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Why Kickoff Training is the Key to Successful Transformation: Guest Blog by MetaExpert Gregg Young

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Patricia Linn
Transformation is change, and change is hard. People resist change. Even if today’s situation is terrible, change is still uncomfortable and scary – a case of the devil you know vs. the devil you don’t. People must become committed to the desired transformation, and this requires communication AND training. Communication lets people understand the vision, the desired outcome of the transformation. Training gives them the skills they will need in order to successfully contribute and therefore become committed. This kickoff training gives people the skills they need to become effective problem solvers, tools based on the “observation, then deduction” method of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes would look for clues at a crime scene, things that were out of place or different. Workers are trained to observe their own operations, to look at conditions when it performs brilliantly and when it performs terribly. They learn tools that search for the Consistent Differences…
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Training That Creates Mutual Accountability: Guest Blog by MetaExpert Andy Goldstrom

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Patricia Linn
Andy Goldstrom
When I was 30, I was extended an offer to serve as an Account Director at a small, start-up company.  The CEO and Founder created a unique and accountable culture from the day he opened for business.  The offer contained all the requisite language about the responsibilities and rewards, but what was most impactful was the last paragraph before the signature block, which said: “This employment offer is based on Andy’s commitment to USI’s standard Business Practices and Operating Philosophy, including: Making commitments and keeping them Providing total quality in everything you do Being a team player Holding yourself accountable to the USI team and Holding the USI team accountable to you” The company had a strong value proposition, but what was just as important was the culture.  Healthy and competitive peer pressure emanated throughout the organization.  When one person succeeded, the entire team succeeded.  When one person failed, the…
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Why Interim Executives Are the Private Equity Industry’s Best Solution to Being Under-Resourced — Guest Blog by MetaExpert Bob Flynn

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Patricia Linn
Bob Flynn
Private equity portfolio companies face aggressive goals when they try to expand their business in short-time frames. With acquisitions thrown into the mix, there is added complexity and risk. The projects to accomplish these growth and integration initiatives require dedicated resources and your best resources who are already spread too thin end up being over-utilized. The best strategy is to find experienced, specialized, interim resources that you can rely on, and have them available on demand. A key area of focus is to have a strong Project Management Office with enough project management talent and project management professionals, and a great process to drive your strategic initiatives. Plan ahead, form these relationships now with strategic staffing and talent companies. Make sure these companies and their team can deliver the breadth and depth of talent required, especially in terms of industry expertise and functional knowledge. Oftentimes, it takes weeks to find…
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Freight Driver Turnover: 10 Ways to Keep Drivers Happy — Guest Blog by Logistics MetaExpert Doug Sartain

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Patricia Linn
Doug Sartain
It’s important to keep your drivers happy and your fleet happy as this infographic about the high cost of employing (and losing) a truck driver shows. Here’s how I help fleets perform and maintain loyalty: Make the driver part of the solution, and not part of the problem. I ask drivers for their input on what the company can do better. When they have an idea, I run with it as long as it does not negatively affect a customer, company policy, cost control, safety etc. I always say, “I will let a driver win a battle as long as the company wins the war”. So even if I do not agree with the idea, I will implement it as long as it is not detrimental. If the idea works, I let everyone know which driver thought of it. You can never take credit for an idea that is not…
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You Are Not a Victim of Your Supply Chain Suppliers — Guest Blog by MetaExpert A.J. Tozzi

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Patricia Linn
Hands of a formally dressed man chained together
The biggest challenge I encounter in achieving supply chain excellence is that many organizations believe they are powerless when it comes to working with their suppliers.  The typical beliefs I encounter are: “we aren’t big enough to have any leverage”, “we can’t control what our suppliers do”, and “implementing a Lean supply chain will increase our costs”.  Interestingly, most organizations feel the same way toward managing their customers as well.  It is this victim mentality that prevents many companies from achieving operational excellence. The root cause of these limiting beliefs usually comes down to two critical factors: 1) not fully understanding what a Lean supply chain actually is, and 2) not understanding how to “sell it”, in other words, how to demonstrate how it will help the supplier to be more competitive and then use that as part of the negotiating process. To overcome these limiting beliefs, I focus on…
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Achieving Supply Chain Operational Excellence: The Roles of Communication and Accountability — Guest Blog by MetaExpert David Goodman

