What is your change leadership style? Program manager? Project manager? or any other? How do you drive transformation in your organization? Here is my approach. And you?
Do you remember to use common sense when making decisions?
The more we advance is our jobs, the more experience we gain, and the more “distorted” by experience our decisions and actions become. Scary? Definitely, but true! How often have you heard yourself say “take a step back”, “look at the broader picture”, “unstick your nose from the details”… Let’s face it, we are all … Continue reading
The role of emotions in decision making
I was writing in my previous post about the importance of stories – beyond numbers – to drive change in behaviors. Let’s now talk about why stories are so important to influence decisions. And let’s start with two simple affirmations: (A) 1,588 clients out of 10,000 complain about the quality of service of your company … Continue reading
Changing behaviors: do you use numbers or stories?
I am sure you are as convinced as I am: numbers tell the facts, and drive behaviors. We all know it by heart: “You cannot understand what you cannot measure; you cannot control and manage what you cannot understand.” This is definitely true, but is the reciprocity true as well? In other words, is it … Continue reading
Poka Yoke – Prevention, Detection, or both?
Poka Yoke is a Japanese concept aiming at preventing defects in a given process from being experienced by the customers. There are two effective ways to block the defects before they go to the customers. The first and most efficient way is to prevent the root causes of the process failures from happening: this is … Continue reading
A Poke Yoke story: the soap factory
A nice and self-explanatory story to illustrate the Japanese concept of Poke Yoke (mistake-proof)… A Japanese soap factory used to produce soap boxes with too many instances of boxes delivered without the soap inside. The production chain consisted of preparing the soap in a nice shape on the one hand, building the box matching with the soap shape … Continue reading
The 4 categories of roadblocks to Continuous Improvement
Who has never encountered the frustration of willing to work better and faster, yet being blocked by someone of influence saying NO… Isn’t it incredible?! Who has never been asked by one’s boss to keep the situation as it is even though it is obviously not efficient, let alone optimized… Isn’t that amazing?! Do these … Continue reading
4 tips to grow the human capital around you
Leaders – indirect or direct managers – aim at developing the human potential of the people they influence: they invest in training courses, they give more and more challenging tasks in which opportunities to develop different skills arise, they provide feedbacks to help improve and learn from previous mistakes… All these techniques have proven to … Continue reading
Angry dogs: what’s in it for them?…
A story that I learnt from Joseph Paris at the kick-off of the excellent OpEx Society Chapters in London. “I” in this story represents Joseph’s voice… I used to be a Newspaper Delivery Boy when I was a young lad, delivering newspapers to the houses in a few neighborhoods. Whilst delivering, I was always looking … Continue reading
RQTC: the 4 types of value-added activities
I have always been amazed by this ability “Lean leaders” have to categorize and identify wastes, and by the amount of time spent in analysing them. Isn’t that a waste of opportunity in its own?… We have a great cartography of the eight types of process wastes, we all know we should eliminate wastes from … Continue reading
Four Essential Ingredients for Successful Process Improvement
Have you ever dreamt of a checklist that would give you a 95% confidence that your process improvement project is going to be successful? A kind of “Poke Yoke” (mistake proof) execution process? In my opinion, the solution is making process improvement a process in itself. Here are the four essential ingredients you need to … Continue reading
Five questions to build up the human potential in your team
I have explained in my last article how important I consider those 5 key coaching skills in the toolkit of a good leader: (1) positive thinking, (2) managing by outcomes (not tasks), (3) questioning & challenging, (4) problem solving, and (5) leading by example, being a role model. I will explain in this article how anyone can … Continue reading
Five indispensable skills of a good Leader
What is the difference between leading and managing?… A recurring question we all have been thinking about as process excellence leaders with a “thought leadership” responsibility… In my opinion, the difference lies in the ability of a manager to be a good coach: Leadership = Management (hardware) + Coaching (software & heart-ware) What does it … Continue reading
Business Excellence Happy Hour in Singapore!
The first episode of a long series of Community events… feel free to join us at KPO (Killiney Road) for our next gathering – the date will be communicated later.
