daily kaizen

I am halfway through reading, what I consider (thus far), an important lean book.

Larry Loucka, a close friend and colleague, recently pointed me to a February 16th Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article.

Now, before you roll your eyes and give me the WSJ-isn’t known-for-getting-the-lean-thing-right look, hear me out. What the Journal published is really, really good stuff…even if lean, and 5S in particular, was the furthest thing from their brilliant mind(s).

I see the same cycle in so many places.

What cycle?

This one, more or less:

Step 1. Altruistic leaders sincerely (?) ask the associates for their improvement ideas (a.k.a. suggestions, kaizens, CI’s, etc.) in an attempt to foment some daily kaizen.

Step 2. Associates (not all of them), somewhat skeptically, call leadership’s bluff and submit their ideas.

Last month, I teamed up with Gemba Academy's Ron Pereira and presented a two-part webinar on the subject of

I just contributed a guest post of the same title to Christian Paulsen's Lean Leadership blog. Please visit his site to read my full post and to take in some of Chris' excellent lean content. Chris shared some of his insight with us a while back in his Gemba Tales guest post, 5 Reasons You Need to Do a DMAIC.

Lean culture is largely defined by, or at least manifested in, engaged and empowered employees practic

My teenage education was (maybe) enhanced by substantial doses of Monty Python. Occasionally, I discover a lean metaphor somewhere within their body of work. One of my absolute favorite scenes is from the  movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The three minute scene goes by two names: 1) the Bridge of Death, or 2) the Three Questions.

click to watch

Among other things, vitamin C boosts one's immune system. That's pretty important, especially around the cold and flu season. But there is another type of vitamin C.

Many months ago, Norman Bodek sent  me a copy of the book,

Lean is deep. It's multi-faceted. Heck, even the "simple" stuff is profound.