Let people make mistakes? Tough Love of Leadership!

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]While leading an event this week, I came across a common situation that I have faced over the years.  The group, very new to pull, wanted to implement a particular piece of the pull system in an exact same way that I have failed in a past life.  Despite my best efforts through education and description of the past shortcomings, I couldn’t convince them to set it up any other way.  As an event leader what do you do next?    Impose your will on the group or let them make the mistake and learn the hard way?

Roundtable 6 – Are kaizen events ‘good’?

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[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]The ‘posters’ of the Lean Is Good blog have grown to four in number. Each of us brings a different background and set of experiences around Deming, lean, and learning. How could we leverage this diversity of thought and voice for the benefit of our readers? We ‘planned’ and came up with an idea that we could each briefly answer a question once a week.  We will post a poll so that readers can interact when it is reasonable for the question asked. The order that the answers appear in will be randomized each time. Please join us by adding your comments. We would like to hear from you.

The question:

Are kaizen ‘events’ good? Do they fit in a healthy implementation? When? For what?

Roundtable 5 – How do you teach lean ‘up’ the organization?

Staatsrat by jonas k under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]The ‘posters’ of the Lean Is Good blog have grown to four in number. Each of us brings a different background and set of experiences around Deming, lean, and learning. How could we leverage this diversity of thought and voice for the benefit of our readers? We ‘planned’ and came up with an idea that we could each briefly answer a question once a week.  We will post a poll so that readers can interact when it is reasonable for the question asked. The order that the answers appear in will be randomized each time. Please join us by adding your comments. We would like to hear from you.

The question:

How do you teach lean “up” in the organization? Do some people “up” in the organization learn faster or slower than others? Which ones?

Rountable 4 – Would you rather have 3 good improvement activities or 1 great one?

Staatsrat by jonas k under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]The ‘posters’ of the Lean Is Good blog have grown to four in number. Each of us brings a different background and set of experiences around Deming, lean, and learning. How could we leverage this diversity of thought and voice for the benefit of our readers? We ‘planned’ and came up with an idea that we could each briefly answer a question once a week. Today we ‘do’ it, and we will ‘check’ it after a couple weeks looking for a high rate of comments.   This is the fourth edition of the ’roundtable.’   The first three are here, here and here.   We will post a poll so that readers can interact when it is reasonable for the question asked. The order that the answers appear in will be randomized each time. Please join us by adding your comments. We would like to hear from you.

The question:

All else equal – would you get three quick improvement activities (70 % solutions) or 1 really great activity (95% solution)?

Roundtable 2 – How do you measure a year in someone’s life?

Staatsrat by jonas k under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]The ‘posters’ of the Lean Is Good blog have grown to four in number. Each of us brings a different background and set of experiences around Deming, lean, and learning. How could we leverage this diversity of thought and voice for the benefit of our readers? We ‘planned’ and came up with an idea that we could each briefly answer a question once a week. Today we ‘do’ it, and we will ‘check’ it after a couple weeks looking for a high rate of comments.   This is the second edition of the ’roundtable.’   It is related to this post from last week.

Competition Among Peers – Deming’s Third Deadly Disease

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Last week I did a posts here and here (and Bryan offered a different paradigm here) about the external motivation (carrot and stick) assumption of many performance evaluation / merit pay systems.  We’re calling this the “jackass series”.

Let’s talk about another assumption that underlies many of these systems – competition between peers increases productivity and effectiveness.  The effort to create competition can take on many forms.  Differential bonuses or annual increases, or forced rankings of peers.  Some go so far as to force somebody in the group to be put in a category like “needs improvement” or “C”.  In some of the most extreme systems people are “let go”

Recent Poll Results – 5S, When to Pull

[tweetmeme source="leanisgood" service="ow.ly"]Just wanted to post about the results of a couple polls that readers took the time to take.

A few weeks ago I a wrote a post entreating people to pull early in their implementations.  I asked the question the question n  few linkedin groups and people took  ‘early’ to mean first.  I wouldn’t recommend doing pull ‘first’ necessarily.  The intention of the post was to challenge the belief that pull has to wait for a long time (like years) for a high level of stability to be achieved.