From the category archives:

Leadership

Kaizen: They Must Increase, I Must Decrease

by Pete Abilla August 26, 2010

The true spirit of Kaizen isn’t just about improving the organization, but it is also in teaching, guiding, and in effectively stretching people beyond their current capabilities. Indeed, it is in developing people and in increasing their capability to contribute and add value. Staying true to the spirit of Kaizen has a few implications on [...]

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Jeff Bezos: It is Harder to be Kind than Clever

by Pete Abilla August 19, 2010

Jeff Bezos gave a wonderful commencement  address to the Princeton University 2010 Baccalaureate class. In that speech, he shares some wisdom he learned from his grandfather that has stayed with him all throughout his life. Here’s that video, followed by the speech in text: “We are What We Choose” Remarks by Jeff Bezos, as delivered [...]

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Focus on the Inputs

by Pete Abilla August 17, 2010

In the April 2010 Letter to Shareholders, Jeff Bezos tells Amazon.com shareholders about their focus on inputs, the customer, and their purposeful lack of discussion around financial metrics: Senior leaders that are new to Amazon are often surprised by how little time we spend discussing actual financial results or debating projected financial outputs. To be [...]

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Motivation Matters

by Pete Abilla May 23, 2010

Every one in a while, I’ll see something funny, inspirational, and motivating 1 at the same time. This picture is of a car with THREE pizza delivery thingies on the roof – from Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza, and Papa Murphy’s Pizza, Little Ceasar’s Pizza, Papa John’s Pizza.  Yeah, this guy delivers pizza for 3 different pizza companies.  [...]

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Some Growth is not Visible

by Pete Abilla May 4, 2010

With Spring underway and flowers are beginning to bloom again, my mind is drawn to lessons learned from the garden.  During the Winter months, what have my trees been doing?  Have they been growing at all? Then, I’m reminded that not all growth is visible – that’s true for trees, plants, and flowers.  But, it’s [...]

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5 Whys for Entrepreneurs

by Pete Abilla May 2, 2010

I’m delighted to see Lean Thinking applied to areas outside of “traditional” areas such as manufacturing. I’m especially happy to see Lean Thinking helpful to entrepreneurs, because I see entrepreneurs as the lifeblood of economies.  And, the application is appropriate: startup companies have little resources to work with – Lean Thinking is especially helpful and [...]

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Visual Indicators of Quality

by Pete Abilla April 29, 2010

A while ago on National Public Radio (NPR), I heard an interview with some officials regarding nursing home reform. One of the people being interviewed was a government official who oversaw quality of care in nursing homes. In that interview, he said something profound: within 5 minutes I know if the quality of care in [...]

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High Yield, Low Maintenance

by Pete Abilla April 22, 2010

Much has been written explaining “What is Lean?” or similar articles.  But, little has been said describing what a Lean Practitioner is like. Regardless of where lean thinking is applied: lean practitioners in software, in lean startups, manufacturing, healthcare, and others – what are they like? Here’s my stab at that description. Lean Thinkers and Lean [...]

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Defining Corporate Culture

by Pete Abilla April 13, 2010

Defining culture is difficult.  Most change management consultants would say that a culture is defined by our language, behaviors, and interactions. Anthropologists go a step further by saying that culture is defined more by what is absent than what is present. In a recent meeting I attended, a question was asked regarding culture and what [...]

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