“There’s No Crying in Baseball”
The scene from “A League of Their Own” is one that most of us can recount on spot. A player begins crying, and Tom Hanks responds: “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball!” It’s like this in business, too. When in reality, business is personal....
How to Get More Meaningful Feedback
Taylor was trying to ask his people for feedback about the new workflow they were implementing. But mostly he heard crickets – except for the two guys that complained about everything. He really wanted meaningful feedback and input so he could support the team,...
Is Lean Leadership about Process or Results?
This is quite embarrassing. Indulge me while I take a trip back to my first few years in operations management, before I was ever introduced to Lean – and before Process + Results thinking entered my world. Our organization conducted Voice of Customer (VOC) surveys to...
Are your Performance Metrics Contributing to Silos?
I visited a friend’s work recently to meet for lunch. As I toured his plant, there were performance metrics awards all along the wall. “Best Market – On-Time Service”, “Best Market – Stops Per Hour”, “Best Market –...
How are You Using the Lean Safety Cross?
“Don’t tell the team. I don’t want to be the reason our number goes back to zero!” These are the words a front-line team member shared with her plant manager after sustaining an injury. You see, this plant talks about safety every day in their daily standup meetings....Meet Jamie
I’m a recovering Command-and-Control Manager who’s now on a mission to make the world of work more human. With a soft spot in my heart for Ops Managers, this Lean blog gives you the straight talk combining Lean, Leadership, and the real challenges of operations management.
