The Way of the Goose: 5 Leadership Lessons

By Ron Pereira - April 21st, 2009

We humans can learn a lot from geese. Yes, that’s right, geese. In fact, in 1991 Angeles Arrien gave a speech called “Lessons from Geese” that was largely based on the work of Milton Olson. What follows is my take on the stor

Crowdsourced Leadership Standard Work

By Ron Pereira - April 19th, 2009

A few weeks ago I posted an article where I asked for your thoughts on what “leadership standard work” meant to you.  As is typical, you all blew me away with your comments. Steve Armitage, a reader of Gemba Academy’

Does Spiderman Save?

By Ron Pereira - April 18th, 2009

While it has nothing to do with lean or six sigma this was just too good to not share. My 4 year old daughter recently asked my wife, “Mommy, does Spiderman take away the sins of the world?” Sure, they ‘cost’ a

The Continuous Improvement Companion

By Ron Pereira - April 15th, 2009

I recently came across an excellent, and free, resource anyone interested in lean or six sigma will definitely want to check out. The resource is called The Continuous Improvement Companion. It was written by Jeff Hajek, author of the

No Fear and Big Girl Bikes

By Ron Pereira - April 9th, 2009

One of my favorite things about LSS Academy, aside from the thousands of awesome comments you’ve all left the past few years, is how I get to sneak in personal aspects of my life from time to time. I especially love to write about my

Free 5S Overview Module

By Ron Pereira - April 5th, 2009

Here is a free 5S Overview module. It’s actually the first module of our 5S Workplace Productivity course that is part of the Gemba Academy School of Lean. For more free online modules like this, including free quizzes and PDF do

Leadership Standard Work

By Ron Pereira - April 3rd, 2009

Did you know that 50% of all leaders are below average? It’s a fact. With this said, a good friend of mine recently asked me what I thought the Standard Work document would look like for a “Leader.” In other words, if you could l

Walk On

By Ron Pereira - April 1st, 2009

Brain Rules

By Ron Pereira - March 30th, 2009

The human brain fascinates me. As such, I was very excited to finally read Brain Rules by John Medina. In this book Medina proposes 12 different rules, that once understood, may help us all to be happier and more productive individuals

The Ultimate “Sustain” Audit

By Ron Pereira - March 24th, 2009

So I have 5S on my mind since I’m wrapping up a 5S course for the Gemba Academy School of Lean. Anyhow, while finishing the “sustain” module I thought about one of the easiest ways to determine how far your organizati

Do We Even Need the 4th and 5th S?

By Ron Pereira - March 20th, 2009

Jon Miller – my friend, mentor, and now business partner – has asked his readers some extremely interesting questions regarding whether the 4th and 5th S, in 5S are even needed. Your feedback will be used by us as we finish

Sandwich Making Muda

By Ron Pereira - March 19th, 2009

I absolutely love to watch people. And I don’t mean watch in a creepy kind of way… I mean I love to watch people work and do their jobs. Well, today I was getting some lunch at a restaurant I often go to and I noticed they had impl

The Cost of Searching

By Ron Pereira - March 17th, 2009

Studies have shown that the average person can spend around 30 seconds every 5 minutes of their working day searching for something. That’s not too bad… or is it? Consider This Well, if you consider that this is 30 seconds out of a

It’s Officially On: Gemba Academy Launches

By Ron Pereira - March 15th, 2009

Note, this post was originally written on March 15, 2009. See what Gemba Academy looked like back then. After many, many hours of PDCA (plan, do, check, act) the time has finally arrived for Gemba Academy to officially open its doors f

The Greatest in the Kingdom

By Ron Pereira - March 12th, 2009

I was recently reading my all time favorite book and came across some comments that caused me to ponder a few of the articles I’ve recently written about being an expert and how many hours it takes to become an expert. Here’

An Expert State of Mind

By Ron Pereira - March 10th, 2009

A person going by the name of “ford” left a very interesting comment to my post about it taking 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.  Here was the comment: “The moment one gets into the `expert’ state of mind

Web Check-In: Lean or Not?

By Ron Pereira - March 8th, 2009

The Pereira household has been battling flu like symptoms for over a week now. My kids have all had it and most recently my wife got it. I, knocking on wood, have escaped it so far but I am not getting cocky about it! In any event, at

Spreading the Gospel with Web Video

By Ron Pereira - March 5th, 2009

Man, who would have thought a video I shot at around midnight with a crappy digital camera and some shop lights from Home Depot clipped to a step ladder – yes that’s exactly how I did it! – would be watched more than

The Art of Giving Instructions

By Ron Pereira - March 3rd, 2009

So, it would seem that the conversation between cake maker and customer went something like this. Cake Making Employee: Hello, how can I help you? Customer: I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week. Cake Making Emp

Stop Shining… Clean to Inspect

By Ron Pereira - March 1st, 2009

The third S, in 5S, is commonly referred to as shine. A more accurate translation of the original Japanese word – seisou – is probably scrub or sweep. But shine works as well. Missing the Point But here’s the thing. Most people c

10,000 Hours of Practice

By Ron Pereira - February 26th, 2009

10,000 hours. That’s precisely how long you need to practice something before you can even think about calling yourself an expert. Well, at least this is what Malcolm Gladwell claims in his newest book Outliers, which I must say is o

You’re Late. What Do you Say?

By Ron Pereira - February 24th, 2009

It’s 7:58 AM and beads of sweat are forming on your forehead. Your pulse rate is increasing as you grip your steering wheel tightly. And to make matters worse… you forgot your mobile phone at home. In 2 minutes you will officially

Free Introduction to Lean Video

By Ron Pereira - February 18th, 2009

Here is part one of our first Gemba Academy video. To see the complete and full screen version – in high definition – please visit our main site. Stay tuned for more free videos in the coming weeks.

Smiling, Laughing, and Blow-out Diapers

By Ron Pereira - February 17th, 2009

A friend, who’ll stay nameless since it involves a family member of his, recently told the story of how his 8 month old child threw-up on him, smiled, laughed and then had a blow-out diaper. How’s that for imagery? Well, my fri

Gemba Academy: Improvement Learning, Improved

By Ron Pereira - February 14th, 2009

Let me start with three words: passionate, ecstatic and enthralled. Passionate is the perfect word to describe how I feel about continuous improvement. While ecstatic best describes my joy at being able to share some exciting news with