I once worked with a cleaner who helped his factory achieve great success. He used a pattern of cleaning across a factory that targeted the critical hygiene areas and times of day when they were accessible. The factory shined thanks to him. Visitors remarked on it and Quality was helped…
42. Know your enemy..
It’s dangerous to think of yourself as just a hunter. No matter what you’re trying to achieve as a team, there are forces which will align against you. You need to assume you’re being hunted. A leader’s job isn’t just to set targets but to know where the team’s enemies…
29. About “Felt Leadership”…
“Leadership Style’ is the most written about topic in the Leadership Industry, also the most complex, so we at Balancedkaizen have taken some time to try to simplify our approach to this important topic. In our next series of posts we seek to examine some common “style” attributes, in the…
28. Making Values valuable
In the last 5 posts we have covered how the “top 5” corporate values can be actively used to assist leaders on their way to their teams achieving success. How those corporate values can be really valuable. Those Top 5 are Passion, Performance, Integrity, Teamwork and Respect. Whilst these (or…
22. Do Your Best
Values matter. They have helped provide purpose and unity to human societies as long as societies have existed. No surprise therefore that corporations and organizations of all types have adopted “Value statements” of various kinds, with varying effectiveness. Long before values became popular in business, others like religious organizations, schools…
21. Are we there yet?
The greatest enemies of real change are impatience and her cousin distraction. Unfortunately these two both look and sound similar so are often mixed up. Impatience is really important to overcome barriers and break down stubborn resistance, it brings dissatisfaction with status quo, plus the drive to make change as…
16. Making Pottery
“Strategy” can be a mysterious thing in business. The Leadership Industry devotes a lot of literature to it, as do most large organizations & Management Consultants, but many leaders just don’t understand it. They are also likely to be afraid to admit that they don’t. Many organizations see “Strategy” as…
3. Why DMAIC doesn’t work
Did you know that Organic Tomatoes are less good for you than non-Organic? The reason has nothing to do with the chemicals or whatever may or not be in different tomatoes, but with the fact that Organic Tomatoes are at least 40% more expensive than non-Organic. This causes demand to…
2. Houston, we have a problem
On April 13th 1970, as NASA’s Apollo 13 spacecraft sped towards the Moon, an explosion in an oxygen tank should have ended the flight and the lives of the crew. It didn’t end the flight, the astronauts survived & returned to earth because the “Problem” was solved. NASA succeeded in…
1. Magic Beans
In the fairytale about Jack and the Beanstalk, a poor farmer is made wealthy by acquiring some magical beans that take him to a place where gold eggs are laid by magic hens… of course he has to outwit evil giants along the way but in the end it was…