Empowerment may not be a new concept to you, but many organizations experience problems because they don’t know how to ‘live it’. Empowerment is often described as “having the power to make decisions”. However, this empowerment/decision making power is something that must be earned, not given, through a set of fundamental principles cultivated as follows:
READ MOREIn this month’s ASQ post Paul Borawski asks the Quality community to share stories of improvement in unexpected areas. I am reminded a recent trip to my eldest son’s classroom which is full of lessons. Many of those we seem to forget or even think odd when we get to the corporate world. What seems
READ MOREIn a sports environment, a “coach” is someone who trains athletes or athletic teams to achieve their maximum physical performance. In the business world, a “coach” refers to a manager who leads a team of employees, actualizes the professional potential of his or her employees, and achieves a “winning” service or product with his or
READ MOREOn 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
READ MOREBuilding a Lean culture should be personal and unique to your company and people. The important thing is that you are committed to growing your team on a daily basis and everything else will take care of itself. FastCap, an exemplary Lean organization, shared the principles that helped to develop, support and build their Lean
READ MOREFor 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
READ MOREIn some organizations, we might as well give the quality folks a uniform, a badge and a gun. They act like they are the Quality Police. Progressive companies realize you cannot inspect quality into a product. By the time product is inspected, its level of quality has already been established. The primary means of ensuring
READ MOREOn 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
READ MOREYou’ve probably heard both of these sayings before. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” and “The devil is in the details.” That first statement would suggest that worrying about small things is a waste of time and resources, while the second statement suggests quite the opposite, telling us to pay very close attention to each detail.
READ MORE