In a recent blog post, Why C level executives don’t engage in ‘lean’…, Steven Spear makes a really interesting observation. He cites two main reasons. 1) “Lean” is regarded as a tool kit. There has already been a lot written here, and elsewhere, on this fallacy and how it continues to be propagated. Spear’s most [...]
Michael Ballé made me aware of a new site, http://theleanedge.org, that he has started. Its tagline is “a site for lean dialogue with the authors.” He has assembled a panel of some of the most prominent names in the field including: Michael Ballé Art Smalley Jeff Liker Mike Rother Robert Austin where they are discussing [...]
Background – In my original comments on The Lean Manager, I compared The Lean Manager‘s story structure to that of Eli Goldratt’s classic The Goal. This started a rather deep email exchange with Michael Ballé that goes far deeper into the book and the thoughts behind it than any review I could ever write. With [...]
In a previous post, I talked about Steven Spear’s observation about how a sensei saw a process and the problems. Jeffery Liker, Mike Hoseus and David Meier have done a good job capturing how a sensei teaches and summed it up in a diagram in the book Toyota Culture. (for those of you following at [...]
LEI is hosting an executive seminar with Steven Spear on June 4 in Cambridge. It looks like it is $1500. If you are a senior executive who wants to “get” what this lean stuff is really about, I would strongly encourage you to take any opportunity you can get to talk to this guy. It [...]
The Lean Enterprise Institute has recently published Kaizen Express, an overview of the classic characteristics of “lean manufacturing” and, by implication, the Toyota Production System. As I set out to review the book, I found myself heading in two directions. One is the content of the book itself. Over the years, there have been a [...]
The Lean Enterprise Institute is taking up a “Back to Basics” theme. But what, exactly, are “the basics” of the Toyota Production System? This is critically important. Permit me to cite an analogy. Look at a house. What do you see? What would you say are “the basics?” At first glance, all houses have walls, [...]
John Shook’s latest column on LEI’s site is about coaching and whether it is better to give them the answers or just ask questions. Asking questions in a way that actually teaches is a skill that we, as a “lean” community do not foster very well. Certainly in U.S. corporate culture, we are expected to [...]
When communicating ideas and concepts, a quick sketch or visual is usually much more clear than a bunch of words. A lot of us, however, never developed the skill to get a picture in our heads onto paper. Enter Dave Gray who has a web site with instructive videos, devoted to this. It looks like [...]
Greg Eisenbach, in his Grassroots Innovation blog, cites a article that gets to the very root of organizational learning, respect for people, and a myriad of other issues. The article, Teaching Smart people How To Learn was written by Chris Argyris back in 1991. What struck me about it is that it packs a double-whammy [...]