A Transformation Story
We all love stories. Stories have characters that we relate to or hate, there’s drama, heroes and villains, and the best stories stir the emotion. The same goes for companies and their stories – all companies have a story. Most stories are in-process still, whereas some have ended, such as the story of Enron. What is your story? If your company is amidst a transformation or a turnaround, what does that story look like? What chapter are you in?
Why Transformation Efforts Fail
Transformation or Change efforts sometimes fail. In fact, the numbers are staggering – most of them fail. While the root cause is wide and varied, there are general themes or characteristics that are important to keep in mind in your own transformation efforts. Think of these as symptoms also — that a failure is around the corner if you see these characteristics creeping-up or, better yet, you can course-correct if there’s still time.
Respect for People, Underutilized People, and Waste
The two pillars in Lean Thinking are Continuous Improvement and Respect for People. What is not well understood is that most of what we know as The Toyota Production System comes from these two pillars. The Lean sub-culture tends to over-emphasize the “tools” of Kaizen, but miss the point altogether, since the tools stem or originate from one of the pillars above. The relationship between the 2 Pillars and Waste is subtle, but important.
Off-Topic: Wednesday Waiting Child
This is not a normal shmula.com post, but I felt compelled to write this in order to help 3 beautiful and good kids find a family. In order to get the word out, please consider Retweeting, Facebook, Digg, to spread the word – perhaps together we can help these 3 wonderful kids find a family.
Turnaround and Change Management: Do Not Waste a Good Crisis
I’ve been part of several turnarounds and have led a few in my short career. One thing that I’ve learned is this: one cannot underestimate the people-side of a turnaround. In fact, it’s very likely that your turnaround will fail, if your people aren’t with you.
Goodbye Customer: Loyalty, Costs, Complexity, and Recovery
Goodbye Customer.
That is sometimes what we say, without knowing the full costs and burden that proposition means on the business. Ironically, businesses are often unaware that their actions are pushing the customer away while at the same time trying to recover and retain them through expensive customer retention programs. Metaphorically, this is like pushing the customer away and pulling the customer back — at the same time. It is no wonder that customers have had enough.
Poka-Yoke Pharmaceuticals
King Pharmaceutical (NYSE: KG) recently had a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Their drug, Embeda, has an interesting property: If you take the medication as prescribed, it works fine; if you abuse the medication, it ceases to work. This is Poka-Yoke (ポカヨケ) for Pharmaceutical drugs.
Unappetizing Spaghetti Diagrams
A Spaghetti Diagram is a simple visual tool to demonstrate the flow of material, flow of information, and flow of money in a process. The word “spaghetti” is descriptive because it describes flow that is not easily understood, can’t easily be followed, or if the flow is literally all over the place. Indeed, a Spaghetti Diagram represents a point-of-departure: what does the current state look like and what are the exact improvements we need to make?
Business and Garden-Variety Defects
Working in the garden can teach us a lot about the natural course of plants, trees, and weeds. Indeed, there are many corollaries between weeds in the garden and defects in a business setting. What can we learn from the natural world that are applicable in business?
The Garden is the Gemba
Amazon and Zappos Sitting in a Tree
As most you know by now, Zappos has entered into a definitive agreement with Amazon.com and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon. This is exciting and, after speaking with my friends both at Amazon and at Zappos, they are all quite excited too. Congratulations to Amazon, Zappos, Tony Hsieh, and Jeff Bezos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.
