What Happened to My Linear World

I grew up in the manufacturing world. I think I might have learned how to weld before I learned how to walk. I ended up putting myself through college along with help from the G.I. bill as a welder and later moved into industrial drafting. I even built process equipment. I loved process mapping; value Read More …

Is Visual the Key to Engagement?

In a 2-part podcast next week, I have Bob Petruska, author of Gemba Walks for Service Excellence: The Step-by-Step Guide for Identifying Service Delighters and Mick Wilz, Director of Enterprise Excellence and Co-Owner of Sur-Seal Corporation. Mick, co-owner of Sur-Seal Corporation, began his own journey to personal and business excellence about five years ago by Read More …

Do You Give the Customer the Proper Insight?

How many times have you walked away from a sales presentation wondering why the customer just did not get it? Why can’t they see the advantage in our product or service? What prevented them? We often here words mumbled like budget constraints or future considerations. We might hear that they have decided to focus energies Read More …

Using Scenario Thinking

Scenario Thinking is an art form, methodology, or discipline that I believe is as important to master as any tool that we have in our toolbox. When we are looking at different alternatives to the future, we use scenarios to paint that picture. I addressed that question with George Wright, the co-author of Scenario Thinking: Read More …

Leaders Get Hired to Grow Revenue

An excerpt from the book, CAP-Do: We now live in a world of excess supply and Leaders get hired to grow revenue. For the past 20 years, Lean has been sold from a perspective that faster, better, cheaper wins in the marketplace. It puts a high degree of value product/goods dominant logic (GD-Logic) thinking. Lean Read More …

The Missing Link in Continuous Improvement SALES (Not What You Think)

I introduced the SALES PDCA framework in the book, Marketing with PDCA. It is nothing more than a standard PDCA cycle except the SALES part of the framework is where the team gets its directions and coaching from the team coordinator and value stream manager. Within the actual PDCA stage, the team is empowered to make Read More …