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Value stream mapping training is almost like six sigma training these days – a dime a dozen. There is so much content out there, and so much of it is the same. At the Lean Learning Center, we’ve always focused on solving problems that had not yet been solved, or

It’s too bad everyone isn’t just like us, isn’t it? Wouldn’t the world be a better place? Of course not. But our behaviors often suggest that we do hang on to this belief. We are far more likely to recognize the skills and talents of others if those skills and

Recently Industry Week published an article called Lean Confusion. In it was the following data from their surveys: What really shocks me is that 25 percent of companies feel that their lean journey is “complete”. How is this possible? Here’s my real struggle with this idea. If they have gotten

  Recently a lot has been made of the relationship between a CEO and their board of directors. Mark Hurd recently ousted by the HP board is a case in point. This had nothing to do with performance, and everything to do with the relationship, communication, and trust. Last week

A jobless recovery – that is perhaps the most optimistic I would describe today’s environment. I’m not very optimistic about the economy on the whole. For starters (and we could go on), there is $535 billion in commercial real estate loans coming due over the next year. What do you

Do you think of yourself as a coach? When I ask this question, almost every single hand goes up. But what does that really mean? Do we have a process? Or do we confuse sharing our little bits of wisdom with coaching? To be an effective coach, you must combine

I’ve been in and out of a stand-up desk as I’ve changed offices or moved, but I’ve been an advocate for a long-time. Many people I know use one, including my former mentor when I was at MIT my financial manager Kevin Meyer of Superfactory, who’s be a very strong

How to improve your ability to work up in the organizational chart I’m sure many of you in organizations of every shape and size see the need and opportunity to coach up. But coaching your boss, or other leaders beyond that, can be a tricky business. Despite it being one

So many things can distract us from what the core of our work is all about. Email is often a distraction, but there are so many more – Facebook and Twitter, consuming news whether on the internet or TV, politics inside your industry or company, promotion and self-promotion, and the

Want to check out some of the latest lean thinking from Mark Graban at LeanBlog.org, Jon Miller at Gemba Panta Rei, Kevin Meyer and Bill Waddell at Evolving Excellence , John Hunter at Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog , Matthew May at In Pursuit of Elegance , and Ron Pereira