Job security is the feeling of safety that one’s job will be there in the future. Because job security is so closely linked to basic needs, like shelter and food, people react with strong emotions when their job security is threatened. In fact, job security falls into the first level Read more…
Many of the benefits of Lean are specific and tangible. Space savings, productivity gains, and inventory reduction all fall into this category. Some of the benefits of Lean, though, are intangible. They are the things that are not clearly perceptible. How can you define the impact of a focus on Read more…
Employee engagement describes a state of workers’ full commitment to the success of the company. Employee engagement is characterized by the worker making the extra effort and linking her personal success to corporate success. Employee engagement relies on two factors: Job satisfaction The ability to contribute in his role A Read more…
Executives are the senior leaders in an organization. They make the sweeping decisions that affect a large cross-section of the company at the same time. These senior leaders are usually the ones responsible for bringing Lean into an organization and setting the course that it will follow. Many executives can Read more…
Net Present Value (NPV) comes from the principle that money today is worth more than the same face value of money tomorrow. Would you rather have $1,000 today or $1,000 in 5 years? That question is easy to answer. Most people would take the money immediately. What about this one: Read more…
Competition is the act of trying to get your needs met over the needs of someone else. It could be competing in sports (your need to win over their need), in a job hunt (you against the thousand other applicants). Or it could be in a marketplace (trying to fight Read more…
There are many ways to learn about your customers, vendors, or employees. You can watch how they behave. You can do research or purchase data about them. You can analyze the data you already have. Each of these, though, is somewhat passive, and thus limits the information you can gather. Read more…
The word “motivation” has two distinct, though related, meanings. In the more generic definition, motivation is simply something that provides an incentive to take action. This meaning also has something of a psychological component to it, as there is a linkage between the incentive and a behavioral response. In a Read more…
Creativity is the ability to break the mold of traditional thinking. Most people think of creativity as the ability to come up with new ideas. But creativity is also exhibited when people use existing ideas or information in new ways. Creativity is very important to Lean. It is easy to Read more…
Ambiguity is the state of uncertainty in meaning. Ambiguity is harmful to Lean companies for several reasons. Ambiguity reduces consistency. If a process is vague, it is hard to follow the same way every time. Ambiguity slows processes down. Requesting clarification breaks the rhythm of a process. Ambiguity misaligns goals. Read more…
Discipline is the process of changing a behavior to make it conform to a rule or standard. For many people, discipline has a negative connotation to it, especially when it is their behavior that is being adjusted. In truth, though, discipline is more than repeating the standard and doling out Read more…
Results are the outcomes or consequences of actions. In the continuous improvement world, results are most commonly viewed as the intended outcomes of an operation, organization, process, or project. This is in contrast to unintended side effects of a process. Actual results are compared to goals to indicate how effective Read more…