I was walking through a parking lot today, and for some reason, I noticed the puddles of oil in the center of every parking space. Not an uncommon occurrence, but it got me thinking about abnormal conditions. If your car was leaking oil, could you tell when you backed out Read more…
Today’s podcast addresses a topic that many ‘Lean Rookies’ face: the fear of failure. Making mistakes is a part of kaizen–when you are trying a lot of things quickly, not all of them are going to work out. Listen in to a story about how I overcame a failure on my very Read more…
I’m finding myself quickly growing more comfortable in front of a microphone talking about Lean. It helps that I love the topic, and could talk about it for days. This podcast contains my thoughts about where Lean can be useful. The idea came to me while I was at a coffee Read more…
I’m trying out this Lean podcast to give you another way to ‘sharpen your Lean axe.’ I know you are busy, and can’t spare a whole lot of time keeping up to speed. My goal is to give you a way to hear about Lean ideas on the go. This audio presentation runs Read more…
Generally, on the spot reprimands and ‘attaboys’ reinforce the wrong behavior…by leaders. Consider this. A leader is in charge of an average performer who has a bad day and really botches something up. The leader pulls the laggard off to the side, and gives him a stern ‘taking to’. The Read more…
Forbes magazine recently released its 2009 ‘best colleges’ list. My alma mater, the US Military Academy (West Point) came out on top. I am pleased with the results, since I can now ‘legally’ claim to have graduated from the best school in the country. Plus, our arch-rivals from Navy came Read more…
I’ve gotten another Lean video rolled out. This one is on the 5 Whys. If you are not familiar with it, the tool is useful for diving down to the root cause of a problem. Please take a look at it and let me know what you think. Rating it Read more…
Guess Who’s Thinking Outside the Box? I saw an interesting advertisement that highlights ‘out of box thinking’. Surprisingly, this innovation came from an insurance company. The insurer has a trucking company for a client. This client had a problem with gravel falling off trucks, creating an unsafe and expensive situation. Read more…
Back in May, I was a guest author on Ron Pereira’s LSSAcademy blog. (Click this link for the article on Leadership and Standard Work) Well, I went back today to see the comments, and saw one that got me thinking. The commenter questioned the application of the standardization process to Read more…
I’m on a roll this week. Getting a lot of new content out. Today, I posted a Lean video training presentation on the Fishbone/Ishikawa/Cause and Efect Diagram (the link takes you to the term in our Lean Dictionary.) It’s a six minute video that shows the basics of how to Read more…
So, I was thinking about my post from yesterday on customer service and retention and wanted to add another point. I really didn’t talk about the attitude of the employee at the front desk-the voice of the company. Now, she was civil to me. There was no evil cackle as Read more…
I had an interesting experience with my health club this week. It had to do with what I am presuming is a customer retention policy. I was cancelling one of the services they offer, but keeping the membership. First off, they told me I could not do this over the Read more…