Can You Ignore Your Customers For a Week?

Since I've been moving into “lean healthcare” consulting, I am joining one of the healthcare management societies, analogous to an APICS type organization, I suppose. I'll leave this group un-named.

As I was poking around their website, I clicked on the bookstore, to be greeted wth this:

Please mark your calendar! Due to our annual physical inventory no orders will be shipped January 5 through January 13, 2006. We will resume shipment on January 16, 2006. Thank you for your patience.

Wow, how un-lean. This organization doesn't purport to be lean, but it's hard not noticing the lack of customer focus that's required to shut down for more than a whole week, due to their internal operations needs (a physical inventory). Most of us don't have that luxury, do we???

If you’re working to build a culture where people feel safe to speak up, solve problems, and improve every day, I’d be glad to help. Let’s talk about how to strengthen Psychological Safety and Continuous Improvement in your organization.