I was recently working with a customer who works as a supervisor in a distribution operation.  She's new to lean and is tasked with developing her team to work autonomously to meet customer needs and continuously improve processes.  She asked, "How do I teach my team?"  It's a simple question, with a not-so-simple answer.  So, here are some thoughts on teaching others.  Keep in mind, I'm not trained to be a teacher, although I've facilitated many workplace training events.

Do you have a habit you're struggling to break? Sometimes it can feel impossible. We've all been there. According to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, 41 percent of respondents said it would take a near-death experience to permanently break a bad habit!

You and I can create a more empowering inner narratives by following five steps:

Intrinsic motivation has a better chance of changing your habits because you don't need a justification to work on your habit. You don't need a reason to eat healthy foods if you have healthy meals that you find delicious. You don't need an app to remind you to workout if you're looking forward to it every day.

A good collection of articles from 2016

Process mapping is often the first step in business process improvement. It is a necessary activity that provides a baseline from which improvements can be measured and is the key to identifying and localizing opportunities for improvement. Therefore, it is important to capture the right information to help steer process improvement initiatives in the right direction.

This is kind of a cool idea.

To get things going, there are seven concepts you need to work your process improvement plan around:

1. Always ask why. Question why we do what we do. Is there a better way?
2. Eliminate can't. Anything can be changed! Anything can be done!
3. Just do it. Be confident and have an action-oriented attitude.
4. Discard conventional thinking.
5. Question the current situation. Don't make excuses.
6. Do not seek perfection - 51% chance is good enough.
7. Seek the wisdom of ten people, rather than the knowledge of one.

In his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie gives nine suggestions of ways to handle people when you need them to change.  Here are his suggestions on how to approach people and influence them to change:

Give yourself some time, don't be too busy to go to the kitchen of your company, observe and ask "why" as many times as you can to understand better what's cooking there. It is the place where work gets done and the only place where value can be added to business processes: Solve the problem at hand Prevent it from recurrence  It will result in better quality, delivery and lower costs. You'll be surprised how much it contributes to the value delivered to the customer.

The practical problem solving steps… 1. It is too early to talk about solutions. 2. It is still too early to talk about solutions. 3. It is still too early to talk about solutions. 4. It is still too early to talk about solutions. 5. Did someone mention countermeasures? 6. It is still too early to talk about solutions. 7. It is still too early to talk about solutions. 8. Yes, now we can talk about solutions.

Too often the principle of flow and pull is seen as applicable only in a manufacturing environment. In fact, the principle can be applied in many different ways. On a recent trip to Kenya I had the pleasure of experiencing the "Matatu" bus service in Nairobi. It really got me thinking about the principle of flow and pull. 

"The primary role of managers must shift from firefighting to designing, aligning and improving systems."

- Shigeo Shingo

"If we reduce batch sizes by half, we also reduce by half the time it will take to process a batch. That means we reduce queue and wait by half as well. Reduce those by half, and we reduce by about half the total time parts spend in the plant. Reduce the time parts spend in the plant and our total lead time condenses. And with faster turn-around on orders, customers get their orders faster." - Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal

"Small improvements are believable and therefore are achievable." - Anthony Robbins

"An organization can only change so much, or so fast, usually. It's really going to be a long-term process. What you want to do is be focusing on how you build your influence over time. Long term thinking is a very powerful, and much under-practiced, strategy," says John.   Although there are other methods and tools, here are 4 ways how this can be done.

This seems insane. Why would you go through the pain of removing the (relatively) low cost buffer of some extra parts? The answer, it turns out, is that without a buffer, you've lowered the water level and you can see the rocks below. Without a buffer, every supplier had to dramatically up his game. Suddenly, the quality of parts went way up, which, of course, makes the assembly line go faster and every car ends up working better as well.

Reducing machine down time is the main goal of set-up reduction. However, reducing set-up times will boost your company's capacity, increase your manufacturing flexibility, and help increase overall output.