The Lean Start Up

The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy Kaizen

The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy Kaizen

* The best people to ask about how to improve how work gets done are the people who do the work not the people they report to.
* If you can create an environment that allows people to feel that offering ways they can improve their own method of working without fear of being seen as a critic, heretic or fool you will get a lot of creative input.
* Impose the constraint the the change must be something that the person can do themselves, to improve their own way of working.
* Make it clear that it's okay if the change does not work as expected.
* Make it clear that we learn more from analyzing why something did not work than we do from analyzing why something did work.
* Encourage people to try something else if the first suggestion does not work.
* Encourage people to write down their suggestions.
* Implement a system that reviews and says yes/no to the suggestion within one working day of it being written and submitted.
* Keep all the suggestions and their effects in a location where everyone can see them and learn from both the items that worked and did not work.

"Nearly all companies do not work like this. Most companies pay lip service to the intellectual capital of their staff.

- Every Pair of Hands comes with a Free Brain -

Treat your people with empathy and respect and you will nearly always be surprised at how well people respond - it's amazing but they might even start treating you with empathy and respect as a result"

- review notes summarized from Digby Christian

Career Scarevertising

"Life’s too short for the wrong job" the message of this brilliant ambient campaign by Jobsintown.de, a German job search portal.

Think about the interaction in this guerrilla marketing campaign. What's the impact for those looking at themselves in the mirror in the cape.

The campaign, by Scholz and Friends, won Gold at the ADCE Awards 2008.

More marketing stuff at
http://www.trendhunter.com/

Jim Fannin Radio Show with Jim Murphy

Follow this link

http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/2010/07/12/the-success-zone-%e2%80%93-exploring-inner-excellence-with-jim-murphy

- performance coach to collegiate, professional, and Olympic athletes in multiple sports, as well as a business turn-around specialist and motivational speaker

 

90 Second Rule

I would think this also applies to interactions with everyone, including staff & employees. Thanks to Jim Fanninn:

If you’ve been away from someone you care about at least 2 hours, the next 90 seconds have a bigger impact on them than spending hours and hours on them later. Walk in the door and be fully engaged in the moment. Regardless of your day prepare to focus your energy toward the people that matter most. See their every facial and hand gesture. Hear every voice tone or inflection.

give them my full attention for at least a few minutes.

Truth Behind Lean Success

“You must turn it over to the people who do the work. Train them
and then let them run. The lean leader’s job is less command-and-control.
Set policy deployment, the targets, and turn it loose. Provide
the resources and — another big part of the job — take away the
obstructions and obstructive people.
The antithesis is when leadership is focused on posturing and
gaining status, engaging in “smart speak,” with executives talking to
one another and never really getting their hands dirty.”

“I believe it takes 30 kaizens to understand, 60 to lead, and 120
to strategically integrate the process from front to back.”

“Being lean is not a competitive advantage. It’s not an end state.
The competitive advantage is lean momentum: Are you moving
faster than your competitor and faster than the market. That’s the
competitive advantage.”

Excerpts from ‘The Truth Behind Lean Success’

Leadership & Strategy First

Approach summary on a website recently visited,

Our approach to helping clients’ transform their businesses rests on recognizing three vectors for change:

1. Leadership.

2. Strategy.

3. Operational and process excellence.

Leadership is where it all starts – where executive leadership sets the vision and establishes the purpose and direction of the business.

Strategy is the means whereby leadership has identified how the business will establish a competitive position in the marketplace and serve its customers from a position of strategic advantage.

Operational effectiveness builds the system and process capabilities required to satisfy the corporate strategy.

A key difference in our approach is our recognition that direction is needed before speed and quality. There is no point in having excellent speed and quality operationally if it is achieved with the wrong products and services targeted to the wrong markets and customers.

Decision Making

Human beings are hard-wired for bad decision making in complex situations.
We hone in on answers before examining all the facts, and then seek evidence to confirm our answers.
We are adversely influenced by emotion, loyalties, and group think.
However, decision making can be improved when we encourage conflict and question our assumptions.
A devil’s advocate review should be built in early to the strategy process, and again at the key design stages and when near completion for a last chance to review the full strategy.

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2010/03/listen-to-the-naysayers.html

Execution over Ideas

The big idea is LESS important than good execution.
Most think that the big, NEVER BEFORE TRIED, idea is more important but there are lots of companies that do very well with good execution of fairly mundane things.

The only thing that is in infinite supply is ideas; There are probably more than 25 million smart Americans in their basements at any one time trying to come up with the next bid idea (like, say, Google). They are generating a huge volume of new ideas; that tends to suggest, in economic terms, a surplus of ideas while the skills to implement them are in much shorter supply and, hence, the latter will generally attract a higher price.

The market for new ideas, such as it is, tends to put a low price on them (just try to sell your BIG IDEA at a business model stage and you will see: a) how hard it is to do that and b) just how little you will get for it). Obviously, a startup that combines some type of innovation with good execution is better off than one with just sound execution.

http://www.dramatispersonae.org/UOttawaHomecomingSpeech16September2006_bilingual4.htm