Norman Bodek Kicked the Door Open
October 25th, 2005 by Hal
ast week I worked with one of my client's executive team on some business planning. The company has been pursuing a lean approach to delivering their projects and for general operations improvement. Progress has been good at two of their divisions. The executive team came together to plan initiatives for the next two years to expand efforts to the balance of their dozen divisions. I invited Norman Bodek to join us for the session. What a treat that was for us all.
Norman is the godfather of the lean movement in the western world. He was the first to publish Shingo's and Ohno's1 books in English through his company Productivity Press. Norman went on to lead 50 study missions to Japan and he created the very successful 5 days and 1 night approach now called 'kaizen blitz'. Norman eventually sold Productivity Press, but he couldn't stay away from Japan or the publishing business. In the last two years he's published three books all of which he authored or co-authored. He is getting ready to publish three more books in the next year through his new firm PCS Press.
Throughout our planning Norman joined the working groups and our discussion sessions. At the end of the day he spoke to the group for 90 minutes. His message:
Unleash the energy and creativity of the workforce…all you gotta do is ask!
My client came away enthused and ready for action. They invited Norman back for their annual leadership program in January. It should be enlightening. Read more about kaizen for Projects.
- Engineer Shiego Shingo and Taiichi Ohno were the creators of the Toyota Production System [ ⇑ back ]
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