Lean Quote: Four Agreements for Love and Happiness in Your Life

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you’re expecting a reward. Most people do the exact opposite: They only take action when they expect a reward, and they don’t enjoy the action. And that’s the reason why they don’t do their best." — Don Miguel Ruiz

About 20 years ago, Don Miguel Ruiz wrote a book called The Four Agreements. It explores the modern meaning of the Toltec teachings in order to create love and happiness in your life. Many people have found that committing to these four agreements have changed their lives and made them happier, more loving human beings. Adopting and committing to these agreements is simple. Actually living and keeping these Four Agreements can be one of the hardest things you will ever do. It can also be one of the most life changing things you will ever do.

The Four Agreements are:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

As you practice living these four practices your life will dramatically change. In the beginning these new habits will be challenging and you will lapse countless times. With practice these agreements become integrated into your being and every area of your life and become easy habits to keep.

Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe

Author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek believes leaders should be more than just authority figures—to earn the trust, respect and cooperation of their teams, leaders should first make selfless sacrifices and put the needs of the people around them ahead of their own.

There’s a difference between good leaders and most leaders. Most leaders make their employees scared. This is usually not on purpose. But it still happens. Sinek’s point is that good leaders make you feel safe.

In his TED Talk, Sinek explains why making employees feel secure in their jobs is a key attribute of a good leader.



Below are three key takeaways from Sinek's talk:

1. “When people feel safe and protected by the leadership in [an] organization, the natural reaction is to trust and cooperate."

Employees living in constant fear of losing their jobs are not performing at their best—plain and simple, Sinek says. During an unpleasant encounter at an airport, when an airline agent snapped at a customer who tried to board the plane out of turn, Sinek confronted the agent, only to realize that her behavior was a direct result of her fear of being let go, should she break the rules.

This level of pressure creates a stress-filled, ineffective work environment. To ensure that employees focus on doing their jobs well instead of on just keeping them, make them feel secure in their roles. Empower them, Sinek recommends, by trusting them to make on-the-job choices.

2. “Great leaders would never sacrifice the people to save the numbers. They would sooner sacrifice the numbers to save the people."

Leaders that prioritize the wellbeing of their employees end up with a more loyal workforce, and one that's more invested in company success. When they're valued and respected, workers are more likely to give it their all on the job, Sinek says, which benefits the organization at large.

If you inspire and support them, your employees will too do whatever it takes to see your company's vision become reality, simply because they know their leader would do the same for them.

3. “Leadership is a choice. It is not a rank."

Good leaders worry about others before they worry about themselves, Sinek says. When Barry-Wehmiller, a large manufacturing company in the Midwest, was hit hard by the recession back in 2008, the company had to save 10 million dollars to make up for losses. Instead of considering layoffs, CEO Bob Chapman came up with a plan to require every employee—including leaders—to take furlough time to save money and people's jobs.


Employees understand that the health of a company is unpredictable, but they should always be able to trust their leaders to make the best decisions for everyone when times get tough. Be transparent about difficult calls, and put people before profit. According to Sinek, that's what sets good leaders apart.

Lean Tips Edition #134 (#2006 - 2020)

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to help you along your journey.  Another great reason to like A Lean Journey on Facebook.

Click this link for A Lean Journey's Facebook Page Notes Feed.

Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:

Lean Tip #2006 - Make “Professional Development” Part of the Culture.
For some organizations, professional development may be evidenced, in part, by a visible commitment to lifelong learning, the tendency towards insatiable curiosity, and a personal determination to constantly evolve, transform, and progress.

For others, professional development may follow a prescriptive, easily measurable track along a well-worn career path. However, in either case, professional development isn’t just about building relevant job skills—it’s about being driven to be better today than you were yesterday and finding new ways to contribute intellect, energy, and creative ideas to the organization’s collective talent pool.

Lean Tip #2007 - Show Your Team Members That You Support Them And Are Committed To Helping Them Realize Their Goals.
The importance of demonstrating to team members that you truly care about them as individuals, that you want to help them improve their professional skills, and that you support them being architects of personally satisfying careers simply cannot be overstated.

