You might think that "command and control" leadership styles are a thing of the past. But, old habits die slowly and many leaders today still seem to have a mental model that longs for a workforce that would "just do what they're told."
What did former President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower say about leaders who are "hitting people over the head?" I blog about that here...
As I've been writing about "process behavior charts" - a simple, yet effective method for charting and reacting to (or not overreacting to) metrics, it's made curious what some of the modern Toyota books say about metrics and performance measures.... or at least the first two in The Toyota Way series.
A culture of continuous improvement is really powerful - in a pizza restaurant or any type of workplace. It engages Milennials and people from other generations too...
I was happy to see an engineer (Chemical Engineering) and a General Motors leader, Alicia Boler Davis, on the cover of the Northwestern University alumni magazine. See this profile and story: “DRIVING GM“ My wife is an engineer and a…
We can probably all use a mid-week chuckle… I used to be a die hard fan of The Simpsons. I’ve drifted away from watching the show over time, but a friend recommended that I was the season finale. The full…
TL;DR: Trump’s “if I say do it, they’re going to do it” reflects a command and control leadership style that even the military is moving away from. Toyota, Gen. McChrystal, and decades of evidence point to something better. Command and…
At KaiNexus, we love our customers and we’re constantly impressed by what they’re saying and, more importantly,what they’re doing and accomplishing. We recently published a video on our YouTube Channel with Matthew Cannistraro from Harrington Air Systems. He has a lot to…
Today’s post is something that I wrote for a broader LinkedIn audience, but might have meaning and significance to my Lean readers: “What Bad Managers, Good Managers, and Great Managers Do“ You can also read this on Medium.com. You might…
Our Kaizen Institute guide, Brad Schmidt (pictured above) talked to us on Monday about standardized work. He said, of the practice at Toyota, that it’s “voluntary standardization.” This is revolutionary thinking, I believe, for much of the Lean community and…
Lean is not a “command and control” leadership and management model. The old command-and-control dynamic leads to so much poor quality and misery in all sorts of industries and organizations – including factories and hospitals. In a command and control…
QW: Freedom from command This might make for interesting reading in conjunction with the earlier piece on a Lean Air Force. Consultant and writer John Seddon highlights some of key conceptual differences between command-and-control management with what is needed in…
WSJ.com – Workers of Europe Innovate (subscription required) Great article in the WSJ today about a company in France that sounds like it’s doing many “lean” things without invoking Toyota. The leader of this company says, in part: Most businesses,…
