published articles

On LeanMag: Be Careful Before Standardizing Your Problem Solving You might be surprised to hear a lean advocate warning against a standardization. To be clear, I’m warning against both over-standardization and overly-rigid application of standardization. Standardization within problem solving is tremendously beneficial. First, it helps us train people on methods.

On IndustryWeek: Supply Chain Leaders Need a New Playbook, Focusing on Risk   For generations of supply chain leaders, the key words and phrases that dominated were optimization, rationalization, cost reduction, inventory reduction and so on. The basic performance of the supply chain was stable enough that it was often

On Forbes: Underutilized Ideas In Strategic Thinking   Strategic thinking is all around us, not just what happens when in the middle of a strategic planning process. Many decisions we make, both individually and organizationally, have strategic consequences. Things move fast, and more decisions are rightly distributed, and this requires

On Forbes: Why More Employees Should Learn Hanlon’s Razor Hanlon’s Razor isn’t part of any company’s new employee orientation, but maybe it should be. It can make you a more effective employee and also make the organization better, especially in tricky situations. But before I explain further, we should probably

On Forbes: 14 Executive Skills Middle Managers Need To Become Senior Leaders While leaders at all levels need effective communication skills to succeed, the required interpersonal competencies can vary significantly between the C-suite and middle management. Generally speaking, lower-level managers are often more involved in direct, task-specific interactions with employees,

On Forbes: When The Big Picture Can Be Counterproductive Sometimes, the big picture can be overwhelming. When it is, it leads to doubt, delay, overthinking and other counterproductive behaviors. Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, who we could call Marcus the Practical, offers some helpful advice in this regard:

On Forbes: Improve Your Attention Management With Three Strategies In my previous article, “Forget Time Management—Manage Your Attention,” I outlined why attention management is a powerful mechanism for effectiveness. The goal is to allocate our attention to fewer things, whether tasks or decisions. Do fewer things better. Go deeper on

On IndustryWeek: What We Learned: Expertise and Episodes from Three Years of ‘Factory Talk’ The video series Factory Talk began as a collaborative project between me and IndustryWeek to bring voices of leadership from the factory floors to all of you. These interviews were meant to focus on practical techniques

Fast Company published an article of mine, “The Power of Solving Small Problems.” I have observed even some of the most experienced and wise lean leaders struggle to get this principle correct, as I struggle with it as well. Perhaps that’s why I wrote it, to remind myself. Here’s a

I have a new post published on Assembly Magazine. See the full article on that site. Lean applies to every function within a business. You cannot succeed on your lean journey without engaging the sales organization at some point…. Continue reading….