Culture

My last two Lessons from the Road columns [Building Behaviors Bedrock of Lean Success and Build a Deliberate Culture, Not an Accidental One] focused on the tactics and strategies of culture change, which is crucial for a successful lean journey. One of those tactics is to role model the right

I recently published a new post on the KaiNexus blog site titled The single best way leaders support cultures of continuous improvement. Here is an excerpt: In working with one VP responsible for supporting 3,000 people, she found a small change in her email use habits that turned out to

In my last Lessons from the Road column, I introduced the the idea that culture is the most important element of lean transformation. I was fortunate to have the opportunity early in my lean journey to see just how important the correct behaviors would be, regardless of how well you

For my latest column, I set out to write about culture change. I barely got through the introduction and realized I’m already out of room. Such is the restriction of a 1-page column. So, the introduction became the column. You can read the latest installment of Lessons from the Road,

Leaders ask people to tell them what problems they have. This isn’t a practice exclusive to lean. MBWA, or Management By Walking Around, even incorporated this concept. In some organizations, there are systems in place (whether digital or on a board) for individuals to capture and surface problems. We ask

The principle of Respect for People has received greater attention in the lean community over the past several years. Books, blogs, and speeches have all given attention to its importance. Both companies and customers are made up of people, and the best profits and processes in the world are not

What do you do when you see one of your directs exhibiting the wrong behavior? Do you react? Do you pretend you didn’t notice? Do you call it out immediately? There is a common phrase, which I don’t is well understood, that states: “praise publicly, criticized privately.” While I do

This week I’ve been writing about the tradeoff between measuring things in a valid way or a reliable means. Two posts published so far are: Valid or reliable – take your pick Valid or reliable – trying to break the tradeoff How does this impact culture? Culture is one of

This is the final part of a 4 part series on Creating Employee Engagement. You can first read Parts 1, 2, and 3. Skills Required for Engagement Skill gaps to create engagement exist both in employees and managers, although most transformation efforts tend to focus on only one or the

This is part 3 on employee engagement. Read Part 1 and Part 2. The Development of Systems to Support Engagement When conducting an assessment, one of the most revealing questions that I seem to ask is “if you have found waste or an opportunity to improve, what do you do