Articles by: Ankit Patel
07/13/10 by Ankit Patel | lean business system | No Comments »
I meet with a metal stamping company today and the CEO said something every interesting to me. He said “We don’t go after the high volume lower margin products like automotive, we go after what no one wants to do and we do that. The one who bid’s the lowest on the high volume jobs get it but many times they are just bleeding slowly from a financial perspective.”
Two thoughts came to mind when he said this:
1) It’s good that you’ve found a niche
2) How do these companies differentiate them self other than price?
Find a niche:
To find a niche you have to know the industry but there are a couple of factors that repeat themselves across most industries. Highly customizable short run products are a great niche market. If you do go after this market then you have to be aware of not only price but deliver times, quality, and very high complexity. A Lean Business System can address all three of these needs and is highly recommend if you are expanding to new markets.
What differentiates you:
How do you set yourself apart when you bid on projects? Is price the only thing you have to offer? The one unique part of you company that cannot be duplicated is your people and your culture. How is your culture different form the competitions? Is your culture a by product of focusing just on the bottom line? Do you have a culture that fosters growth, new ideas, and innovation? How you you differentiate form the competition?
A Lean Business System is a great way to both address a niche market opportunity and to differentiate yourself from others weather it’s through online delivery, innovation, continuous improvement, or just lower employee turnover rate. Are you just slowly bleeding when you get low margin jobs? How do you deal with the competition?
For more information on Lean Business Systems or other questions please contact us.
Related posts:
Combining Lean With Emotional Intelligence Case Study
The Missing Link To Lean Six Sigma – Emotional Intelligence
Friday Factoid – Culture = Profits
Motivating Employees Without Money
Call 615.852.LEAN[5326] and Follow on Twitter and Facebook.
07/09/10 by Ankit Patel | factoid | No Comments »
Road deaths in India rose 40% in five years to more than 118,000 in 2008.
Source: New York Times
The New York Times sites poor planning and a surge of drivers as the factors for the rise. The lack of planning and proper driver’s education seems to be the root cause of the problem. Most places will spend more time with road planning and have a better budget. Do you have a process in your work environment that are like the roads in India? Poor planning and training leading to a poor process? How would you fix the roads in India? How would you fix your processes at work?
07/07/10 by Ankit Patel | emotional intelligence, EQ, lean business system | No Comments »
When first starting Lean companies tend to jump to the productivity piece but Lean is not about the processes but about the culture. Lean culture is the cornerstone to a Lean Business System. The aptitudes of communication, trust, and alignment are the building blocks to reach productivity.
Communication:
Studies of business cultures indicate that one of the most pervasive problems is communication. It is a simple fact of life that the more human interaction there is, the more opportunity for conflict. This is not surprising since most people never receive training in this area. This leaves companies of all sizes and descriptions two options: One option is to try to make communication work. The second is to simply ignore the issue hoping it will go away. The former generally does not work because most managers do not place enough of an emphasis on communication to truly do what it required to improve. The latter does not work for obvious reasons. Thus, it is a wise leader who is willing to hold the organization up to the mirror to look at all the imperfections,and then do something about it.
Trust:
The level of trust directly impacts how effectively the entire company operates. It is based upon many factors that each individual contributes. If the trust level is high, there is an ability to address and resolve issues. If it is low, problems escalate, negatively impacting how people interact and address problems. Every individual in the organization is responsible for building trust. Without a doubt it takes courage to have trust in others, and to open oneself up to criticism while maintaining a demeanor that builds trust. Without trust, no organization can achieve its full potential.
Alignment:
When you go to the airport to board a plane, you expect the pilot to know exactly where the flight is headed. Furthermore, you expect that the pilot and everyone else on the plane are planning on going the same place you are. Unfortunately, the same cannot always be said of a company‟s work force. All too often members of a team do not seem to have a common destination guiding their actions.
Alignment in a company ensures that everyone understands the direction that it is headed, and how this is going to be accomplished. Additionally, alignment provides for every individual understanding her/his own role in the process. Without alignment, resources are being misspent taking the organization away from the desired result.
Productivity:
There is a fine balance between people and production concerns that a leader must consider. If, for instance, the balance tips in favor of production, the people in the organization suffer and begin to feel unvalued. This causes them to lose interest in the success of the company, and their work suffers. This typically takes on a snowball effect in that the more the “boss” demands production, the more the employees rebel and production suffers.
On the other hand, some managers go the other extreme. They assume an exaggerated paternalism. They cater to staff members to make them happy at the expense of the business. This can lead employees to begin taking advantage of managers. In both of these scenarios, neither management nor the staff is engaged in moving the company forward. A leader finds a balance between people and production requirements. He or she is able to harness the energy, creativity, and desire to be an integral part of the organization in order to bring out the best in the team. The leader includes the team to assist in maximizing the production in a continually improving manner. This will typically preclude either people or production being sacrificed for the benefit of the other.
With any Lean Business Systems be sure to include communication, trust, alignment, and productivity in your changes. By including these four factors into a Lean Business System you increase the chances of success dramatically.
