As I started calling your attention to What’s Killing Your Profitability, I explained how important it’s been for me to develop a crystal-clear picture of the results I’m working to achieve as I take action on any new skill I learn. Quite frankly, I can’t point to many...
In March of 2000, as a 23 year old 250 ton stamping press operator (and carpenter on the side), I applied for and was somehow offered a position implementing the latest and greatest Lean manufacturing initiative the company I was working for was pushing down from the corporate office. I had been...
Once we come to terms with the fact that our organization is almost certainly leaving money on the table, the most natural response and most frequent response I’ve seen a business owner or executive take is to jump right into identifying exactly which things are killing their profit and...
If we’re not intentional about actively developing the leadership skills of each key individual on our teams, the areas where we’re likely hemorrhaging profit have very few bounds. Even the leaders who are incredibly strategic in defining exactly how they’ll implement each new...
If we want to have any hope of capturing even the slightest bit of the profit we’re currently throwing away by not developing the most authentic influence we possibly can with our teams and eliminating all that waste that’s so often tied to miscommunication, we need to have an...
Before we even begin unpacking any of the specific action steps you or would need to consider to capture even the slightest bit of that profit lost due to poor leadership, I believe it’s absolutely critical to quantify just what we’re likely leaving on the table. I mean, I’ve...
Organizations of all sizes invest significant amounts of time, money, and energy on improving their processes with hopes of becoming more profitable. Sometimes this is based on a goal of becoming best-in-class but sometimes it is just to stay competitive with customers or in attracting talent....
Even when we come to terms with the fact that it will always require more than just words as well as the fact that someone on our team will ALWAYS be watching, there’s one more thing we have to accept as a harsh reality: there’s no magic pill for getting our team members to follow us...
Whether Santa Claus comes to town or not, we can rest assured that from the moment we accept responsibility for leading our teams someone will ALWAYS be watching the example we set. Hopefully they won’t be watching when we actually are sleeping (because that’s creepy, even for Santa)...
No, not the 1991 single by Extreme! I’m talking about what you and I need to provide to set the tone in our organizations - especially since we’re far more likely to get what we are then just what we want!
Whether they’re listed in the employee handbook, on a document in a...
One of the first things I learned after I moved from running a press to training on and implementing Lean Manufacturing initiatives nearly 25 years ago was how labor efficiency rates were set. In most cases, the number of widgets that were expected on an hourly basis from any given process was...
Since we’re gonna get what we are, and not necessarily what we want, I believe it would serve us all well to consider some real life examples of leadership that yielded teams of people who did what they did. Interestingly enough, my internet search for specific leaders who did this yielded...
