Leadership Archives | Page 36 of 37

Two Approaches to Learning

By Ron Pereira - July 6th, 2008

Have you ever watched the movie Searching for Bobby Fisher? It’s the one about the child prodigy chess player. Well the child, Josh Waitzkin, is all grown up now and has written a book called The Art of Learning. I am not done with t

The Spiritual Side of Continuous Improvement

By Ron Pereira - June 26th, 2008

I’m exhausted – both physically and mentally. For the past 5 days I’ve been involved in an extremely intense kaizen. One could even call it a kaikaku – or radical change event. I’ve coached, learned, cleaned, painted, and swe

What is Value?

By Ron Pereira - June 20th, 2008

“Above all, lean practitioners must be relentlessly focused on the customer when specifying and creating value.” -Womack & Jones, Lean Thinking I love Seth Godin’s blog. He has written some amazing posts over the year

5 Steps to Developing a Tiger Like Attitude

By Ron Pereira - June 17th, 2008

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” -Thomas Jefferson Since watching and reading about the greatness that is T

5 Steps to Developing a Thinking Organization

By Ron Pereira - June 11th, 2008

Scott recently asked: Ron, you mention “thinking production system” instead of Toyota. How do you learn to “think” better? What’s your recommendation for that? I agree with your premise but in my experience, learning to think

Strategies to Sustain Operations Excellence

By Ron Pereira - June 9th, 2008

This is an abridged version of a presentation I recently gave at a manufacturing excellence conference. If you’d like to download the video follow this link to Google Video and click on download video.

Entropy, Salmon, and Swimming

By Ron Pereira - June 4th, 2008

A can of soup falls if you drop it, your car tire blows out when a nail punctures it, and eventually my barbeque grill cools down after grilling steaks, even in the hot Texas air. Why is this? Allow me to explain. While these things ar

A Lesson in Courage

By Ron Pereira - May 27th, 2008

“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” -Baltasar Gracian Family Vacation Over the Memorial Day weekend my family and I went on a much needed vacation. We normally go to Sea World each summer, but since my wife is almost 8 month

Make a Mistake… Own up to it

By Ron Pereira - May 22nd, 2008

A lesson I’ve known for a long time was just reinforced for me here at a restaurant in the London Heathrow airport. Here’s what happened. I arrived at the airport early so decided to sit down for a nice English breakfast (

Lessons from the airport

By Ron Pereira - May 18th, 2008

Recently, in the DFW airport, as I was buying a bottle of water I watched an older man chastise two of his younger workers for wearing earrings. Apparently, in this store you aren’t allowed to wear things in your ears. Fair enough. B

Why Do Employees Underperform?

By Ron Pereira - May 9th, 2008

The best free lean magazine I know of, Industry Week, recently discussed an interesting survey done by LifeCare Inc. where they investigated why some employees underperform in their jobs. While I am from the school that says you nee

The Enemy of Better

By Ron Pereira - May 5th, 2008

Do you aspire to be the best? How about your company… do they want to be the best? If so, I contend this is the deadliest goal you or your organization can have. Allow me to explain. You see if you are indeed the “best” as de

Life is like a bowl of oranges

By Ron Pereira - April 29th, 2008

As I mentioned towards the end of our most recent video the demonstration with the oranges, pebbles, sand, and water can be used to explain a far more important life lesson. Before this, please allow me to thank you for your comments a

Tips for Dealing with Conflict

By Ron Pereira - April 21st, 2008

Our ability, as business leaders, to manage conflict can’t be overstated. If you’ve never dealt with conflict in a professional environment…well, you live a blessed life. Most of us, however, have almost certainly facilitated a m

The Crow and the Pitcher

By Ron Pereira - April 20th, 2008

Here’s a neat story credited to Aesop. It’s found in the 2nd century AD Greek fable collection by pseudo-Dositheus. That sets the scene far more eloquently than me explaining how I came across the story in one of my kid’

The Efficiency Conundrum

By Ron Pereira - April 15th, 2008

Ah yes, efficiency. If there was ever a word more abused I’d like to know about it. I don’t think there is. OK, maybe utilization. But efficiency is really butchered. So let’s dig into the efficiency conundrum a bit this evening

The Old Navy from Hell

By Ron Pereira - April 10th, 2008

My blogging goes in spurts. I seem to get on a “theme” and roll with that for a few posts. Well, regular readers of LSS Academy have likely sensed I have been on a “take action/5S” rant as of late. Well,

Well Do Something!

By Ron Pereira - April 9th, 2008

“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” -Yogi Berra A True Story Several years ago I was riding in the car with my Grandma and Grandpa. We were driving to the store if I remember correctly. Along the way my Grandpa pulled

Fix the Broken Windows

By Ron Pereira - April 7th, 2008

What do fixing broken windows and continuous improvement have in common? I contend a lot. Read on and let me know if you agree. The so-called broken window theory comes to us by way of the criminology world. Broken Windows The theo

Hesitate and Die

By Ron Pereira - March 31st, 2008

One of my favorite movies is U-571 starring Matthew McConaughey. In the movie, a German submarine is boarded by disguised American submariners seeking to capture its Enigma cipher machine. Now in Charge Once the seasoned skipper di

Dealing with Doubting Thomas

By Ron Pereira - March 30th, 2008

Today, Roman Catholics around the world read about Doubting Thomas. No matter what your personal belief system is, I think there is much to learn from this story, especially for those of us attempting to drive change in our organizati

What is Progress?

By Ron Pereira - March 26th, 2008

I was reading some quotes of G.K. Chesterton tonight and came across this one. “Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.” – Orthodoxy, 19

The Time of Fulfillment

By Ron Pereira - February 28th, 2008

The word metanoia literally means the changing of one’s mind through repentance. Spiritual Life In the theological sense, metanoia occurs when a person examines their life and decides to turn away from sin and towards God. Often time

The Real Leader

By Ron Pereira - February 25th, 2008

My sister Denise recently sent me this quote. “He has genuine integrity, he has serious style, and he’s pulled me through more than one bout of the stomach flu. Anybody can sprinkle rose petals across a big brass bed, but o

The Never Ending Pursuit of Wisdom

By Ron Pereira - February 5th, 2008

Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise (1 Cor 3:18). Wisdom is a mysterious thing and something, I contend, worth our full attention. You see, I

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