3 building blocks to approach any type of problem
Lean Six Sigma has built a reputation of a complex and cumbersome methodology… whether you agree or not, nobody can say it is not an effective method. Lean Six Sigma works! Lean Six Sigma delivers astonishing results! And to me, the results are not obtained thanks to the level of complexity Lean Six Sigma is … Continue reading
Delivering the full potential of a Lean Six Sigma project
Are you a victim of the 8th waste (waste of opportunity)? As Operational Excellence professionals, we are all dedicated to eliminate wastes out of the processes we aim at improving. Yet, are we eliminating 100% of our own wastes? Are we leveraging the full benefits of what we are doing? Are we, ourselves, guilty of … Continue reading
5S as a Management technique
5S is commonly presented as a structured and sequential approach to make the workspace clean, efficient, practical, visual. The manufacturing industry provides dozens of success stories to illustrate this concept. And indeed, people understand and remember this easily as it is a relatively simple concept. However, how do you make people in your training room understand the concept of … Continue reading
Change can only happen when the people accept
A famous story often used to illustrate the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually. Lesson learnt?… People should make themselves aware of gradual change or they will suffer eventual undesirable consequences. This story also illustrates the idea that change needs to be gradual to be accepted. Imagine a frog is placed in boiling … Continue reading
Anyone can make a difference!
A short and sweet story to sum up the whole concept of kaizen: the small but relentless improvements we can all make to keep walking and keep making a difference! A woman was walking along a beach one morning as the sun was coming up after a particularly stormy night. Ahead of her she saw … Continue reading
The Big Picture or the details?
What matters most when building a process map: the forest or the trees?… A very effective video to teach the importance of finding the right level of granularity in a process map: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
Poka Yoke: the process cannot fail, whatever people do
It is always very difficult for newbies to understand the concept of Poka Yoke, as, eventually, most people think that human beings will always make mistakes, and so the principle of “mistake-proofing” cannot be applied in reality. An example I use to illustrate the concept: ATM machines. Have you ever taken the money and forgotten your card in an … Continue reading
Value added is customer-driven
In the light of several projects I’ve worked on with people from “back-office” functions (operations, product control, finance & accounting, reporting…), I’ve found that some officers came up with an obsession for a word they call “control”… In their minds, it means that the more you check, the more you do for your customers, the better service you … Continue reading
Buy “Lean Six Sigma: Coach me if you can” now
Lean Six Sigma: Coach me if you can (ISBN: 978-1470162405) is now available for sale. Orders can be placed by contacting Anne (anne.ponton@hotmail.com), or on Amazon websites, available both on eBook and Paperback USA: http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Six-Sigma-practical-coaching/dp/1470162407/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337764758&sr=8-2 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DNCANG United Kingdom: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D341689031&field-keywords=lean+six+sigma+coach+me+if+you+can France: http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_fr_FR=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=node%3D695398031&field-keywords=lean+six+sigma+coach+me+if+you+can Germany: http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_de_DE=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=node%3D530886031&field-keywords=lean+six+sigma+coach+me+if+you+can Italy: http://www.amazon.it/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_it_IT=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=node%3D827182031&field-keywords=lean+six+sigma+coach+me+if+you+can Spain: http://www.amazon.es/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_es_ES=%C5M%C5Z%D5%D1&url=node%3D827231031&field-keywords=lean+six+sigma+coach+me+if+you+can
The 6C-equation: five reasons why a coach is critical to a successful Lean Six Sigma development journey
What makes a Green or Black Belt certification an almost universally recognized “degree” in the absence of a standardized checklist defining the certifications requirements? Are we all, as Process Excellence Champions, bringing the same value to the Belts we develop, even though the landscape of people certifying the Belts is so broad? Are we all … Continue reading
The Positive Energy to drive transformation
“I was able to complete because of your superb expertise and guidance, without them I think I would have been unable to come this far…. So a very big THANK YOU”, “I’m grateful to you for helping me through all the ups and downs, right from the start”… just a few real examples among dozens … Continue reading
The Process Excellence String of Ariadne 