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Do you have a group of people leading lean? Whether formal or informal, there is often such as group particularly early in the lean journey (meaning the first several years). I get a lot of questions by email, some by clients and others by readers. Many are two specific to

Robert Fritz is the person who best articulated the concept of creative tension which I brought into the lean community as a perspective that in many ways personifies the lean thinking process. Because the book that exposed this concept to the majority of people is The Fifth Discipline by Peter

Especially now, if your company has been disrupted by the pandemic, or you’re looking for new strategies to grow into the situation, people are thinking about new products, services, and value propositions.  Most companies think about what they already have, what they are already doing, and just focus on better

2020 has been a year to stress-test people, governments, and companies. On August 19th, 2019, the Business Roundtable shocked many with a statement that the purpose of business was not just to make money for shareholders, but all stakeholders have interests that mattered: “The CEOs of Business Roundtable adopted a

Does everyone on your team understand their role? Do your partners and other functions know there? Does role ambiguity lead to either gaps or overlaps in work? Most of you answered yes, and you are not alone.  Role clarity gaps are one of the easiest ways to drive waste into

Lean systems and processes can help take the personality out of a process. For much of our work, our personal styles and preferences can have a great impact on our work. However, this is based on what suits us based on our personality and not the needs of the work.

Many things are broken today – hospitals, businesses, processes, sales channels, collaborations, and even people. While I actually believe more things will return to normal that is often reported (albeit taking a couple / few years).  I think “return to normal” misses the point. When something is broken, there is

I recently read the book The Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell. Besides the fact that he was a coach to Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and others of such stature (hence the title), I loved that (a) he connected his sports coaching with his business

In reading Russell Ackoff’s A Lifetime of Systems Thinking, he shared a key point about mental content that I think relates to lean systems in a way that reveals a weakness in many lean practices.  Ackoff starts by exploring the hierarchy of mental content, which he orders as: data, information,

There are so many leadership capabilities that we could tie to effective problem solving, why should we focus on coaching? What makes coaching so important? I believe this comparison will make it clear (and here’s a hint: it’s all about your purpose).  When I’m coaching a soccer game, many instances