When a company engages its people in problem solving as part of their daily work, they feel more motivated, they do their jobs better, the organization's performance improves, and a virtuous cycle starts to turn. Such an approach can tap enormous potential for the company and its customers.

Lean goes beyond the tools to challenge our way of thinking. It is about learning to see opportunities and continually improving them. Lean is a system of tools and people that work together.

"Embrace the suck!"

Might be a good read.

"Don't be too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet!" 
- Overheard by Colleague

A Lean Enterprise is centered on the concept of flow. Flow is one of five key Lean Principles identified by Womack and Jones in their book Lean Thinking. They stressed that you need to make value flow. It was this creation of flow that would make it possible to eliminate waste. When material and information flow continuously, there is less waste in the system. This is true by definition. If there were a lot of waste, material and information would not be flowing.

While I'm not a fan of trying to be disciplined every moment of the day, there's no doubt most of us could use a little more discipline in our lives.

Mindfulness has been receiving wide attention lately in countless books, published research papers and mainstream business literature. The physical and psychological benefits of mindfulness are indisputable, and the implications for coaching, behavioral change, and leadership development are profound. Coaches and clients alike can leverage their change work through these simple tips.

I see many applications at Tweddle for checklists.

When I asked the president at Anvex how he trained his managers, he answered, "Every manager must work inside the manufacturing process for a period of time. It is important for them to understand how their decisions within their department will affect the rest of the organization, otherwise it is impossible for them to make assertive decisions. Every single manager knows perfectly well what happens in each process because their desks are in the middle of the operation. This way they know when something happens as it is happening and not hours afterward. We do not have offices, they are not considered necessary. Private issues or problems are handled in conference or training rooms."

As part of our onboarding process every person needs to spend time in the Mfg areas. I think we could widen this and say they need to spend time in each operation area. When I worked at L&L this was a requirement before you could actually begin the job you were hired for.

It turns out that the same set of actions will address both of these two things: 1) setting up the right habit environment, and 2) making habit success your only option, so that you can start trusting yourself.

Accurate problem statements save time and effort when they contain all these elements: Keep it brief Avoid technical language Quantify the problem - Don't solve it! Explain the costs Define the scope State the consequences/benefits of possible solutions

Some excellent personal development/learning apps in here. Experiment with one.

Often managers spot a chance to do something valuable for their company, but for some reason, they cannot get started. Even if they begin the project, they give up when they see the first big hurdle. The inability to take purposeful action seems to be pervasive across companies. Managers tend to ignore or postpone dealing with crucial issues which require reflection, systematic planning, creative thinking, and above all, time.

A creative way to create a ritual to build habits!

Although it's generally understood that it costs more to deal with crises than to prevent them, many companies do not recognize and reward those who push past the symptoms to the root causes, preventing future occurrences. If you want to focus on prevention, be sure to reward those who do it successfully.

So what should we do? Well to start with, we should work to define the key systems within our organisation and its wider supply chain. Second, we should review how these work from a technical point of view, but more importantly from a behavioural point of view. Third, we should prioritise improvement activity by systems based on the importance of the system and how far your current practices differ from the ideal. Fourth, we should ensure we develop a discipline to maintain and further improve these systems.

The first question should be "Tell me what about your 2010 Tacoma is currently unacceptable to you?"

What are our "people improvement" metrics?

It is difficult to assure quality at the source if leaders do not respect all associates. I have seen companies with people who do not feel comfortable reporting quality concerns at the gemba, because they are ignored or "punished" if they stop the line to report a problem. This creates an atmosphere of fear, and quality issues slip out the door reaching the customer and creates a snowball of problems for everyone.