Blogs and Articles

Top Qualities of a Bad Manager

You’ve likely heard the phrase: “The people make the place.” This is often particularly true when it comes to the workplace. Whether it’s working with competent colleagues or motivated managers, your co-workers can make or break a professional environment. But when it comes to leaders, not everyone in a management position possesses the qualities you’d […]

How Feedback Can Help Your Team Be More Productive

As a lean leader, you’re likely always on the prowl for ways to increase your team’s productivity. Continuously improving is the name of the lean game, as peak performance and efficiency can have a direct effect on a business’ bottom line. And while this may be counterintuitive at first, offering up truly constructive feedback to […]

Is It A Good Idea to Get Worker Buy-In on Continuous Improvement?

As seasoned lean leaders are well aware, the concept of continuous improvement is a major tenet of lean management. As part of this crucial concept, leadership must have an eagle eye when it comes to spotting potential areas for improvement. Most aspects of your organization’s production process should be examined regularly and assessed for the […]

Why Lean is Even More Important in Service

Lean is a set of principles that were originally concocted in the 1940s to improve the manufacturing processes on the Toyota manufacturing floor. There are many documented successes when manufacturers have implemented lean practices to much success. But luckily, manufacturers don’t own the patent on efficiency. While lean was initially thought up to help manufacturers […]

How Cultivating Creativity Can Reduce a Team’s Stress

It’s not a secret that happy employees are engaged employees. And as we’ve discussed in previous posts, when workers are engaged and invested in their work and their organization, they are generally more productive. Creativity and productivity, rather that juxtaposing, tend to work hand in hand. And when a lean leader really thinks about it, […]

Breaking Down Quote to Cash and How it Can Work With Lean

As part of being a lean leader, a major portion of a manger’s job is to continuously examine every part of an organization’s operations to look for potential improvements. Every process, each workflow and all projects should fall in line with the lean tenet of continuous improvement and should benefit the value stream. But one […]

The Top Blogs Every Manager Should Be Reading

As a leader in your organization, we know you’re unbelievably busy. Between juggling projects, managing deadlines and maintaining the productivity of your team, it just seems as though there’s never enough time in a day (or in a week, for that matter). And part of the task of every lean leader and organized manager is […]

How To Know If You’re Practicing Lean Faithfully

As lean practices have evolved over the decades, more and more business across a smattering of industries have adopted these principles in an attempt to streamline their operations. While the list of lean practitioners continues to grow as years pass, not everyone who stakes a lean claim is seeing consistent benefits. Slagging productivity, high employee […]

Why Good Managers Are Also Good Coaches

In today’s workplace, managers are required to take on more responsibilities than their predecessors in previous decades. And many of those duties centre on motivating employees and maintaining (or boosting) productivity. And while many qualities mark a good manager, one distinction that stands out is coaching. Despite the word’s sporting connotations, coaching is an art […]