Leaders who ask for their employees’ input when constructing development plans will gain commitment, loyalty, and respect from their team members. Leaders who treat their employees as extra bodies, on the other hand, will not manage to retain talented people for very long.

It’s crucial for leaders to listen, and listen well, to what employees really want from their jobs and their perception of how they can contribute to the organization.

Although it seems like a small gesture, leaders who ask employees to be actively involved in the creation of their personal development plans show these employees that their opinions matter and that they are at least partially responsible for ensuring that their careers are challenging and meaningful.

Lean Tip #2008 - Challenge Workers Regularly
Challenging your staff members on a regular basis is another good way to help them become good leaders. After all, those in top positions need to know how to think on their feet, deal with challenging situations and people, and work out how to perform unfamiliar tasks. The sooner employees are tested in this area, the sooner they can grow stronger. In addition, when you test people, you quickly learn where their true capabilities lie, and where they still need some assistance.

Look for ways to assign your workers tasks which will push them past their current level of skill or knowledge. It is important to ensure the assignments you give people have some kind of inherent risk involved, to really up the ante. Be on hand to assist if necessary, but try to take a back-seat approach as much as possible so that employees strive to achieve the desired outcomes, and learn some important lessons along the way.

Lean Tip #2009 - Create Coaching Opportunities.
Great leaders should be good coaches, as well. A large part of coaching is tied to being able to provide effective feedback that is timely, specific, relevant, frequent, and actionable. Providing this type of feedback without micro-managing is a fine line leaders must learn how to walk.

Building positive relationships with team members helps open up opportunities for coaching. People learn better and are more willing to accept criticism from those they trust.

Performance reviews often present opportunities to coach employees. The key to being a great leader is being able to tie performance and development together. This keeps the conversation positive and focused on what is best for both employee and organization.

Leaders should look for opportunities to coach staff as part of their day-to-day work. Good coaches listen, ask open-ended questions, offer support, and encourage employees to push for alternative solutions.

Lean Tip #2010 - Bridge the Gap Between Knowledge and Action
One of the biggest mistakes organizations too often make is failing to bridge the gap between knowledge and action. In other words, they expend generous amounts of time and money on training, but don’t give employees a timely opportunity to transfer the knowledge they’ve acquired into action.

You can increase the odds that your employees will convert knowledge into action by setting them up for success. Always enable employees to debrief before they leave any training session.

Ask questions like “What will you do differently now that you know X?” Host follow-up meetings with your team to see what progress they’re making. Simple things like these can have a significant impact.

Lean Tip #2011 - Commit to Continuous Learning.
Make a commitment to improve your own skills and competencies. If you’re not continuously learning, why should your employees? Lead by example and your team will follow.

Show that you are interested in their success (why wouldn’t you be?). Ask questions about where they see their career going, or how they see their role evolving in the company. Even if they don’t have a plan laid out yet, these questions will make them think about their career and what they want to accomplish within the organization.

Show your employees that you don’t just want them to do better so you look better, but that you’re actively interested in their career, accomplishments and professional success.

Lean Tip #2112 - Coach in the Moment.
Learning is best when things are occurring in the moment. If an employee comes to you with a question about a process or protocol, use this opportunity to teach them something new.

Most people learn best by doing, so coach as you go! If you’re busy at the moment, try to schedule some time for later that day. They will appreciate that you took the time to show them how it’s done, and they can now coach others who have the same question.

Lean Tip #2113 - Reward Improvement
Workplace rewards can sometimes present a tricky problem: you want to let an employee know that you recognize and appreciate their improvement without seeming like you’re patronizing them. Sometimes, leaders think that gifts are the best ways to show appreciation, but often verbal praise, bonuses, or even the promise of career advancement (should the good work continue) are more effective in motivating teammates.

In short: make a clear statement that good work is recognized within the workplace—and not just with a gift card to the coffee shop around the corner.

Lean Tip #2114 - Collaborate and Share on Problem-solving
When employees get the idea that their manager or leader is the one who has to solve all the problems, it takes away from their sense of empowerment, and ultimately is likely to decrease engagement over time. Encourage team members to take responsibility, and work through problems or issues on their own, or collaboratively. It’s not the manager’s job to fix everyone else’s problems.

