featuredpost Archives | Gemba Academy

Safety In Numbers: What Message Are We Sending?

By Steve Kane - June 17th, 2016

Guest contribution by Jamie Parker “Don’t tell the team. I don’t want to be the reason our number goes back to zero.” These are the words a front-line team member shared with her plant manager after sustaining an injury. You se

5 Thoughts On Dealing With Leadership Resistance

By Steve Kane - November 20th, 2015

By Steve Kane Gemba Academy recently conducted a one-question survey. The question was “What are you struggling with on your continuous improvement journey?” The most common response was related to dealing with leadership resistanc

Improvement Through Personal Fulfillment

By Steve Kane - October 16th, 2015

By Steve Kane Tony Robbins is well known for his motivational speaking, books, interviews and articles. A consistent theme in his work is the six human needs. 1. Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure 2. Uncertaint

Discovering the Inner Merton

By Kevin Meyer - October 9th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted. ― Thomas Merton, Love and Living Sometimes there are dots just waiting to

Standard Work Saved a Company

By Steve Kane - September 18th, 2015

By Steve Kane I’ve been an aviation enthusiast most of my life. I started flying sailplanes a couple of years ago and recently transitioned to power planes. The first lesson in flying is an introduction to standard work—specifical

Discovering the Value of People

By Kevin Meyer - September 11th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Big news in the business world: Wal-Mart is famous for keeping costs down, including employee-related costs. In Joplin, the company is testing a new approach: investing in workers through higher wages and training, on th

Owning Numerical Ignorance

By Kevin Meyer - August 14th, 2015

Earlier this year I discussed the value created by writing by hand. By writing on whiteboards or scribbling in a notebook, ownership, learning, and understanding is created. Similarly, truly understanding numbers creates ownership,

You’re Good When You Think You’re Bad

By Kevin Meyer - July 10th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Well over a decade ago I created my first lean enterprise assessment, just as a tool to help me understand gaps in my organization. I’m generally loathe to use such tools as they are often misinterpreted, gamed,

The Value of Uber and Airbnb

By Kevin Meyer - June 12th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer The following is not an advertisement, even if it sounds like it. I will admit I am a big fan of Uber and use the service pretty much anytime I travel. Now that they’re in my relatively small town, I might start us

Slow… or Just Observant?

By Kevin Meyer - May 1st, 2015

By Kevin Meyer The recent earthquake in Nepal has led me to reflect a bit on the importance of observation. Just over a year ago my wife and I were in Nepal, visiting various locations in the Kathmandu valley as well as Pokhara and B

Learning by Writing… by Hand

By Kevin Meyer - March 17th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer I’m an early adopter tech geek at heart, and generally am among the first to embrace a new technology. I may not go to the extreme of standing in line for a new iPhone, but I will pay to upgrade to the latest model

Just Own It

By Kevin Meyer - February 24th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer In addition to having implemented lean in several companies, I’ve been fortunate to have been able to visit a large number of unique organizations where continuous improvement methods have taken root. Although f

The Engaging Value of Risk

By Kevin Meyer - February 3rd, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Humans tend to abhor chaos, and love to invoke rules to supposedly create order. We like rules because they make us feel protected, aligned, and perhaps operating on a fair playing field. At the same time we dislike rul

The Mindful Ohno

By Kevin Meyer - January 13th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer Mindfulness has become all the rage in personal and professional leadership these days, which is good and bad. Understood and done right, it is a very powerful concept. But as with most concepts it is also often misunde

The Best of LSS Academy – 2011 Edition

By Ron Pereira - December 29th, 2011

Well, friends, another year has come and gone. As always, I’d like to sincerely thank each and every one of you for taking the time to visit LSS Academy. We now have more than 16,000 subscribers which is simply mind blowing! I

The Long and Winding Road

By Ron Pereira - May 3rd, 2010

As I come up on the 90th day of my P90X workout program I can’t help but compare the situation to the continuous improvement journey. You see, by definition, the P90X program is meant to get you into top shape within 90 days. And, le

Value Stream Mapping Overview

By Ron Pereira - February 8th, 2008

One of, if not the single most powerful lean tool available to us is value stream mapping (VSM). The reason it’s so powerful is because of its relevancy. You see, it doesn’t matter if you are an accountant who sits behind a

Shadows or Reality?

By Ron Pereira - January 14th, 2008

One of my passions in life is to learn. As such, I have begun the year by ditching books about leadership, lean, and six sigma (for now). In their place I have decided to study philosophy which may make you want to yawn… but I woul

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