From the category archives:

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What we can learn from a giraffe about dealing with change

02.23.2012

For a Friday humor, here is a giraffe stuck in quicksand. A client is using this video to help introduce what people go through when dealing with change, through the classic stages of grief. Of course, there’s also a lesson here. Management, and leaders at all levels, sometimes forget that they went through this, and [...]

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Most popular blog posts of all time

02.23.2012

[Before getting started, I apologize to anyone who visited our site on Wednesday and was redirected to another site. The site was hacked, and I appreciate BigBigDesignfor springing into action to get it fixed. If anyone is still having trouble, please delete cookies for http://jamieflinchbaugh.com, http://a2a.lockerz.com/menu/sm8.html, and http://map.media6degrees.com/orbserv/hbpix?....(too long to type). Again, I apologize for this happening. It's [...]

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Securing the Elusive Lean Buy-In

02.16.2012

My latest column for IndustryWeek, Lessons from the Road, titled Securing the Elusive Lean Buy-In has been posted. Here is an excerpt:   You have passion about making lean work in your organization. You have ideas, and you are ready to realize them. You have experience and are willing to share it. You have a [...]

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eBook published on A3 Problem Solving

02.14.2012

We are still very proud of our book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean, that has done very well over the past few years. The book publishing world is changing, very rapidly. I’ve had one of the big publishers ask me about doing another book. I’m not ready for that yet. But it also begs the [...]

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Is takt time the most misunderstood lean concept?

02.13.2012

Is takt time the most misunderstood lean concept? My experiences suggests yes, although this surprises me quite a bit. It’s not that the misunderstanding is highly significant, or has a dramatic impact on people’s actions. But when we ask the question of a group “what is takt time?”, to group that says they know what [...]

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Kodak and Fuji: a tale of two companies in the face of the same insurmountable problem

02.08.2012

The Economist had an excellent article detailing the difference between Kodak’s historic bankruptcy and Fujifilm’s equally remarkable success, in The last Kodak moment?, and expanded on in Sharper focus. Both companies faced the same problem statement: digital photography would replace film. But Eastman Kodak, founded in 1880, despite it’s major innovation capabilities and giant patent [...]

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The failure of “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!”

02.07.2012

I head this approach many times, and in many different forms. Managers say “I don’t want people to bring me problems; I want them to bring me solutions.” Or “I don’t want more questions, I want answers.” I ran across this on the Harvard Business Review Blog in The No Whining Rule for Managers by [...]

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How generational changes affect lean transformation

02.06.2012

There are many environmental factors that affect the lean community and their work towards lean transformation. Some of these factors are positive and some are negative. Bad lean implementations hurts the reputation of lean. The weak economy shook out some of the bad implementation, and refocused many of the good ones. The changing generation of [...]

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Building great spaces instead of great managers

01.30.2012

Why do organizations build great workspaces? Get prime real estate with a great zip code? Buy the fanciest office furniture and features? We do it in an effort to be an employer of choice. We do it to recruit, and retain, the top talent. But is there a problem in this strategy? On fistful of [...]

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Why won’t they tell me there is a problem?

01.24.2012

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 as part of one-on-ones. But [...]

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