Lean Tip #2115 - Train and Develop Employees
Reducing training, or cutting it all together, might seem like a good way to save company time and money (learning on the job is said to be an effective way to train, after all). However, this could ultimately backfire. Forcing employees to learn their jobs on the fly can be extremely inefficient. So, instead of having workers haphazardly trying to accomplish a task with zero guidance, take the extra day to teach them the necessary skills to do their job. This way, they can set about accomplishing their tasks on their own, and your time won’t be wasted down the road answering simple questions or correcting errors.

Past their original training, encourage continued employee development. Helping them expand their skillsets will build a much more advanced workforce, which will benefit your company in the long run. There are a number of ways you can support employee development: individual coaching, workshops, courses, seminars, shadowing or mentoring, or even just increasing their responsibilities. Offering these opportunities will give employees additional skills that allow them to improve their efficiency and productivity.

Lean Tip #2116 - Evaluate and Reflect on Your Goals.
The only way we can reasonably decide what we want in the future and how we’ll get there is to know where we are right now and what our current level of satisfaction is. So first, take some time to think through and write down your current situation; then ask this question on each key point: Is that OK?

The purpose of evaluation is twofold. First, it gives you an objective way to look at your accomplishments and your pursuit of the vision you have for life. Secondly, it shows you where you are so you can determine where you need to go. Evaluation gives you a baseline to work from.

Take a couple of hours this week to evaluate and reflect. See where you are and write it down so that as the months progress and you continue a regular time of evaluation and reflection, you will see just how much ground you’re gaining—and that will be exciting!

Lean Tip #2117 - Set Goals That Motivate You
When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you: this means making sure that they are important to you, and that there is value in achieving them. If you have little interest in the outcome, or they are irrelevant given the larger picture, then the chances of you putting in the work to make them happen are slim. Motivation is key to achieving goals.

Set goals that relate to the high priorities in your life. Without this type of focus, you can end up with far too many goals, leaving you too little time to devote to each one. Goal achievement requires commitment, so to maximize the likelihood of success, you need to feel a sense of urgency and have an "I must do this" attitude. When you don't have this, you risk putting off what you need to do to make the goal a reality. This in turn leaves you feeling disappointed and frustrated with yourself, both of which are de-motivating. And you can end up in a very destructive "I can't do anything or be successful at anything" frame of mind.

Lean Tip #2118 - Believe in Yourself
It’s important that you believe in yourself and in your ability to reach your goals.

Naturally, you can begin to realize that you have already accomplished many goals in your life. You already have amazing qualities that make you a genius, even if you may not believe it, yet.

The only person standing between you and success is yourself.

You do not even necessarily have to know how you will accomplish your goal, much like babies do not have to read books on walking in order to start walking.

They simply do until they succeed.

Lean Tip #2119 - Take Action to Achieve Your Goals
While visualization and affirmations are highly effective in propelling you toward your goals, you also have to take action each and every day.

The more action you take, the faster you will achieve your goals. Just by reading these words, you can become aware of all the steps you can take, right now, to achieve your goals.

You can begin to move toward your dream life. It may seem hard at first, but as you keep going, the fog will clear and you will start to feel better and better.

Lean Tip #2220 – Adapt and Adjust Your Goals
As you work on your daily mini goals and toward the bigger goal, be willing to adapt. Make the mini goals more difficult if they seem too easy. Make them easier if they become too taxing.

The main thing is that if your brain deems the mini goal to be too difficult, you'll quit. If it's too easy, you're running in place. Find the middle so you have advancement each day.

Lean Quote: Learning is Change. Change is Learning.

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Change is the end result of all true learning..." — Leo Buscaglia

Isn’t that the truth? Many CEOs attempt to change their companies either through a series of quick fixes or complex business models. History has demonstrated that most of these attempts fail or, at best, the benefits from these attempts are only temporary. All successful business transformations I have witnessed are based on a simple transformation model that focuses on the education and development of people and is tied to the company’s vision. 

During times of change, leaders need to be relentless learners themselves, examining everything from their own professional habits to the methods and processes that their learning teams deploy. Change often requires a forceful response, and whether it's implementing a new model or tool, or seeking to better understand how new learners in the workforce access, retain, and apply learning, you should be investigating and staying abreast of it. Become a student of change management and the concept of change itself. Take the time to learn everything you can about case studies in which others have successfully navigated similar climates of transformation. 

