Lean leadership means achieving your goals by developing people, teaching them to create more value and learn to eliminate waste
On the long train trip back from the gemba yesterday evening, a consultant next to me was checking his slides on the “management culture transformation” program he was selling. I couldn’t help myself from sneaking a peek: it had it […]
There are stormy days ahead. The climate forces we’ve woken up will be slow and unstoppable, triggering both natural and human catastrophes. We know that. We don’t know what and when – or how we’ll react. Rather than live with […]
To enter the world of lean you must first change your mind about a fundamental assumption of how to measure the value of a company. A company’s value is not, as financiers would have it, a monetary multiple of its […]
“Look at their eyes!” I remember one of my senseis trying to explain to me standard work. “Look at their hands. Look at their feet.” I was watching an operator on a line, pen and paper in hand, with a […]
What are the roots of lean? Some people have it going back to the arsenal in Venice, which I was fortunate to visit, but then again, most of industry probably comes from there. Others see the Gilbreths, Taylor and co. […]
People expect things to work, every day, before all else. Bosses, however, expect their staff to follow orders, before all else. Whatever your job is, don’t get fooled in thinking that success is defined by your boss’ approval. Bosses change, […]
“I don’t have time for this stuff!” How many times have you heard yourself think that as people let you down or get stuck on the simplest problems, as they get overwhelmed by the epidemic and/or their confinement? There is […]
Have you wondered: am I infected without symptoms? Am I contaminating others unknowingly? Years of gemba walks in hospitals have left this typically hypochondriac author with memories of irrationally leaving shoes on the doormat, carefully stripping, putting all clothes in […]
I’ve been studying lean in hospitals since the mid 1990s – co-wrote a book about it with a Nursing Director. I’m confined, but people tell me their gemba stories. It’s awful. It’s frightening. It’s inspiring. A hospital is a complex being – […]
Folk are ill and need support – but we can’t get close to them. Caregivers are on the frontlines and need equipment to work – but we can’t get out of our homes. Shop and logistics workers are keeping us […]
