Lessons from the Road

While I intend to continue contributing online occasionally, this is my final Lessons from the Road column for IndustryWeek’s print edition. I have written this column for eight years. I have enjoyed interacting with readers, and I hope the column has provided value for you. Writing this column has helped

Trust is an important precondition for lean success, but it’s not as easy as asking people to trust you. You must take deliberate actions to build trust. In my latest column for Industry Week, I share the systems I use to build trust-based cultures. I have developed and tested these

What do your lean journey and The Wizard of Oz have in common? More than you might think. In my latest Lessons from the Road column, I take you down the Yellow Brick Road of lean and share with you the similarities in the two journeys. In the article we

How do you know when you’ve shaped your lean culture effectively?  You create a mechanism to measure the results. In my most recent “Lessons from the Road” article written for Industry Week, I share the five essential mechanisms that will help you establish a management system to measure and improve

Would you believe that transforming a 1,000 person organization and a 50,000 person organization uses the same strategy? It’s true, and it’s surprisingly underutilized. In my most recent “Lessons from the Road” article written for Industry Week, I share the approach to building a lean learning culture of every person;

In Part 1 of this series (Going Beyond Lean Thinking to Define Value). I challenged how the lean tenet regarding delivering value to our customer has been practiced.  In Part 2 I wrote for Industry Week, I examine how clearly understanding what the customers value and why they value it

In my most the recent column I wrote for IndustryWeek I explore the importance of your own personal lean journey. Your organization may not be started on its lean journey but that doesn’t mean you can’t be. When signing copies of my book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean, I would

There are connections in every organization.  Some are easily seen while others are not. But, look closely and you will find them.  In the recent column I wrote for IndustryWeek I examined the waste that often occurs in these connections.  It is in these connections, in the margins, that there

Have you ever been on the end of a batched process?  Chances are you have, either in your workplace or in your everyday life.  If you have ever been discharged from a hospital or experienced a yearly performance review, you were likely “batched”.  In the Lessons from Road the Column

Lean equals process improvement, right? Wrong. Lean is about people. We improve processes because bad processes beat good people. Good processes enable people. Good processes improve our consistency. But will a great process deliver greatness? Probably not, because talent is still required. This column for IndustryWeek, titled Is Talent or