Respect for people is a cornerstone of lean thinking and the Toyota Way. Some are predicting it will go mainstream in the coming year. Respect for People Predicted to be a Leadership Theme for 2007 Let's hope they're right!

Mark Graban just posted the Lean Blog Carnival for December. It was a very busy month for leanies. Happy New Year!

Another from my Jeffrey Pfeffer pile of clippings The High Price of Workplace Mistrust, B2.0, December 2006. Unfortunately, you can't read the essay online. (Perhaps the editors didn't think it was very important.)

The bigger problem are the disaffected employees that stay on.

Prof Pfeffer makes a link between the increase in turnover since 2004 to the current practices of employers based on distrust. He cites that turnover of executives, salespeople, and production employees has nearly doubled and turnover of professional and technical staff is up about 70%. During the same time the American Management Association reports that 76% of employers monitor employees' website connections, 55% retain and review email messages, monitoring of phone usage has jumped from 9% to a 51%, and testing for drug use has become standard. While Prof Pfeffer doesn't offer any statistically valid study linking the loss of privacy to increased turnover he makes it clear that he believes a link exists.

What needs to be done? Pfeffer answers, Read the rest of this entry ¶

Jeffrey Pfeffer is one of my favorite business writers. He makes the audacious claim,

"All the brains and connections in the world won't matter unless you also have the bullheaded determination it takes to get things done."

But is it audacious? As the year ends I'm taking stock, cleaning up loose ends, and considering how 2007 might be more prosperous and more rewarding my clients, my colleagues, and for me. Professor Pfeffer writes about people who are learning from what doesn't work and what was earlier abandoned. What's not working for you? He suggests that we should take another look at what hasn't worked before moving on to something new.

I don't know that I'd say you have to be a bulldog to survive, but it just might be the bulldogs that thrive.

At the Six Sigma Blog they look at the 99% world to show The Significance of Six Sigma. At 99% 50 babies would be dropped in hospitals each day.

This Classic photo comes to you via Seth Godin. If only people would be responsble.

It's a great series on PDCA. Parts: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Bullshit. Sorry, it's my reaction to the quotes in today's NY Times article, Toyota Is Poised to Supplant G.M. as World’s Largest Carmaker in the coming year. Read on and decide for yourself.

"If Toyota overtakes G.M., that is a very big deal," said Mark Hawkins, chairman of the United Automobile Workers union local at G.M.'s Flint truck plant.

Wake up Detroit! It's time we all learned from Toyota.

G.M. and the union need to work together to at least try to prevent Toyota from displacing G.M., Mr. Hawkins said, because he worries G.M. would never be able to take back the top spot after losing it. "Right now they've got a lot of momentum," Mr. Hawkins said of Toyota.

Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who will probably become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year, said Toyota's strength came in part because it did not have to pay the full cost of health care coverage, a major burden for Detroit companies, and because it has benefited from the strength of the Japanese yen.

Read the rest of this entry ¶

Ford might come to mind. Not only have they paid people to leave, so many have left that they now have to make new hires. Training will cost. Quality may suffer. But Ford is not the auto maker I'm writing about. It's Toyota.

No Satisfaction at Toyota is a story about Toyota's relentless attack on complacency. Charles Fishman writes,

"Improvements aren't "projects" or "initiatives." They are the work, (the employees') work, every day, every week. That's one of the subtle but distinctive characteristics of a Toyota factory. The supervisors and managers aren't "bosses" in any traditional American sense. Their job is to find ways to do the work better: more efficiently, more effectively."

In short, the work of everyone is kaizen. And then some…

Read the rest of this entry ¶

Innovation can seem like such a big idea…just out of the reach of every person on your team. Matthew May wrote a book and a ChangeThis manifesto of the same name where he shares another of "Toyota's (lean) secrets." Everyday innovation is not only available to every team, it is the skill and practice that will separate you from your competitors. Read Elegant Solutions manifesto; share it with your team; and begin your own practice of innovation on your project.

 … or read the book.

Some people think that construction safety is a matter of establishing safety as a value. If people value safety, those people argue, then workers will work safely. While that might be true, we don't have time for that. It can take years to establish a value for anything. The task of producing the value for safety becomes more difficult with new people always being introduced to the construction environment. We need to improve safety immediately. And we can.

While most planning approaches define what should be done that is insufficient to assure work will be done.

In the previous post in this series I said we need to follow the rule to only do work that is in a condition to be started and finished. But how do we do that without impacting productivity? Working to the safety rule is supported by a process for making work ready.

Making work ready — including all aspects for working safely — is an aspect of the planning system. While most planning approaches define what should be done that is insufficient to assure work will be done. Read the rest of this entry ¶

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