Lean Roundup #117 – February 2019

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of February, 2019.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.

To Get Your Personal or Professional Changes Back on Track, Focus More on “The Why” Than “The What” – Mark Graban says people and organizations often spend too much time talking about what needs to change, instead of focusing more on why.

The Key to Leadership is Consistency – Mark Rosenthal explains why consistency matters in leadership especially in environments of change.

Sharing the Knowledge – Bob Emiliani shares ten areas for all members of the Lean community, and particularly its leaders, to reflect on.

Granting Autonomy to Your Team – Jeff Hajek shares several steps a leader can take to mitigate the impact of mistakes that come with autonomy.

If It’s Not Simple, It's BS – Pascal Dennis talks about the importance of simplifying and clarifying in Lean PDCA and Design Thinking.

Lessons from Detroit: Three Reasons Why Your employees Resists Lean & 3 more

– Dan Markovitz explains why so many of our well-meaning lean improvements fail.

Teaching Thinking – Kevin Meyer says a demonstrated hunger for new knowledge, and the ability to distill, apply, and teach it, is an important characteristic for all employees at all levels.

Not All Costs Exist To Be Reduced – Jon Miller discusses good costs and bad costs or what we may call value added and not.

Vision, Values, and Principles – Steve Kane says organizations that have clearly defined their vision, values, and principles are more likely to find people who are innately driven to further the cause.

Is Lean Thinking Art or Science? Yes – John Shook explores the relationship between lean thinking and art & science.

Improving Engagement One Kaizen at a Time – Crystal Davis says engaging the employees at all levels with a clear and realistic understanding of how they inspire, drive and support getting people involved in meaningful work is the best way to show respect!

Ask Art: How Should I Re-invest the Gains from Kaizen? – Art Byrne talks about how to leverage all the gains you will get from removing the waste from your operations in order to deliver more value to your customers.

4 Actions that Solved My Lean Management Identity Crisis – Mike Orzen shares four actions he took to sharpen his focus when applying lean principles.