Taking Care of Business
Leadership and the 8th Muda
26/May/07 Filed in: Leadership
Articles
As a leader in your organization, do you add
muda or subtract it?
Muda is a Japanese term for waste. One of the prime tenants of the Toyota production system, to which much of that company’s outstanding quality and profitability can be attributed, is to reduce muda. The organization is built on constant striving to identify and eliminate anything that does not add value for the final customer. The Toyota processes are now used worldwide, often called LEAN processing.
Seven mudas are traditionally recognized: overproduction, waiting, unnecessary transport, over processing, excess inventory, unnecessary movement, and defects. Jeffrey K. Liker, in his excellent book The Toyota Way, adds an eighth muda – unused employee creativity.
Liker describes the eighth muda as the waste of “losing time, ideas, skills, improvements, and learning opportunities by not engaging or listening to your employees.” Too many organizations suffer from CEOs or owners that inflate the eighth muda, rather than contribute to its elimination.
Read More...
Muda is a Japanese term for waste. One of the prime tenants of the Toyota production system, to which much of that company’s outstanding quality and profitability can be attributed, is to reduce muda. The organization is built on constant striving to identify and eliminate anything that does not add value for the final customer. The Toyota processes are now used worldwide, often called LEAN processing.
Seven mudas are traditionally recognized: overproduction, waiting, unnecessary transport, over processing, excess inventory, unnecessary movement, and defects. Jeffrey K. Liker, in his excellent book The Toyota Way, adds an eighth muda – unused employee creativity.
Liker describes the eighth muda as the waste of “losing time, ideas, skills, improvements, and learning opportunities by not engaging or listening to your employees.” Too many organizations suffer from CEOs or owners that inflate the eighth muda, rather than contribute to its elimination.
Read More...
|
Transform Your Company Culture
30/May/06 Filed in: Leadership
Articles
When organizations identify a specific focus that
will drive success, leaders start talking about
building that focus into the company culture. For
example, I have been asked to help organizations
shape a culture of feedback, a culture
of customer service, a culture of
safety, a culture of teamwork, or a
culture of thinking LEAN (as in Lean Six
Sigma).
Leaders are correct to emphasize culture change. A company’s culture is the underlying behavior, attitude, and atmosphere that pervade by default – when people are operating on automatic pilot. It’s what people do when the boss isn’t looking, what people do without having to think. A company’s culture exerts a strong influence that shapes individual and collective action. Here's how to shape a company's culture...
Read More...
Leaders are correct to emphasize culture change. A company’s culture is the underlying behavior, attitude, and atmosphere that pervade by default – when people are operating on automatic pilot. It’s what people do when the boss isn’t looking, what people do without having to think. A company’s culture exerts a strong influence that shapes individual and collective action. Here's how to shape a company's culture...
Read More...
Stand Out: Create An Experience
28/November/05 Filed in: Leadership
Articles
Want to stand out and win customers? Think beyond
product and customer service. In today’s marketplace,
quality products and services along with great
customer service are the basics you need just to be
in the game. The big question to ask is what
is the experience
your business creates? Your answer
is a key to positioning, differentiation, and added
value that can make your business a winner.
Read More...
Accelerate Meeting Results
03/December/04 Filed in: Leadership
Articles
The key to being an effective leader or manager is
working with people. And for better or worse, the
venue where most of us work with other people is in
meetings. I find that most leaders and managers
conduct meetings by pulling people together and
starting a conversation about a particular topic.
They may make good use of tools like agendas, but
otherwise rely on the collective dialog skills of the
group to achieve results. Following are three simple
techniques that I believe any leader or manager can
add to his or her toolbox and apply in a meeting.
Read More...
Cultivating An Appreciative Culture
03/June/04 Filed in: Leadership
Articles
If you aren’t paying attention to the company
culture, you might be missing a powerful means to
accelerate productivity, profitability, employee
retention, and customer satisfaction – in short, your
organization’s success.
My working definition of culture in organizational settings is what people do when the boss isn’t looking. Organizational culture is the behavior, attitude, and atmosphere that happen by default unless there is disciplined intention and action to do otherwise. Your organization’s culture either advances or inhibits success. When the norm of an organization’s culture is people both valuing their organization and making extra effort to advance its objectives, the culture itself becomes an asset that increases the value of the company. I call this an appreciative culture. Read More...
My working definition of culture in organizational settings is what people do when the boss isn’t looking. Organizational culture is the behavior, attitude, and atmosphere that happen by default unless there is disciplined intention and action to do otherwise. Your organization’s culture either advances or inhibits success. When the norm of an organization’s culture is people both valuing their organization and making extra effort to advance its objectives, the culture itself becomes an asset that increases the value of the company. I call this an appreciative culture. Read More...