Practical Guide Volume 3

The work you do only matters if it is something that is valued by the customer. Granted, there are many non-value added tasks that support giving the customer what they want, but it is important to recognize that those activities are secondary to the things that customers are willing to pay for.

Some companies often get exceptionally good at…

Continuous improvement requires investment. Think of it like a rental property. There is an upfront cost to buying it and ongoing maintenance costs. But as the mortgage is paid off, more and more of the rental revenue becomes profit.

If you think of the development of this business management system as…

When a company doesn’t operate under a strong set of principles or with clear leadership, it needs rules and policies to guide behaviors. In most cases, this is not the most effective way to get things done.

In fact, it often creates …

Very few people come to work with the intention of doing a bad job or doing the wrong thing. People want to be personally successful, and they want to be on a winning team. Unfortunately, many people operate in a vacuum of leadership. They have little idea how…

There is a general tendency of people to focus externally first when assessing problems. For example, they might start assessing a problem with sales by focusing on competitors or economic conditions.

The problem with that is that they…