It’s all about the people… … the problem is, that seems hard… The joke often goes that managers pick up the Operational Excellence bible and flip through the chapters: hmmm ‘Create Flow’? Sounds confusing… what else we got? ‘Pull at the rate of demand’? Ok, ok, whatever that means…. ‘Remove Waste’! Aha! THAT I like…...

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A dual focus on developing people and managing them well gives a select group of companies a long-term performance edge. MGI’s previous research has shown that human capital development pays off for workers, with skills learned on the job accounting for almost half of the average person’s lifetime earnings. But does investing in people actually benefit...

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Human capital represents two-thirds of wealth for the average individual—and work experience contributes almost half of that value. he most important resource in any economy or organization is its human capital—that is, the collective knowledge, attributes, skills, experience, and health of the workforce. While human capital development starts in early childhood and continues through formal education,...

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This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. How do you create a continuous improvement learning culture? You build a Chain of Learning with the 7 Cs of leading and learning! Many business leaders are focused on what we need to break down to achieve success and innovation —...

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Summary. Not only is the majority of training in today’s companies ineffective, but the purpose, timing, and content of training is flawed. Want to see eyes glaze over quicker than you can finish this sentence? Mandate that busy employees attend a training session on “business writing skills”, or “conflict resolution”, or some other such course with...

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This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. theleanmag’s strategic goal is to grow and nurture the lean community knowledge sharing. we’re stronger together and knowing more prepares us for the daily struggle by Jamie Flinchbaugh When I ask an organization about their learning strategy, they almost always show me...

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Summary; Public speaking. Attending a networking event. Confronting a coworker. These are uncomfortable tasks, but sometimes need to be performed for us to grow professionally. So how do you move out of your comfort zone? It’s simple: be honest about your excuses; recognize your strengths and take advantage of them; and finally, jump in. If...

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A key to success in any Operational Excellence or Continuous Improvement program will be found in the way opportunities for improvement are harvested and prioritized; and how well the projects are managed and evaluated. I have written several articles over the past few years on what it takes to successfully design and deploy an Operational...

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Post-pandemic skill gaps need filling, and formal learning alone won’t do the trick. Scaling the lost art of one-on-one learning can make the difference. Recognize this situation? A manager asks a team member to prepare a presentation. The draft falls short of what’s needed, so the manager expresses her disappointment and offers feedback via email, then...

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For students in school, it’s graduation time.  Many young students are graduating from one grade to the next and still others are graduating from their high school and taking the next big step on their life’s journey into adulthood.  Of these, some will go directly into the job market; some will join the armed services;...

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I have been helping companies design and deploy their Operational Excellence (“OpEx”) and Continuous Improvement (“CI”) programs for a very long time.  Mind you, I was not born with this knowledge.  Rather I gained this knowledge by working with companies and observing the challenges they faced and helping them to overcome those challenges – and...

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The host of this TED video is Heidi Grant, who researches, writes and speaks about the science of motivation, influence and decision-making. In this instance, this social psychologist means that asking for help is tough. But to get through life – she says – you have to do it all the time. So how does...

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Topic: It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to hoover it. What can improv and performing comedy tell us about learning and collaboration?  After discovering several contacts in common, JP and Benjamin are joined by the Public Service Transformation Academy’s Paul Conneely to talk insights from his past forays into improv and comedy and their applicability to the...

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The date is November 19th, 1863.  A crisp autumn day in the fields of southern Pennsylvania in a little farm-town called Gettysburg.  Just four months earlier, the fierce battle of Gettysburg raged there as the Union and Confederate forces clashed in what mark the decisive high-water mark of the Confederate efforts to separate from the...

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The founder of the OpEx Society, Joseph Paris, is an internationally renowned public speaker, and speaking is his Gemba, (a Japanese word that means “the real place”)… Keynote sessions that Joseph Paris include, and are not limited to; Lessons from Mt. Stupid Why do Lean / Continuous Improvement Programs fail to achieve their potential? What...

