Once again, the WSJ has written about Lean at Starbucks (see my last post “Controversy over New Standardized Work at Some Starbucks Stores“) in Wednesday’s paper. The newest article is called “At Starbucks, Baristas Told No More Than Two Drinks“,…
When I was traveling last week, a magazine caught my eye, one I don’t normally read: Scientific American Mind and the article “Cubicle, Sweet Cubicle: The Best Ways to Make Office Spaces Not So Bad ( Preview )“. The whole…
TL;DR: The New York Times showed that Lean healthcare isn’t about “factory medicine,” but about removing waste so clinicians can focus on patients. When grounded in respect for people and strong leadership, Lean improves quality, access, and cost–while misapplied versions…
This is going to seem like a political rant, but I promise this is mainly a post about Lean and healthcare, or at least it’s about dysfunctional parallels in both settings. It was said that President Ronald Reagan and Speaker…
TL;DR: An NPR story about workplace “efficiency” illustrates L.A.M.E.–Lean As Misguidedly Executed–where tools like 5S are applied without respect for people or employee engagement. True Lean builds capability with the people doing the work, not through top-down cost cutting. Oh…
It’s been a while since I’ve done a “What You’re Searching For” Post, where I pull out items from my blog’s stats, the keyword searches that bring people to this site – the common, the uncommon, and the strange.
Calif. to get dose of auto anguish | Detroit Free Press | Freep.com Here’s a recent story about the demise of NUMMI, in which, the reporter wrote: “On the manufacturing side, GM did sustain much of what it learned from…
Yesterday’s WSJ front page headline caught my eye, as a frequent Starbucks customer and obvious Lean zealot: Latest Starbucks Buzzword: ‘Lean’ Japanese Techniques The headline is full bodied and complex brew that gives us a lot to chew on before…
By Andy Wagner: The New York Times recently published an essay by Matthew Crawford, based on his new book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. In his inquiry into the value of work, Crawford takes…
By Jason Turgeon: In the last couple of weeks, Mark’s been hammering the midwestern grocery store chain Meijer for ruthlessly timing employees on checkout time “efficiency” (post 1, post 2). Instead of rewarding employees for delivering fantastic customer service, management…
Recently, I blogged about management practices at the midwest retail chain Meijer. It was a sad (and not uncommon) story of quotas and threats to employees — if you don’t work at a certain speed, you’re fired. My post drew…
Management Leaders Turn Attention to Followers – WSJ.com This article caught my eye, this idea that someone other than top executives might actually have some ideas. In “Followership,” a book being published this winter, Ms. Kellerman argues that a big…