The 1999 futuristic film The Matrix provides a wonderful metaphor for Lean leadership. For those who haven’t seen it, Neo, the lead character, is presented with a choice – take the blue pill and live the rest of his life in comfortable delusion, or take the red pill and see the frightening truth for what… read more.
Pilots, CEOs, and leaps of faith
Several weeks ago, I was was on the way home from a business trip in a 19-seat twin engine plane. As we were leveling off at cruising altitude, we heard a horrible metallic crunching noise and the plane started lurching. Then we saw smoke and flames coming out of the exhaust of the right engine…. read more.
Respect for people includes customers
I recently overheard a frustrated Lean specialist lamenting that her employer, a large Canadian bank, will never support the level of change that Lean requires. Given the recent behavior of the Canadian retail banking industry, I’m wondering if the root cause is not ignorance, as often assumed, but a lack of commitment to customer value…. read more.
Another look at bad profits
Bad profits, as aptly defined by marketing guru Fred Reichheld, are those gained by charging customers for things that they aren’t happy to pay for. Reichheld cites examples we all know too well – bank service charges, airline change fees, telecom roaming charges, hidden fees on mutual funds, you name it. But what about profits… read more.
Why we need a Lean leadership summit
In the past few weeks, I’ve had some great conversations about Lean leadership with Sam MacPherson, organizer and chief evangelist of the upcoming Summit on Lean Leadership in Jacksonville. (October 5 and 6, 2015) What Sam has found out is that it takes more than Lean competencies to make a Lean leader, hence the distinction… read more.
Why Lean CEOs are not quarterbacks
It’s tempting to look at CEO competencies the way we would look at the skills of a quarterback, and many articles and books try to codify the basket of capabilities that great leaders bring to the table. I initially tried to do that when I wrote The Lean CEO, but when it came to nailing… read more.
Bringing the work to the worker
Dropped by Seattle on July 20 to visit Northwest Center, and was struck by how far the ideas of respect for people and “bring the work to the worker” can go. As some will remember from my book The Lean CEO, Northwest Center hires people who are commonly described as disabled. At Northwest Center they… read more.
The power of “I don’t know”
When leaders have the courage to admit they don’t know, this can have a transforming influence on an organization. Let’s face it – when a senior executive walks onto the shop floor, or the hospital ward, or the customer service department, the words “I don’t know” aren’t news. The front line workers already know what… read more.
Is this the dawn of a lean era?
After the miracle of Toyota was introduced to the world, the story line goes, the business world got the tool part, but not the people part. I think there’s a missing piece in that narrative. The clue is in the article “The Age of Consumer Capitalism” (Harvard Business Review, Jan, 2010) by Canadian business guru… read more.
Doing Lean Right – Are we asking the right questions?
The wrong-headed approach to lean, characterized by the desire for short-term gain only, is widely reviled in the lean community. Leaders, it seems, want to get the benefits of lean without committing to the hard work that a lean transformation requires. I think the conversation about committing to lean is contingent on a much larger… read more.