Posts tagged as:

Flinchbaugh

The difference between tension and stress

04.28.2013

Although I’m a bit behind on many things, The Lean Edge asked a question that I’m just now getting around to answering. Is highlighting problems stressful and increased pressure on workers? There is a major difference between tension and stress, and this difference when not understood causes tremendous problems. Leaders trying to create tension end [...]

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Presentation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Lean

03.21.2013

Tuesday I was the featured speaker at Morris Midwest‘s Morris Madness customer open house. Morris features Okuma and Tsugami machine tools. Although many of the slides won’t mean much without the words that go with them, here is my presentation. The show was well done. It was almost like a mini-IMTS. Here’s a picture of [...]

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Embracing the scientific method

01.03.2013

This post originally appeared on the blog at Lean Learning Center.  I read plenty of disturbing statements about lean, but I read one recently that really caught my attention because it seemed to rip the core of lean out of lean, and then almost claim credit for putting it back in. I was reading a [...]

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Decisions about Making Decisions [Lessons from the Road]

08.20.2012

My latest column for Industry Week, Lessons from the Road, titled Decisions about Making Decisions has been posted. Here is the intro:   One of the most important domains within organizations that lean too infrequently injects itself is decision-making. The who, what, when and how of decision-making is ultimately one of the most fundamental elements [...]

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Standardization, or high agreement (on The Lean Edge)

06.18.2012

This post originally appeared on The Lean Edge: The question asked is “Are work standards individual or collective?” Standardization is a very difficult topic for most people in lean. The difficulty starts with a past practice and perception that standards are something we give people to force them to do work in a way that [...]

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Aesop’s Fables: Hercules and the Waggoner

01.04.2012

Many of you know that I love Aesop’s Fables to present timeless lessons, and write about how they connect to lessons in the lean journey. This fable is titled: Hercules and the Waggoner “A Waggoner was driving his team along a muddy lane with a full load behind them, when the wheels of his waggon sank so [...]

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4 myths about the principle of “Respect for People”

12.07.2011

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 worth it if they lay [...]

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Integrity is unrecoverable

07.26.2011

Lost money can be re-earned. Lost time can be clawed back. Lost love reignited. Lost integrity is unrecoverable. I posted this phrase on Twitter and Facebook recently. I took some “feedback” for it. Some argued that time lost was lost. Truly, it is. But if I needed x hours to get something done and I [...]

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A brief conversation on lean finance

04.25.2011

I recently gave a short interview on lean finance. It was more of an introductory conversation that spontaneously turned into an interview. It was a handful of questions. You can see the interview with Business Finance here.  

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The Bee and Jupiter

03.10.2011

I have used Aesop’s Fables before, and here are some lessons from The Bee and Jupiter. A Queen bee from Hymettus flew up to Olympus with some fresh honey from the hive as a present to Jupiter, who was pleased with the gift that he promised to give her anything she liked to ask for. [...]

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