Guidelines are general instructions on how to make decisions. Unlike specific policies and processes, guidelines are not rigid. Guidelines are loose blueprints for success, such as “Don’t swim for 30 minutes after eating”. Contrasting with policies and rules, there are generally no sanctions for disregarding guidelines. While there is a Read more…
Frustration is the feeling of anxiety or dissatisfaction that results from the gap between expectations and reality. Frustration happens when problems are unsolved and when things don’t go according to plan. Lean depends heavily on employee engagement and job satisfaction to work at its best. Frustration reduces job satisfaction, thereby Read more…
Does experience matter anymore? Despite the fact that people talk about experience with a degree of reverence, it has a changing role in continuous improvement. Experience is defined as having knowledge or practical wisdom from having done something. The more it was done, the more experience a person gained. Be Read more…
Effectiveness is like the transmission of a car. It turns potential into results. Of course, there are two implications here. The first is that an individual has skills or characteristics that can lead to the desired outcome, or that a machine or process has the right capability and enough capacity. Read more…
Guidance is the way that a leader or mentor provides assistance to another person to help her reach her goals. Guidance is more general in nature than specific directions. The goal is to help a person make a good decision on her own, not to tell her what to do. Read more…
A simple definition of goal setting is that it is the act of declaring something that you want to achieve and putting some specific parameters around the end result. It includes the who, what, when, where, and why. This goal setting definition, though, is overly simplistic. Goal setting has a Read more…
Setting expectations is part of the relationship building process. Whether between a boss and a subordinate, or a Lean advocate and the rest of the company, relationships are formed by what one party expects from the other. One of the things that sets the human mind apart from that of Read more…
Criticism is negative feedback about something. At work, criticism can be about personal performance or a process.
In a Lean culture, discussing problems is an essential part of making improvements. The key to success at addressing these issues is to make every attempt to separate the failure of a person from the failure of a process.
Success in continuous improvement relies on many factors—leadership, communication, and employee engagement, to name a few. None of the intangibles matter, though, if employees and leaders are not properly trained. In a nutshell, training is the act of passing usable skills from one person to another. Instructors need two basic Read more…
Job satisfaction is a relatively simple concept. You have expectations about your work. When those expectations are met you are satisfied. When there is a gap between what you expect and the reality of your job, dissatisfaction creeps in. Job satisfaction plays a critical and often overlooked role in continuous Read more…
Imagine that it is a Friday afternoon. The sun is shining, and you are looking forward to all that the weekend has to offer you. You only have two days off. What are you going to do with your time? You have the option to play—maybe a round of golf Read more…
I have spent the majority of my waking hours for the last three weeks or so staring at my computer screen. My bloodshot eyes have gotten to really dislike re-doing any work I have already done once. To prevent the waste of this rework, we at Velaction use a process to Read more…