Occasionally, within a Rapid Improvement Event, or daily interactions, we will deal with frustrating people. Given the speed of an RIE it’s hard to slow down to deal with those frustrating people on the spot. Here are four tips to help you deal with frustrating people in an RIE. Keep perspective and have patience Often …
What if you are the employee assigned to guide your companies Lean journey but you have little experience? Here is how you can increase your confidence. 1. Have Confidence in your Lean Abilities In our minds, we believe that we have to know everything there is to know about Lean before we can confidently deliver results. We overcomplicate …
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Do your daily activities and meetings add value as they should be? Do your employees routinely miss your meetings? Analysis shows that out of each day, employees conduct Non-Value-Added activity up to an average of 280 minutes per day. That is 4.6 hours a day. NVA Meetings (reactive)- 80 minutes NVA Phone calls- 30 minutes …
The yes… and… principle is great to keep top of mind so you don’t negate someone’s idea or input into a conversation. Let’s say that you are conducting a brainstorming activity, and someone brings up an idea. When someone responds with okay or that won’t work which will kill the entire process, answer instead with …
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When beginning your Lean journey many companies ask the question of how can we get employees engaged? Another question that goes through their mind is often WHY do I have to get people involved? The answer is simple. Employees who are included are committed. Here are four ways to increase employee commitment. Many years ago, …
In this blog, I want to talk about five ways to overcome company procrastination. Having been around many different companies over the years, I have had the opportunity to witness many company cultures. Unfortunately, one culture that I sometimes run into is one of procrastination. It becomes acceptable to put off the hard work of …
Developing a winning team is extremely important if your company is going to make improvements. In this blog, I provide four steps that will help. It’s interesting that when we begin our days in school that everything is focused upon individual performance. Don’t cheat off your neighbor, don’t crib information from Google or the review …
I am sure that at some point in your life you have heard this saying. Perfect is the enemy of good. That is especially true when you are beginning your Lean journey as an organization or as someone who has been tasked with driving the Lean effort within your organization. While striving for perfection is …
Employee engagement will make or break your Lean journey. For those that are interested in successful Lean innovation, I have a secret for you. Lean is about changing the culture of your organization and increasing employee engagement. Ask yourself, how do I turn my employees into daily problem solvers? One success indicator of employee engagement …
I’m sure you have heard there are four stages of team development that each team goes through before they perform at a high level. A Rapid Improvement Event (RIE) is a 3-5 day-long activity where you bring together team members from different areas to improve a process or department. Because of the short duration of …