Peter Drucker’s comment that “What gets measured, gets managed” is widely known. Along similar lines, I’d like to suggest, “What gets seen, gets improved.” (Or at least, has the possibility of getting improved.) The common complaint in an office environment is that processes are unpredictable or too complex to represent visually. But that’s just lazy thinking. . . . Download PDF to read the full article
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Anyone else who keeps digging when they’re at the bottom of the hole instead of figuring out a better way to do their job, is handicapped by poor leadership. Poor leadership stunts innate “kaizen creativity” as surely as poor soil and drought stunt the crops on a farm. . . . Download PDF to read the full article
A few years ago, the NY Times interviewed Mark Pincus, founder and recently-replaced chief executive of Zynga. Pincus told the interviewer that one of his key methods of leadership is to make everyone into a CEO in the company. Making a person the CEO of a problem is, I think, very much in keeping with the idea of granting ownership via A3. It ensures that something—and very likely the right thing—will get done. . . .
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Futures orders may be great for an individual brand, but they’re absolutely terrible for the industry as a whole. What’s good for the goose is definitely not good for the gander—or the gaggle, for that matter. Futures orders push both manufacturers and retailers to operate with giant batches of products. . . .
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“I don’t have time” is a complaint you hear often, but that’s really not true. What we really ought to say is, “It’s just not a priority for me.” You always have time for what’s important. At the risk of being melodramatic, if your husband or child were taken to the hospital after a serious accident, I bet you’d find time to sit by their bedside. Because that’s way more important than finishing up the PowerPoint for tomorrow’s marketing meeting. . . .
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Do you often feel reactive instead of proactive? Do people complain that decisions at the top take too long to percolate down to the front lines? If so, you probably manage your organization and your direct reports through weekly meetings and email—and you should consider implementing “leader standard work....” (A version of this newsletter originally appeared on the HBR Blogs.)
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Although 5S is traditionally applied to the physical environment, I believe that it isn’t just applicable to physical space -- you know, “a place for everything and everything in it’s place.” In a larger sense, 5S can be applied to time as well. It’s an awkward locution, but think about having “a time for everything, and everything at the right time. And that means time to think and plan as well. . . .
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Unlike suburban housing developments or modern cities, organizations don’t grow with some sort of rational, master plan. They evolve naturally over time. Unlike suburban housing developments or modern cities, organizations don’t grow with some sort of rational, master plan. They evolve naturally over time. . . .
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NOTE: This article originally ran in the HBR blog.
If the future of retail is indeed “omni-channel,” I think these photos speak volumes. Consumers want to be able to shop for the brands and products that they want, when they want it, and where they happen to be at that moment. Which makes ordinary retailers less important than the products that they carry. . . .
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Toyota has taught us that we get better quality and lower costs by building products in small lot sizes equal to demand (ideally, one piece flow). But it’s not just physical material that should be managed in one-piece flow. We benefit by managing information in small lot sizes as well. So say goodbye to the weekly/monthly status update meetings. . . .
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One of the greatest impediments to robust problem solving is our tendency to short-circuit the Plan-Do-Study-Adjust (PDSA) cycle and simply jump to conclusions about root causes and solutions. . . .
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When confronted by an operational problem, we often jump to the conclusion that technology must be the solution. But more often than not, we don’t really understand the problem, and technology serves only to make a broken process a little bit faster. Take time to grasp the situation first. Once you really understand the problem, you’ll be able to find a cheaper and more effective solution that’s faster to implement.
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Faithfully following PDSA increases the likelihood that your countermeasures actually work and improve the situation. However, before you can embark on a PDSA cycle and create an A3, you must first get a firm understanding of the current conditions. Thoroughly grasping the situation is essential to effective problem solving.
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Sudden spikes in demand—which translates to workload for you and your employees—are toxic to people and processes. That’s why great companies “level the load” -- the workload, that is. They actively smooth out the volume of work to avoid having employees struggle like overloaded pack mules. . . .
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Many people view standard operating procedures—or standard work, in the Lean lexicon—as shackles, constraining flexibility, creativity, and innovation. They’re wrong.
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If you’re a supervisor, a manager, or an executive, your days and weeks probably seem impossibly hectic, filled with an unending series of fires that you have to put out. There’s so much variation in your daily job that it probably seems impossible to create a smooth flow of customer value—and that’s stressful and exhausting. Nevertheless, you can create some semblance of flow in white-collar work. . . . Download PDF to read more
Managers hate idle time. When people aren’t working every minute of the day, managers see excess capacity, and they start a new project. Even if it’s clear that the new project won’t be completed immediately, they assume that starting sooner means the project will get done sooner. . . . Download PDF to read more
You need a certain amount of product line breadth to be a relevant brand, but many companies have gone well past the point of relevance and deep into the metastatic zone. If you want to be relevant, focus on providing fewer products that sell through easily, rather than trying to cover every single market niche and color preference. . . . Download PDF to read more
Your obsession with keeping your culture pure leads you to make poor hiring decisions and blinds you to talented people who could help your company grow. It may sound like heresy, but not everyone in your company has to love spending an afternoon hanging from a frozen waterfall or paddling down Class 5 rapids. . . .
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Too many meetings always bespeak poor structure of jobs and the wrong organizational components. If people in an organization find themselves in meetings a quarter of their time or more—there is time wasting malorganization. Too many meetings signify that work that should be in one job. . . .
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