“So, how does your group decide what needs to get done?” I queried the table of executives, all senior managers with ownership interest in their fifty million plus business. Puzzled looks reflected back the bewilderment they felt. We had spent the past two hours on the subject of “alignment,” a concept that in the past, to them, meant “agreement.” Everyone had confirmed that far too much waste had been going on in their team meetings; i.e., churning over issues and not resolving them.
I turned to the CEO and asked for his perspective...
One of the first questions we ask when visiting a business for the first time is: “What is your current production status?” We then listen for what unit of time is used in the response. If the answer is something like, “We hope to ship 500 units this month”, we’ll then recommend driving the business on a weekly basis, instead of monthly.
Announcing the LEAN Glossary Visit our web-based lexicon of over 1,500 terms used in industrial engineering, lean thinking, operations management, quality management, the Toyota Production System, and business statistics.
Another "leadership fable" from Lencioni that conveys his solid prescription for organizational health--aiming for less politics, lower turnover, more productivity, and higher morale. In this case, his "four disciplines at the heart of making any organization world class" are revealed: Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team; create organizational clarity; communicate organizational clarity; and reinforce organizational clarity through human systems. Using a type of "Plan, Do, Check, Adjust" approach with organizational leadership, Lencioni illustrates how these principles can be beneficially employed--and how an organization can be stymied when they're missing.
LEAN Affiliates is a team of some of the most successful
Enterprise
Change
Agents in North America who are expert
with the
Toyota Production System
and lean thinking principles.
We become our clients' risk-sharing partner
to achieve
sustainable, breakthrough results in a way that is
self-funding
with a
commitment to success.