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In my article, “Build Organizational Capacity and Capability – For Free”, I listed several root-causes for training and education programs reaching a “stall speed” and a detailed approach for avoiding it.  Among the root-causes listed were; time, expense, work/learning balance, scalability, retention rate, and atrophy. But there is considerable risk to the program even prior...

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I was coaching one of the national oil companies in the Middle East, offering mentorship to the director of their operational excellence program.  He was frustrated because he had invested considerable funds building a team of sixty Lean Six Sigma Black Belts over a nine-month period, and they had not yet worked on—much less completed—any...

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As Bob Dylan once said, “The times they are a’ changin’. This interesting TED talk by Courtney Martin shows exactly how this statement rings true in the light of the American dream. She reveals how history itself is being turned on its head and simultaneously provides some room for comfort concerning the fact that most American parents...

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CONTENT PARTNER CONTRIBUTION As seen in the Jun-2015 edition of the Lean Management Journal Continuous Improvement (CI) is a well-established concept within organisations. Many have developed elaborate CI strategies and transformation programmes. However, in our opinion, there is a fundamental problem that advocates of CI need to address. How successful have we been as a...

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“Virtual work” is increasingly just “work” for most of us – whether we’re dialing into a conference call with our branch offices in London and New York, or VPN-ing in from home to catch up with work after-hours, remote work is the new normal. But Peter Hirst is helping to lead MIT into a new...

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Finnish Railways ran with steam power until the late 1960s. The cockpit of the locomotive offered a workplace for two: the engine driver and the shovel man. The shovel man’s duty was to continuously shovel coal to the red-hot mouth of the furnace to keep the engine steaming. The century-long idyll of the two man...

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The Economist reports on new development taking place in the sphere of higher education. Coined as one of the great successes of the welfare state, what was once the privilege of a few has become a middle-class entitlement. Now a new revolution has begun, based on 3 impacting factors: rising costs, changing demand and disruptive technology....

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I wrote the first version of this article two years ago and offered an updated version last year.  I have had a great many people remark to me that it has helped them a great deal (which is the point, I guess.)  I have also had several people give me some new ideas and, of course, I have had...

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Education innovator, Anant Agarwal is pairing online education with face-to-face student-faculty interactions, with the purpose of reshaping the university campus experience. As the head of edX, he makes the case in this significant TED talk that MOOCs still matter — after the hype in 2013 was followed by some disappointing results. Agarwal means that massive open online...

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The director of North Kenwood-Oakland school says a new form of teaching that blends software with human intervention, helps her pupils learn faster. It also allows teachers at this school to spend more time teaching and less time marking written work. And let be realistic – the idea that technology can revolutionise education is not new....

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Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth studies intangible concepts such as self-control and grit to determine how they might predict both academic and professional success. She left a high-flying job in consulting in return for a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school, then discovered something about the power of true passion of perseverance....

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As Continuous Improvement practitioners, it is natural (even a passion) to always seek ways to improve ourselves and the value we drive to our colleagues and the companies for which we work.  During our quest for this personal and professional development, sometimes we know precisely which areas we wish to improve our skillsets and where...

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The Economist reports on the growing problem in regard to higher educational institutions in America: They represent declining value for money to their students. While at first glance, American higher education seems to be in good health, in actual fact it is not what it used to be. Actually, there is growing anxiety in America about...

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One of the most favourite things I get to do is being involved in academia; especially being able to mentor students as they embark upon their careers.  It is one of the very best ways of which I can think to “give back”, or even “pay it forward”.  And it is usually this time of year –...

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In this universally applicable Ted Talk, Ron Gutman – founder and CEO of the health app HealthTap, and organizer of TEDxSiliconValley – takes a closer look at the science of smiling. Ron perfectly highlights the power of one of the most underrated assets in both our personal and professional lives; the smile. Drawing his audiences’...

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