Dr. Deming was fond of promoting the idea that every employee should be able to achieve joy at work and that joy would lead to improved quality and performance for the organization. The research on happiness supports the value of his intuition. Seeking happiness is consistent with seeking a high performance organization.
Read MoreThe primary task of a manager is to think. The future success of the organization is dependent upon his or her ability to think clearly, critically, and creatively.
The greatest enemy of continuous improvement is arrogance, particularly on the part of leaders, and the opposite quality of humility is a requirement of learning and improvement.
In my previous post I introduced the idea that there are “big thoughts,” or over-arching cultural principles that are essential to creating a genuinely lean culture. I suggested that the principle of Unity was the first. The second is what I will call the principles of Empiricism and Humility.
Read MoreLean Management Systems: The New Modern Management Lean management systems are becoming the twenty-first century standard. Many years ago one of the first books I read on management was Peter Drucker’s The Practice of...
Read MoreIs “Lean” a change methodology or an end-state, where we are going, or how we are getting there. Many lean implementations fail due to a failure to appreciate effective change methodologies. Whole-system architecture is a “macro-lean” change methodology.
Read MoreThe exact definition of “lean” has been the subject of some debate recently on lean discussion forums. Here are some definitions, and the are all correct.
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