Often we invest our time and money in a learning event only to find that when we return to our daily work, we keep doing the same things. It all sounds so good, and you are so excited to put the new methods and tools you have learned into practice, but when you get back to the workplace, the boss is still asking the same questions and expecting the same results. The processes in your workplace could also be different than those described in the class, causing you to struggle with how to apply what you have learned in your environment.

Learning is not an event – it’s a process. The classroom is important, but the fact is that most learning takes place when we apply the tools and techniques we discovered in the learning event. Learning is a process of alignment, assimilation and application. 

Thirty years ago, Peter Senge introduced the idea of the “learning organization.” Now he says that for big companies to change, we need to stop thinking like mechanics and to start acting like gardeners. I will always remember an old friend and mentor who taught me: “Things are easy to fix, people take time.” Invest in your people, and you will be successful! 

10 Tips for Being a Better Leader

Effective leadership is central to any business’ success. Without someone to drive progress, productivity can falter. Consider how you run your company each day and the overall impact you make.

Management guru Peter F. Drucker once said, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Following these 10 simple tips can help you to boost your leadership ability and drive your business to greater heights.

1. Demonstrate Clear Goals & Vision

Creating a successful business is usually a result of clear goals and oftentimes, leaders who achieve such goals have an outstanding vision of new ideas, technologies, and industry specifics. A visionary leader can recognize new, emerging technologies and find ways to apply them in certain areas at early stages of development. This can give a competitive edge to such businesses and may inspire employees to easier gain trust in such leaders and excel in what they do.

2. Communicate the "Why" Behind your Idea.

Regardless of the brilliancy of your vision, your team needs to feel part of it and not that they're merely being told to do something. If you're giving them the opportunity to really understand why the process is happening, you're also hopefully giving them the tools to be able to innovate on that process and drive even more value back to your organization.

3. Become a Better Listener.

Many people don’t know how to truly listen. The good news? Following the lessons we learned in grade school—pay attention, don’t interrupt, don’t be distracted—is all that we need to do to become better listeners.

Of course, listening doesn’t just mean paying attention to the words that your team members are saying. It means understanding the emotions behind those words, as well as the nonverbal cues, including body language, tone of voice, and mannerisms, that speak to your team members’ state of mind. If communication is 80 percent nonverbal, as is popularly claimed, then focusing only on the words being spoken means you’re only getting 20 percent of the message.

4. Lead by Action and Example

An effective leader never orders anyone to do anything he wouldn’t be willing to do himself. If you’re going to expect certain things of your followers, then it’s imperative that you lead by action and example. You don’t actually have to do everything on your own, but if you occasionally reach down and contribute to mundane tasks and entry-level work, you’ll gain the respect of your employees and possibly even learn a thing or two in the process.

5. Instill Confidence Among Employees

A great leader can easily instill confidence among the staff. In order to maintain the positive work atmosphere which inspires creative thinking and new ideas, staff members have to feel confident about their work. A leader that simply nitpicks about everything and demonstrates extremely negative reactions for every mistake made will eventually ruin the positive energy in the work environment and ruin the self-confidence of the majority of staff members. A great and effective leader can inspire staff members to improve their performance and productivity by actively working on their confidence improvements. Publicly acknowledging those who perform well in certain areas can significantly contribute to this cause.

6. Cultivate a Culture of Innovation.

Great business leaders drive their teams to step out of the confines of routine and achieve the extraordinary. Building teamwork and rewarding collaboration are key to achieving your goals.

Cultivating a culture that values innovation is one of the most difficult responsibilities a business leader has. Here's how the best nurture innovation in their companies:

•        Proactively introduce mechanisms that naturally boost creative and innovative thinking.

•        Make incremental improvements in the workplace to facilitate out-of-the-box thinking.

•        Use tools to measure how employees spend their time.

•        Encourage practical shuffling of duties and departments to help employees gain a wider perspective of the organization's work.

