excellence has a subjective interpretation – you might be a batting champion in baseball (meaning you have the highest individual batting average of any player), yet play for a last place team. A super star player might have sub-par statistics due to the poor team that surrounds him or her.
I think, if you ask almost any person, in any role, in any company what excellent means and they will tell you about their experience – and not necessarily about the standards within their profession. This may mean that, in reality, “excellence” becomes a locally-defined phenomenon, which is a mistake. [Read more]
Let’s all stop being professional, a rhino’s tale
April 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Every time someone with enough rank and a title granting them authority starts to screw up, behave in a foolish or terrible manner, or speak like a fool – we are told that we shouldn’t address the issue because “That wouldn’t be professional.” So, since being professional prevents us from acknowledging there are problems, let’s make a conscious decision to be profoundly un-professional.
What’s at work here is the manifestation of fear. Fear that if I point out there’s an 80,000 pound rhinoceros in the room, someone will make my life difficult, or I’ll lose my job altogether. Which is silly, because the rhinoceros is obvious and it stinks to high heaven. [Read more]
ROWE: An attempt at achieving the Lean Ideal?
March 15, 2012 By 4 Comments
In the past few months that I’ve been blogging about ROWE, I have been poking at how the two concepts might help to reinforce each other, with the premise that ROWE-thinking could help to enable Lean-thinking by overcoming the tools-based focus that is so prevalent in Lean implementations and, instead, returning the focus to the culture where I believe it belongs. fter stirring the pot and looking for the common ground between the two, I am now wondering if my original theory – that ROWE could enable Lean – was a bit backwards. [Read more]
LinkedIn Q&A: Few answers for Gemba in the Virtual Workplace.
February 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Last week’s question on LinkedIn followed up on a post I wrote here a few weeks back, asking for insight on how to go to Gemba when Gemba is anywhere:
It is clear that the popularity of virtual work locations and concepts such as ROWE are increasing. Going to Gemba is critical for Operational Excellence, however. How would you go to Gemba if the Gemba is anywhere and everywhere? [Read more]
Guest post on A Lean Journey, and the weekly rewind
February 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Today, I have a guest post appearing on Tim McMahon’s A Lean Journey Site. The Topic: ROWE in the context of the Shingo model. When Tim asked if I’d like to do a guest post on his site, I jumped at the chance. I also reached out to Mark Hamel, a blogger, an award-winning author for his book: The Kaizen Even Fieldbook, and a Shingo Prize examiner, for input. Mark wrote a complete post of his own which will appear on Tim’s site tomorrow. Mark dives even deeper into how ROWE aligns with the Shingo, and how it does not. [Read more]
Choosing between the Business Sucks or the Work sucks (and you can’t say “it depends”)
February 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Last week on Linked In, I posed this question in the Q&A forums:
Which would you prefer – A workplace with a progressive culture and employee-centric focus to its operations that struggles due to suboptimal business performance, or a difficult command-and-control environment, but with a record of high performance? What I found interesting about this, and many of the answers, was how much they discussed the issues they supposed were behind the question, or the question’s merits, without ever really providing an answer. [Read more]
Flexible workplaces – the best in respect for people?
February 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Respect for people extends beyond the workplace and into the personal lives of employees. Certainly, there are a great many people (if not most) who argue that personal concerns have no place in the workplace. If an employer is willing to understand that employees are people, however, and believes that all people have concerns that involve family issues and other areas of fulfillment, that demonstrate a much deeper understanding of just what respect for the individual is. [Read more]
Last week’s tweets
February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
In case you missed it, here are some tweet & re-tweets of articles & other things that caught my eye last week: From Others: From @tedcoine: YES!! RT @shawmu: Actually give a S### about the development of individuals.ow.ly/8SkuB via @kris_dunn From @ShingoPrize: Robert Miller said Shingo Prize focuses on more than just culture, it focuses on how [...]
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