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Patricia Linn
businessman writing Supply Chain and drawing some sketches
My perspective is that obstacles to supply chain operational excellence occur in business when there is a lack of alignment between people’s measure of success.  In most organizations communication is a fundamental area that almost always requires work and improvement. In those undergoing significant change this comes to light and is amplified, creating confusion and other feelings that often get in the way of the improvement process.  Ensuring that the entire value stream is aligned and that ownership is established with a minimum of silos is critical to success in achieving operational excellence, not just improvements. I like to refer to what we most often experience in this regard as “islands of success in a sea of waste”.  Unless there is alignment which is often associated with Hoshin Kanri or Strategy Deployment, there will be a lot of good work that can go to waste because of the communication and…
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Interview with Joann Parrinder, APICS President: Innovating Ideas into Action with 5S

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Ron Crabtree
Business team testing virtual reality headset in meeting
Ron Crabtree The concept of 5S, which is a methodology to reduce waste through a rigorous approach to workplace organization and cleanliness has five steps that loosely translate as Sort, Setup, Scrub, and Shine, Standardize and, finally, Sustain. Until recently, it never really occurred to me that the concept of 5S could be extended creatively to improving processes that have absolutely nothing to do with physical organization. Joann Parrinder is a co-author of our book Driving Operational Excellence and has written a very interesting chapter in it titled “Lean Thinking Applied to Your Idea Development [Life]cycle.” Joann, glad you could join me. Joann Parrinder Thanks, Ron. I’m glad to be here. Let me give you a bit of my background. I have about 15 years of program and project experience and I’m PMP certified in project management. I like to build things, so my projects have primarily been in the…
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Interview with MetaExpert™ Gary Wickett: Are You Seeing All the Waste?

Posted By: 
Ron Crabtree
Team Of Engineers Having Discussion In Factory
Ron Crabtree We’re going to touch on something near and dear to our hearts in any kind of a business setting. Specifically, identifying an illuminating the sources of business waste. It is my pleasure here to introduce to you in a moment another of the authors of the book, Driving Operational Excellence, Mr. Gary Wickett. In Chapter 14, Gary takes a refreshing look at practical ways to think about waste and a very pragmatic and simple approach to smoking out the true root causes of systemic and process wastes. I like Gary’s chapter so well I included it as reading for the Michigan government process re-engineering program I recently developed and delivered. One of the things I particularly liked about Gary’s chapter is he makes it specific to the service providing industry. He uses a fantastic case study in applying these techniques, so no matter what it is you do,…
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Executives, Here Are the Only 6 Things You Need to Know About Disruption to Be a Disruptor

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Patricia Linn
7 Stages of Becoming a Disruptor
The word disruption is so overused in business it threatens to become jargon which is never a positive fate for a term as important as this one. The people overusing the word and jargonizing it are usually using it wrong. If you understand what it means precisely, takes the following six points seriously to heart and do what you do best — much more aggressively — you can transform your organization into a disruptor. The Actual Definition of Disruption Disruption: something that changes the game entirely. In business, it’s a product or service that has a staggering effect on events, activities, processes, and people in a marketplace. It’s what happened to the world when regular people could buy cars, radios, televisions, VHS players, cell phones — commodities that changed the way we live our lives, and that we had never had before. It’s what happened when we could go online…
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Guest Blog by MetaExpert Giusseppe Lovecchio: Achieving Supply Chain Operational Excellence by Unlocking the Great Potential In Every Organization

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Patricia Linn
Supply chain workers
Achieving supply chain operational excellence is not an easy target, you need to combine a variety of different factors together; attitudes and competencies, robust processes, and the right technology are just the minimum requirements. The most difficult obstacles I come across are related to the partial achievement of these three aspects, the most common relating to people, their attitudes, and competencies. How to improve the competency of your staff? Measure their progress and motivate their behavior toward excellent performance. Many programs and tools exist: skill matrix, gap analysis, focused training programs for competence upgrade, and so on. The measurement of a higher set of competencies must then be correlated to the superior process performance in terms of output and throughput. A systemic approach helps to reach excellence, a set of proven tools and methods – with the right commitment of top management and superior consultancy performance – are the key…
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