Lean – Have it Your Way

It’s easy to determine whether the leadership of a company truly embraces lean thinking.  One of the more frustrating “tells” is the insistence of leadership to precisely follow the path others have taken. The underlying notion of achieving the same or similar results may be appealing but it does not address why the specific path or methodology was chosen by […]

Lean Is NOT A Legacy

Lean can be summarily defined as “The pursuit of perfection (value) through the relentless elimination of waste.”  Understanding what this actually looks like in the real world is an entirely different matter. The 8 wastes (technically 7) and the tools to continually strive to eliminate them are well documented.  Why is it then that companies still find themselves struggling to […]

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

  Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?  I stumbled across this term while reading 8 Unexpected Signs You’re Smarter Than Average by Jessica Stillman (Contributor Inc.com). The Dunning-Kruger effect, according to Wikipedia, is best described by the first two paragraphs and paraphrased in context as follows: The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people of low […]

Apple’s Best Kept Secrets … May Be Their Worst Enemy

One of the roles of leadership is to instill and foster a culture that embraces change and empowers the team to improve. This call for change is also echoed in the Plan-Do-Check-Act or PDCA cycle that serves as a typical model for driving continuous improvement in many organizations. In this regard, Apple has clearly demonstrated their commitment to develop and improve their existing […]

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

It’s hard to believe that four years have passed since we started blogging here on WordPress! We would like to thank our many subscribers and visitors for your many e-mails and comments, making this a fulfilling learning experience for all of us. This blog was originally founded on the premise that very little information was available on the topic of […]

Anticipation – Wait For It!

Anticipation We’ve all said it, “I just can’t wait!”  We look forward to certain events, both big and small, with eager anticipation. We carefully plan for vacations, family events, a get together with friends, or major purchases like a new car or home.  Our minds race, eagerly waiting for that magic moment to arrive. Anticipation instills excitement and expectation in […]

Lean Leadership: The Missing Link?

I coined the phrase “What you see is how we think” to suggest that the principles of lean thinking are not only embraced by everyone but are also evident throughout the organization.  In this context, becoming a lean organization requires effective leadership to create and foster an environment that allows lean thinking to flourish.  Just as a teacher establishes an […]

Sharp Minds – On the Cutting Edge or the Cutting Board?

I continue to be frustrated by the notion that the only way to reduce spending is by cutting services.  While the demand for change is high, few are willing to challenge tradition and conventional thinking to improve services and increase efficiencies that will enable us to do more with less, find new opportunities, and to create jobs instead of eliminating […]

Lean: Beyond Reach!

Almost everything I read or learned suggests that lean was never intended to be complicated. The simplest definition of lean I have read to date follows: Focus on what matters and eliminate what doesn’t This is not to suggest that lean is easy. In actual practice I find that some companies have sufficiently compounded the definition of lean to exclude […]

What did you expect? Benchmarking and Decisions – for better or worse.

What did you expect? Benchmarking & Decisions – for better or worse I recognize that benchmarking is not a new concept.  In business, we have learned to appreciate the value of benchmarking at the “macro level” through our deliberate attempts to establish a relative measure of performance, improvement, and even for competitor analysis.  Advertisers often use benchmarking as an integral component of their marketing strategy. […]