Tips for Lean Managers Archives | Page 3 of 9

11 Lean Strategy Insights from the Mind of Art Byrne

By Jon Miller - December 2nd, 2010

Bob Emiliani’s latest book, Real Lean vol. 6 contains both controversial and though-provoking ideas about lean as it relates to politics, economics, education, leadership and management. It’s an easy read but not a light re

How to Drive Fear and Inaction Out of Organizations

By Jon Miller - November 17th, 2010

One of the main reasons that the authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton give for inaction in the face of knowledge in their highly useful book The Knowing-Doing Gap is fear. They cite a statistic that one in six people have held bac

Lead with Just the Power of Ideas

By Jon Miller - November 16th, 2010

I watched the movie Inception during a recent flight. It is a film about planting ideas into the minds of businessmen by sneaking into their dreams. This sounds difficult until we consider the film’s viewpoint that all existence,

10 Mistakes in Starting Lean Enterprise Transformations

By Jon Miller - October 11th, 2010

The are plenty of mistakes people can make when starting up a lean enterprise transformation. Interestingly, many of these mistakes are similar if not identical to those entrepreneurs make in starting a business. Perhaps these mistakes

Why Salmon Would Fail at Hoshin Kanri

By Jon Miller - September 8th, 2010

While cleaning out my pockets after a long summer of travel I found “hoshin is like salmon” on a bit of improvised note-taking paper, in my handwriting. If it was important enough to write down, the meaning of this scrawl s

Leaders Pull

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2010

Leaders lead. Or do they? There is not always a cause and effect relationship between leadership actions and follower behavior. Not all leaders succeed at pulling people along in the same direction. If a leader needs to drive people in

How to Motivate Front Line Workers

By Jon Miller - August 9th, 2010

We are often asked the million dollar question, “How do we motivate the front line workers?” This is a high value question because people are any organization’s greatest yet often worst utilized asset. Understanding h

Andon Systems in a Land Where Red Means Go

By Jon Miller - July 2nd, 2010

My daily walk to the office is filled with quiet danger. Much of Shanghai is a scene of too many people too eager to get to wherever they think they must go on streets that are too narrow. I have been to Shanghai perhaps 10 times. Duri

The 12 Herculean Labors of Lean Leaders

By Jon Miller - June 17th, 2010

When we say that a task is Herculean, it means it is extremely difficult. Heracles was a Greek hero (Hercules in the Roman version) who got into some trouble for killing a member of his family in a fit of madness and was assigned a ser

Enhancing Total Management Commitment

By Jon Miller - June 2nd, 2010

In an e-mail, Junaid asked: How we will enhance top management commitment and involvement for implementation of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)? This is a great general question to ask for any effort to establish excellence, maintai

How to Set Span of Control for Leaders

By Jon Miller - May 21st, 2010

Earlier in the week Jamie Flinchbaugh started a great conversatoin when he asked “what is the right span of control for a manager?” Jamie defined span as: “…how broad an individual managers responsibility is def

Where Old Dogmas Go to Die

By Jon Miller - May 16th, 2010

The death of dogma is the birth of morality. That’s a bit of winning 18th century philosophy from Immanuel “Never Say” Kant. Morality is the knowing of right from wrong at the level of truth. Dogma is personal opinion

The Necessity of Redundancy

By Jon Miller - April 21st, 2010

After every major natural disaster that disrupts global supply chains there are voices that cry out “A-ha! I told you just in time doesn’t work!” So with the Icelandic volcano turning European skies airoplane-free for

The Three Indispensable Qualities of a Lean Leader

By Jon Miller - March 22nd, 2010

Recently an old friend asked me to recommend a curriculum for certifying the lean leaders within their company to a more advanced level. The basic requirements for leading lean implementation, as with any change effort, are fairly stan

When to Shift from "Why?" to "How?"

By Jon Miller - March 16th, 2010

A recent problem solving team activity made me aware of the importance of knowing when to shift the conversation from “why?” to “how?” To be honest it is sometimes hard to know where to draw the line in the 5 wh

Questions About A3 Problem Solving

By Jon Miller - February 25th, 2010

These days if you stand next to a Toyota building and listen closely you may hear the sound of many sheets of A3 sized paper being slowly turned into problem solving documents. There are a few big, complex problems that will surely res

Five Change Management Errors that Make You Wish You’d Read this Article Sooner

By Jon Miller - January 12th, 2010

As part of the U.S. government spending to boost the economy, our city has been digging up ditches, replacing pipes and putting down sidewalks near my house for the past 6 months or so. The signs and announcements were there for weeks

Are You a Million Method Man?

By Jon Miller - December 23rd, 2009

Are you a million method woman or man? Too many well-intentioned lean implementations are. The million method man has a tool or method to solve any problem they encounter. In the best of situations they are heroes and teachers who brin

How to Use Lean to Achieve Bottom Line Results

By Jon Miller - December 22nd, 2009

In an e-mail, blog reader Heather asked: How else can you use lean to achieve bottom line results besides a growth strategy? The growth strategy for delivering bottom line results through lean goes something this: lean improvements cre

The Positive Tension Between SMART and Stretch Goals

By Jon Miller - December 14th, 2009

While helping a client through their hoshin kanri process last month one of the leaders in the company raised an interesting question about the selection and definition of breakthrough objectives as part of the hoshin plan. Breakthroug

The Path, the Traveler and the Destination

By Jon Miller - December 8th, 2009

The path, the way, the road, the tao, el camino: the course of the traveler has many names. Each evokes a sense of possibility, anticipation and wonder. What lies ahead? What is the destination? What will one find along the way? Robert

The Advantages of A1 Thinking Over A3 Thinking

By Jon Miller - December 2nd, 2009

What is popularly called A3 thinking is the practical problem solving process which summarizes the PDCA cycle on one page. Those of us who have memories of TQC will recognize it as nearly identical to the QC storyline concept. Many QC

Management Improvement Carnival #83

By Jon Miller - November 30th, 2009

We are honored to guest host Management Improvement Carnival #83. John “The Curious Cat” Hunter has collected interesting blog articles in over 80 previous carnivals. If you missed Carnival #82 be sure to visit the choices

No Excuses, Respect for People and Finishing Strong

By Jon Miller - November 19th, 2009

We often make excuses about why we can’t do something, whether it’s solve a problem, improve our situation or just get things done. My friend Róbert shared an inspiring video of a speech by Nick Vujicic. Nick is a man with

The 5 Universal Laws of Gemba Management

By Jon Miller - November 2nd, 2009

When we say something is “not rocket science” we mean that it is not hard to figure out or to do. If managing people were as easy as rocket science I am sure a rocket scientist would have figured it out by now. Groups of pe

Tips for Lean Managers

Start your improvement training today.