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Pathways to reduce emissions
Our planet matters. Elon Musk’s plans aside, it’s the only one we have. Right now, our failure to take climate change sufficiently seriously is compromising the ability of the world’s population to live well and to prosper in the years to come. As lean practitioners we have the ability to impact our planet for good. With…
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Seeing and Understanding the Work in Product and Process Development
The biggest benefit of making the work visible – the conversations and interactions it facilitates. The ensuing dialogue about the plan facilitates mutual understanding amongst the different functions involved about how their work fits together to deliver customer value. This isn’t about just understanding the plan, but understanding each other and the impact of decisions and…
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Coach’s Corner: How To Put People First Using Lean Practices
Not only will putting people first lead to better performance, but it will also make your organization a more attractive employer. People want good jobs doing meaningful work where they can thrive, which you can help them achieve when you deliberately put people first using lean practices with supportive leadership behaviors.
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Coach’s Corner: Designing the Entire Value Stream From Concept to Product End Life
When people think about the environmental impact of the products they use, most think about the implications of their use and their disposal at the end of life. As design improvements continue to reduce emissions during the use phase, the importance of reducing the emissions during production becomes more evident. One-third of emissions come from making products. Designing your value stream to have a lower environmental impact in production could reduce your costs, lower your carbon footprint, and influence future…
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Coach’s Corner: How to Design a Knowledge-Sharing System
Designing knowledge-sharing practices that will allow people to get the necessary knowledge at the right time ensures that your team reuses the knowledge your organization has already created. Critically, deploying such a system frees team members to focus their time and energy toward creating new organizational knowledge. Continuously reusing and creating new organizational knowledge sets the foundation to develop new innovative products providing a competitive advantage consistently.
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Why it’s Better to Focus on Value, Not Waste
Many organizations primarily focus their lean efforts on eliminating waste. While nobody wants waste in their value stream, it would be better to focus on increasing value. Emphasizing value creation reduces the risk that you will unintentionally remove value-creating activities while searching for waste. Emphasizing value creation also ensures that you deliver more value through…
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Creating the Conditions for Optimal Learning in the Pursuit of Mastery: Lessons from Hiking
Enabling people to develop their skills and capabilities is essential for high performance in organizations. In the short and long term, it can enable people to perform their best through their pursuit of Mastery…. To optimize learning and growth in the pursuit of Mastery, we need to create the conditions for people to be stretched…
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Lessons on Respect from a Pandemic
I think treating people with Respect is the key to effective leadership, and frankly, it is just the right way to treat people. Respect is foundational to lean… Respect is Providing the Conditions to Discuss Needs, so we can Understand Together
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Enabling People to Strive to Fulfill Their Full Potential Through Lean in Practice
Organizations should strive to create the conditions for people to meet their full potential. For one, it is the right thing to do – it is the respectful way to treat people. And for any work that requires creativity, which is a significant percentage of the work being done, you get better performance from people…
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How to Show Respect During a Pandemic
If the foundation of showing respect for people is understanding their current situation and readiness for growth, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs offers a framework that can help you assess it… Lean thinking is a system designed to support people who have had their basic and psychological needs met and can focus on their self-fulfillment needs……