More on kids and the wisdom gained from teaching baseball

So, it struck me, that when we interview candidates or assign people to tasks based on what they tell us about themselves, we are really only going on that person’s interpretation – which may be very different from our own. Different professions have attempted to make the understanding of the job standardized by instituting certifications and licenses, however, there is still a great deal of variation in the ability to understand and implement those standards. There is still one universal truth – the definition of what constitutes “good” is often developed after the fact and is done so according to subjective interpretations by someone with a need to save face. [Read more]

Less Dad, more Grandpa

Several times, I have heard people say that we need to get rid of the paternalistic, parenting relationships at work and gravitate more towards relationships based on patience, trust and mentoring. Every time I hear that sentiment, I get a shiver up my Dad spine, because it tends to reflect a lot of things about [...]

The Waste of Interpretation

Say what you mean.  Mean what you say. Speaking clearly is just another one of those things that seems like it ought to be easy to do, yet remains remarkably elusive.  Very often, when we’re speaking, we will say something that makes perfect sense to us, but our audience doesn’t understand.  When we’re listening, we [...]

Understanding why: Developing Critical Thinking in kids

When faced with information that contradicts our understanding of the way things are supposed to be, we revert back to what we already know, claiming disbelief in the rightness of what we’re seeing and failing to examine the situation in order to develop a new understanding. We are told to follow the rules, even if we don’t understand them, and we insist on following the rules even when it is pointed out that those rules were based on false assumptions. [Read more]

Role of Finance in Process Improvement

I caught a great article from Brad Power that was posted a couple weeks ago on the Harvard Busines Review, entitled “Shifting Finance from Controlling to Improving.”

What Power demonstrates are several CFO’s who have endeavored to make understanding finances simple to those who don’t live & breathe it in daily lives. They change the terminology to something more intutitve. They measure performance in a way that makes bottom-line impacts intutive. They help to spread the word about Lean to others with no-nonsense, easily articulated, and most importantly – easily acted-upon information. [Read more]

Ideas, not answers

My 6-year-old son has show-and-tell at school every Friday.   The night before his most recent presetation, I asked him what he wanted to bring to school.  He simply said, “Hmmm….I don’t know!” and shrugged his shoulders, waiting for me to give him something he could use. It was then that my improvement genes went into [...]

Meeting the Teacher

Let’s say a doctor has to have surgery. Do you think he walks into the operating room, holding his surgical gown closed with one hand and examining the instruments with the other? Does he look at the sheet that will cover him, checking to see if it’s sterile? Does he check the temperature of the room, ensuring that it’s at a comfort level that will be conducive to a successful surgery?

I don’t know if all of that happens, but I know some rather intense scrutiny ensues when a teacher attends a child’s Meet the Teacher night. [Read more]

Get the Big Picture

The Toyota Way Fieldbook is an interesting read for Lean thinkers looking to sharpen their sword.  Chapter 14 is titled Develop a Thorough Understanding and states that if we fail to look at a problem in the larger context we may limit the possible solutions and impact.  On the other hand, examining a problem in the larger context [...]

Irises and Sweet Bubby Bushes

In so many ways, we are who came before us. In many other ways, we are the antithesis of our ancestors, fighting to do better, have more, and be more than our parents and grandparents.

Today I sifted through artifacts (trinkets, my daughter called them) of my grandparents’ life. [Read more]

Setting the tone: 10 tips for leadership

We’ve all been put into situations where we need to take control of a situation early on.  Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves constantly looking up at a perch of credibility and respect we’ll have to work hard to climb up to, if we can even get there at all.  With that in mind, I came across [...]