Gemba Academy

Dance Your Way to Better Team Performance

By Jon Miller - April 25th, 2016

During our monthly coaching conversation last week, one of my customers shared her latest challenges and successes in leading continuous improvement within her organization. To my surprise she added, “Also, my team and I sig

To Be a Lean Coach, Know the Wrong Answers

By Jon Miller - April 18th, 2016

The success of lean systems, and continuous improvement in general, relies on engaging the hands and brains of everyone in the upkeep and renewal of the system. It requires constant practice. It requires a strong will to compete and t

Inspiring a Bias for Action

By Steve Kane - April 15th, 2016

Jamie Parker practices Lean and is passionate about learning and sharing Lean leadership. She has 15 years’ experience in operations management / leadership across retail, service, and manufacturing environments. Jamie serves as

Lean Systems and Robots That Can Say “No”

By Jon Miller - April 11th, 2016

“A robot that follows commands without question could put humans in danger” warns a Scientific American article that argues why robots need to be able to say “no” to our commands. Just as people should not alwa

A Break to Reflect and Unlearn

By Kevin Meyer - April 8th, 2016

By Kevin Meyer Over the past few years I’ve been working hard on cultivating positive habits. New habits can be powerful. But habits can also create barriers that limit our perspective, which can hinder kaizen, creativity, and even o

How to Change Minds

By Jon Miller - April 4th, 2016

One of the most common challenges people face when leading continuous improvement is persuading others to change. We agree that want a different results, we agree that this requires different processes and different behaviors, and we

Employee Engagement Poor, But Not in Retreat

By Jon Miller - March 28th, 2016

The Gallup organization polls adults working for U.S. employers daily by phone, reporting on levels of employee engagement. Each year they alert the world to the crisis of employees engagement. It is consistently around 70% not engage

Half of the Day is Open to Reflection

By Jon Miller - March 21st, 2016

March 20th marked the equinox, when the duration of day and night are roughly equal all over the planet. This day comes twice per year and marks the entry into spring or into autumn. On the equinox, half of the day is day and half is�

More Than Metrics

By Steve Kane - March 18th, 2016

By Steve Kane I’ve had some conversations recently about what a successful lean journey looks like. Of course, we talked about key performance indicators and monitoring metrics. As the saying goes, not everything that can be coun

Coaching in Sports and at Work

By Jon Miller - March 14th, 2016

In the sporting world the separation of duties between the coach and the players on the team is pretty clear. The players play, the coaches coach the players. For professional sports there is also the general manager who handles the bu

Looking Back on All My Children Have Taught Me

By Ron Pereira - March 11th, 2016

I’ve been blogging since 2007 and have written hundreds of articles. And while I definitely have some favorite lean thinking articles like the value stream mapping series I wrote back in 2008… the articles I cherish the m

Why Leaders Don’t Counter Biases for “Why Organizations Don’t Learn”

By Jon Miller - March 7th, 2016

A November 2015 Harvard Business Review article titled Why Organization’s Don’t Learn did a good job of outlining the main cultural reasons that organizations fail to learn and adapt. The concepts introduced can be equa

The Other Flow of Csíkszentmihályi

By Kevin Meyer - March 4th, 2016

Those of us in the Lean world are accustomed to discussing “flow” – where work is performed in an even manner to reduce mura. Activities are synchronized, layouts are optimized, resources are available exactly where a

The Fog of Waste

By Jon Miller - February 29th, 2016

Last week I made a stunning discovery. There are literally bucketfulls of water in the air around me. For months this winter, I thought nothing of mopping up the condensation off of the windows every morning using paper towels. To put

The Skills Sought in a Lean Graduate

By Jon Miller - February 22nd, 2016

Matching the content, quality, cost and speed of delivery of a product or service to what the customer wants is the key for business success. This basic lesson is taught in business schools both as theory and through real-life case s

Say No

By Steve Kane - February 19th, 2016

By Steve Kane I’ve recently committed to more short-term responsibilities in and out of work than I should have. We’ve all be in this situation before, leaving ourselves with insufficient time to meet all the demands we’ve put

Learn How to Present Like Steve Jobs & Simon Sinek

By Ron Pereira - February 12th, 2016

Over the last few years I’ve started to do more and more keynote presentations in front of live audiences. And, while I love doing these live talks it’s much different than shooting a video in our studio or on the road during a

Weighing the Waste of Waiting

By Jon Miller - February 8th, 2016

TIMWOOD is a mnemonic, or memory aid, for reciting the seven types of waste that lean aims to reduce. At its geographic if not spiritual center is W – waiting. This indicates time people spent unproductively while waiting for so

The Liberating Lessons of Less

By Kevin Meyer - February 5th, 2016

By Kevin Meyer My twenty plus year Lean journey has changed my life in many ways, but perhaps none as significant as a creating a pervasive recognition of and disdain for waste. Coupled with respect for people, this has changed my care

Meal Preparation as a Metaphor for Lean

By Jon Miller - February 1st, 2016

In recent weeks my opportunities to prepare meals for my family has increased. I have planned meals, purchased the groceries, followed recipes, prepared the food, served the food, received feedback, and filed this information for futu

Respect for People: Roommate Edition

By Jessica Bush - January 28th, 2016

As a young lean enthusiast, I have yet to experience a greater example of the need for Respect for People than living with roommates. From a cramped dorm room shared with one other person, to a more “grown up” house shar

Peak Stuff and the Hierarchy of Useless Things

By Jon Miller - January 25th, 2016

In a radio interview this week the Chief Sustainability Officer for IKEA, Steve Howard, introduced the interesting idea that the West has arrived at “peak stuff.” He observed that consumption of “stuff” such

Surviving E-mail Overburden with Seven Ds

By Jon Miller - January 18th, 2016

A recent Scientific American article on the strain of always being on call summarizes the stressful effects of always being connected to work. The modern workday may be unique in human history, in that we receive hundreds of messages p

The Only Genuine Knowledge Is That of Actual Experience

By Steve Kane - January 15th, 2016

“The only genuine knowledge is that of actual experience.” ~ Chinese proverb Training is a big part of lean transformation. Countless hours and dollars are spent in training rooms, seminars, and classrooms every year. It’s comm

GA 093 | How to Start a Lean Initiative with Blake Watermeier

By Jessica Bush - January 14th, 2016

Today’s guest is Blake Watermeier, Regional VP of Operations at ARC Document Solutions. Blake and I discuss the process of starting a new lean initiative and the obstacles that often follow. This episode complements last weekR

Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive