Posts Tagged ‘Change Management’

Making Everyone Whole – from Jim Womack, Lean Enterprise Institute

Posted in Leadership, Lean Business Strategy, Operational Excellence on November 6th, 2009 by LeanThinker – 3 Comments

Jim Womack’s newsletter this month, posted here, very clearly explores one of the underlying reasons that Lean or Operational Excellence initiatives are often difficult to sustain (and sometimes even get off the ground).  Every affected stakeholder -whether the executive leadership team recognize it or not – looks carefully at that proposed improvement effort and asks “what’s in it for me?” and “what happens to me if this moves forward?”  So I ask, what does that individual do if he or she is getting an answer with which they’re not entirely happy?

In his article Jim refers to Pareto’s (Mr. 80/20 rule) second concept of economic optimality, and immediatly reminds me of this phrase in the Hippocratic Corpus: “first do no harm.” Some lean practitioners attempting to drive change unfortunately ignore this admonition at their own peril.

If, in our zeal to improve something, we cannot envision how our ideal future state may negatively impact another part of the organization’s currently “adequate” state, then we are indeed not optimizing the whole. Rather, we fall back on the silo-thinking which created the need for making changes/improvements in the first place.  And that’s where true “Lean Leadership” in the executive ranks shows what it’s made of.  Go forth, ye, and make sustainable Lean happen! 

And that’s the way I see it.  Adam Zak

GM April Fools’…oh wait, this is reality

Posted in Leadership, Lean Business Strategy on April 1st, 2009 by LeanThinker – 1 Comment

I’ve long been an advocate of Jim Womack’s Lean Transformation principle that “you’ve got to change the people, or you’ve got to change the people”  in order to achieve and sustain dramatic improvment in your business. And, as a corporate Executive Recruiter, I get involved when it’s the second of the two changes which becomes necessary. But is moving Mr. Wagoner aside only to replace him with the affectionately named “Fritz”, a long-time GM insider, really all that much of a change? And assisting Fritz (will they also work with Toyota, Honda and Nissan?) will be the D.C. all-stars profiled below. 

My friend and fellow Lean Thinker Mark Graban blogged earlier in the week regarding this Obama auto industry bailout team.  Mark is obviously critical of the individuals selected for this difficult task.  I’m less so, but I do see some humor in the obvious political connections with at least three of them. So in honor of April Fools’ Day I’m taking the liberty of quoting Mark’s blog verbatim. You can read the original by clicking on the link below.

***

Three Bankers and a Campaign Aide Walk Into an Auto Industry…

 A Look at Obama’s Auto-Bailout Team – WSJ.com

Stop me if you’ve heard that joke before… so here is the assembled team that will oversee the demise, I mean fixing, of the U.S. auto industry. I actually wrote this Sunday morning before it was announced that GM CEO Rick Wagoner was being forced out by the Obama administration:

Steven Rattner: investment banker

Mr. Rattner, 56 years old, has rarely waded into the industrial sector, but insists his lack of auto experience is not an issue. “I have spent the last 35 years, including my time as a reporter, being basically sent off to look at things I’d never seen before,” he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “It’s like a Rubik’s cube, trying to untwist it and trying to get all the colors to line up.”

So why on the panel? “For years a big donor in Democratic circles…” Ah.

Ron Bloom: investment banker

In a 2006 speech at a corporate turnaround conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., he described his approach to restructuring as “dentist-chair bargaining,” in which the patient “grabs the dentist by the b—- and says, ‘Now let’s not hurt each other.’”

Lovely.

Diana Farrell: investment banker, McKinsey consultant

In 1996, Ms. Farrell co-authored a book, “Market Unbound: Unleashing Global Capitalism,” that laid out how the private sector was rewriting all the rules of business and finance, with the government becoming an increasingly marginal player. Much has changed since then.

(An aside:  I worked with Diana when she was with McKinsey in the mid-1990s and this is one smart and independent-thinking professional. So in my opinion she’s going to add substantial value to the team and this endeavor. – AZ)

And the real kicker:

Brian Deese: 31 year-old Clinton/Obama campaign advisor

Today, at 31, he is a special assistant for economic policy to the president, and a key member of the auto task force.

With this kind of government help, I can’t imagine what kind of team they’d put together if they intentionally wanted to HURT the industry. Makes you wonder what sort of team will “fix” healthcare?

Recession Pain? Leaner Thinking Offers a Better Way

Posted in Adam Zak, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Lean Business Strategy, Operational Excellence on March 4th, 2009 by LeanThinker – 2 Comments

“There is a better way for everything. Find it.” Lean_Thinking_Light_bulb_goes_on

Thomas Alva Edison

Turbulent times provide ample opportunities for success, if we approach things with the right frame of mind.

by Adam Zak 

In my role as an executive recruiter specializing in helping companies with Lean transformation, I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately speaking with people all over the world who are wrestling with complex decisions. I thought I’d share some of my observations with you, and in turn, hope that you will share your thoughts with me. 

Everywhere we turn, there’s advice heralding “How to manage in a crisis,” or “New rules for surviving the crunch.” Just the other day I heard a discussion on PBS involving business writers trying to agree on a title for what the economy is going through. And there was no consensus (imagine that, from business writers). 

Crisis Breeds Opportunity 

Craig Barrett, recently retired CEO of Intel told Newsweek readers, “There is a general rule in business life: market share is won or lost during transitions. You cannot save your way out of a recession, you can only invest your way out.” No one is denying that cutting costs is essential to surviving 2009, but we Lean disciples have always practiced a different philosophical approach. As we look for ways to eliminate waste and improve productivity, we are always focused on getting better. In early February Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola’s CEO told the Wall Street Journal “I’ve been through this movie in smaller versions a number of times in the past…times like these are not an excuse to sit back and ride out the storm.” And this week, at a global sustainability conference in Chicago, I spoke with Rick Frazier, Coke’s VP Supply Chain, who told me they were leveraging their Lean & Green efforts even more dramatically during this time of uncertainty. 

“A recession creates winners and losers just like a boom,” observed Mauro F. Guillen, a professor of international management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in BusinessWeek. Let’s chose to be among the winners.  read more »

« Older Entries