Tips for Lean Managers Archives | Page 3 of 22

Facing the Firing Squad

By Steve Kane - December 16th, 2016

By Steve Kane I recently had the opportunity to watch a value stream mapping training event in an administrative process. These types of events are enjoyable for me because I always learn something new. The lesson learned th

Change Management Lessons from Big Trees Transplant

By Jon Miller - October 14th, 2015

This may be the best unintentional video on nemawashi ever. For those new to nemawashi, it is a Japanese word meaning “preparing roots of a tree for transplant” but is known to us as part of the consensus-building and chang

The 20 Words Most Often Spoken in a Lean Organization

By Jon Miller - August 19th, 2015

Customer Value Problem Why Standard Process See Cause Team How Experiment When Data Check Result Learn Better Sustainable Purpose Thanks

Retail Values for Lean Leadership

By Jon Miller - October 17th, 2012

Here is a photo of an excellent visual control and reminder to the staff of a local independent bookstore. It says Talk to everyone. Greet everyone who comes through the door. Be out on the floor. Get to know the books!! There are stro

The Global Food Waste Scandal

By Jon Miller - September 28th, 2012

“Stop wasting food. Thank you very much.” So ends the TED talk by Tristram Stuart titled The global food waste scandal. Pictured above, Tristram stands behind a mound of perfectly edible but imperfectly shaped bananas, one

Hoshin Kanri as Both Strategy and Meta-strategy

By Jon Miller - August 3rd, 2012

Meta is one of my favorite four-letter words. People don’t use it often enough. Being meta is what makes ideas curl back upon themselves, thereby enriching our understanding of them. For example there is meta-emotion (our feeling

The Neglected Art and Science of Organization (re)Design

By Jon Miller - July 3rd, 2012

I follow three simple rules whenever looking at an organization chart with a view to improving its effectiveness. First, remove structural causes of delay or loss in information and decision flow wherever possible. Second, decrease spa

Go to Gembanana

By Jon Miller - June 2nd, 2012

The Wall Street Journal article titled Five Lessons From the Banana Man introduces us to the practical business wisdom of Samuel Zemurray, the former head of the United Fruit Company. The article is a good reminder that so-called Lean

Building Excellent Systems: Top-down or Bottom-up?

By Jon Miller - February 27th, 2012

“We have to take these pockets of excellence, these islands of excellence and make them systems of excellence.” These could be words of an executive in encouragement of a kaizen team, spoken in any number of languages, at a

10 Rules for Good Gemba Walks

By Jon Miller - January 12th, 2012

Elmore Leonard is an American novelist who has written lean and taut crime novels for a half-century. He is the Toyota of crime novels if that’s a compliment. Reliable, not flashy, always delivering on the promise of a hard-boile

Tips for Lean Managers

Start your Lean & Six Sigma training today.