•        Show employees how they can use time-tested methods of creative idea generation (brainstorming, mind mapping, story boarding, etc.) by organizing and participating in sessions.

7. Reward Successes and Learn From Failures.

Too many leaders don't stop to reward success or recognize employees' outstanding work but are quick to point out what people do wrong. While it's good management to learn from what went right or wrong on a project, it's also important to celebrate achievements.

No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them. Be willing to accept the blame and move on. Use your errors to make adjustments to the way things are done so that the same mistake does not happen again. Constantly be looking for ways to grow and improve.

8. Encourage Employee Contributions.

Some of the best ideas can come from employees. They interact with clients and customers every day and have an intimate knowledge of how well practices and procedures are working. Hear them out about ways to make improvements. Make changes that will improve their ability to do their job.

9. Be Passionate and Open Minded

If you don’t believe in your company, neither will your employees. Start each day with a positive attitude and show enthusiasm for projects and initiatives. Take pride in the services or products you provide.

Be willing to look at things from a new perspective. Encourage feedback from employees and customers and hear what they have to say. This could ultimately lead to increased efficiency and productivity.

10. Commit to Being Better

Leadership isn’t something that can thrive independent of effort. If you want to become a strong leader and maximize the talents and abilities of your followers, then you have to make a concerted effort to mold yourself into the person you want to be. Keep these tips in mind as you grow. It may take some time and plenty of patience, but you’ll eventually see the results of your hard work.

By making a conscious effort to improve yourself and your leadership abilities, you can make a positive impact on your company. Not only can it increase productivity and efficiency, it can lead to greater employee satisfaction. Start making changes today for a better tomorrow.

Lean Quote: Chance to Start Anew on Your Birthday

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new." — Sammy Hagar

Today is my birthday and the older I get the more time I spend reflecting. The other day I was thinking about how birthdays are different as an adult than as a kid. If you are like me, birthdays probably aren’t as big of a deal now as they were then; and perhaps you still get gifts, but probably not as many as you once did. This reflection led me to think about the kinds of gifts we might want to give ourselves, if we are feeling a bit short in the gift department on our next birthday.

Give yourself the gift of time. Sometimes our days are so packed with events and tasks that we don’t have time for ourselves. Consider giving yourself the gift of time for your own rest and relaxation (or the time to do another item on this list!).  

Reflect on the last year. Your birthday is a milestone, so it can be a great day to review your results and actions of the past year to see how you have done and determine what is working – and what isn’t!

Set some new goals. Today is a perfect day to look forward, to project into the future, to set goals for the next twelve months. If you don’t have written goals, today is a perfect day to create them!

Give yourself a great book. Pick something that interests you. Regardless of the topic, as you read it, consider what insights you can take from it in your leadership role. I guarantee that if you read with that thought, you will garner leadership ideas while you enjoy the book on its own merits. Consider it a double gift.

Give yourself a great learning experience. In the end your leadership development belongs to you – it is not the responsibility of your organization or your supervisor to provide you these opportunities. If you want to be more effective, why not give yourself a chance to practice and improve your skills? Ask your leader for an opportunity, or open your own wallet and invest in your future. 

Give yourself an hour a week. This is my favorite of the six gifts and all it requires is desire and discipline. As a leader (and a human being), give yourself an hour a week.

To think.
To reflect.
To read.
To meditate.
To plan.
To learn.

If you will find an hour a week for this important work, I will nearly guarantee greater results in virtually every area of your life. You will benefit and you will love the recurring gift you are giving yourself. I know, you think you can’t find that hour, but you can. Maybe it’s a little less TV, a little less Facebook, or perhaps just a bit less sleep one day a week. Whenever that hour can be found, you will be glad you found it.

I know it is my birthday, but you don’t even have to wait for your birthday to give yourself one of these gifts.

The Christmas Card Factory

I know Christmas is over but there is still something to learn from making Christmas cards.  The following video explains Lean thinking principles from kids making cards for their families.



Now this video is not too different than many others that explain the difference between the traditional push and a better pull manufacturing process. But I liked the use of children in this video. I think it is particularly important that we teach our young people in this better way of thinking. If we could successful educate the next generations of leaders we may imagine a time when a traditional push operation is a thing of the past..