For more information on Lean Business Systems, the hierarchy of Lean Business Systems, or other questions please contact us.
Related posts:
Combining Lean With Emotional Intelligence Case Study
The Missing Link To Lean Six Sigma – Emotional Intelligence
Friday Factoid – Culture = Profits
Motivating Employees Without Money
Call 404.855.1634 and Follow on Twitter and Facebook.
07/02/10 by Ankit Patel | factoid | No Comments »
Only 10% of cost-reduction programs sustain their results three years on, McKinsey research finds. Sales, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs are particularly unyielding: While manufacturing efficiencies have helped S&P 500 companies reduce the median cost of goods sold (as a percentage of revenues) by about 2.7 percentage points over the past decade, SG&A(sales, general, and administration) costs have remained at about the same level.
source: HBR daily stat
It’s interesting to note that corporate cultures will peak with cost cutting initiatives at 3 years and the initiatives don’t go further than direct operations. When starting a Lean initiative or any other initiative I always ask what are you doing to make sure you going to keep seeing gains? With Lean the driver can come from the top level strategy as well as pursuing efficiency outside of direct operations. HR is a great place to start your Lean transformation. IT is another support group that can benefit greatly form Lean. How does your company deal with sustaining changes? Where do you start your improvements?
If you are interested in knowing how to sustain Lean please contact us.
For more information on call 615.852.LEAN[5326] and don’t forget to visit www.TheLeanWayConsulting.com; and Follow on Twitter and Facebook.
06/30/10 by Ankit Patel | emotional intelligence, how to start lean, lean | No Comments »
I came across an article that talks about how emotional intelligence is used in the implementation of lean. CIBA is specialty chemical company whose Italian office decided to go Lean. The main difference in their transformation that’s normally not done is the focus on the organizations emotional intelligence and EQ (emotional quotient) score.
Some notable results from their transformation include:
– productivity increased by 18%
– reducing complaints by 73%
They credit their success to consistent application of emotional intelligence along with Lean implementation. The two are not separate but hand and hand. Many of you know what Lean is or at least have an idea but you may not know what or how to make your organization emotionally smarter. Emotional intelligence is defined by four factors:
1) The ability to perceive emotions in oneself and others entails identifying internal cues of emotional experience and emotional information in facial expressions, voice, music, designs, and other stimuli.
2) The ability to use emotions to facilitate thinking entails integrating emotional information with ‘cold’ cognitive processes.
3) The ability to understand emotions entails appreciating emotional dynamics and blends of emotions and how these influence thinking and behavior.
4) The ability to manage emotions entails regulating emotional experience in oneself and in interpersonal situations to attain personal goals and adaptive outcomes.
The good news is that you can change your organizations emotional intelligence just as you can processes and the combination of the two changes leads to a permanent culture change. Just like Lean transformations, increasing the emotional intelligence of your organization is not going to be easy because you will run against deep seeded feelings and emotions. With one organization we did an emotional intelligence baseline and unearthed some issues of communication, trust, and respect before even starting a Lean transformation. The project is still on going but the culture is improving and once we can clear up any communication, trust, and respect issue we can move forward with a full Lean implementation.
How does your company tackle it’s emotional intelligence? Do you have a baseline test? If you would like a baseline test please contact us.
Related Posts;
The Missing Link To Lean Six Sigma – Emotional Intelligence
Friday Factoid – What Motivates Employees
Motivating Employees Without Money
Motivating Employees Without Money – The Psychology Of Behavior Change
06/25/10 by Ankit Patel | company culture, EQ | No Comments »
Source: USC Marshal Business School
Culture is defined as any values, assumptions, and artifacts (symbols, stories, texts, ceremonies, rituals, etc) associated with the company. How well the company adheres to culture and how well the company culture promotes growth, improvement and a suitable work place determines cultural strength. There is a clear correlation with culture and return on capital and even though it’s only at .51 (out of a possible 1.00) this is higher than most single factor regressions. The study takes samples form companies in various sectors but in general for every 1% improvement in the cultural environment of a company we can expect about a 3% increase in return on capital. The good news is that there is a way to systematically increase your culture and if you are interested please Contact Us.
Related Posts;
The Missing Link To Lean Six Sigma – Emotional Intelligence
Friday Factoid – What Motivates Employees
Motivating Employees Without Money
Motivating Employees Without Money – The Psychology Of Behavior Change
06/22/10 by Ankit Patel | meditation, stress and productivity | No Comments »
Stress is something that will deteriorate your work environment and health quickly if you don’t control it. Stress in short bursts can be a good thing because it forces us to get things done in a certain time line. It’s also very useful if you are running away from a pack of wild dogs. Chronic stress over the course of months and even years is very detrimental to your health and well being. You don’t learn as well and you will eventually have worse performance than if you are not stressed.
I recently asked a friend of mine, Curtis Simpson, who teaches meditation if he had any techniques that I can give to my readers to help with managing stress. He told me how to do heart-focused breathing. Here is what he says about heart-focused breathing:
Heart-Focused Breathing is a simple yet powerful technique that is being taught by
doctors, nurses, clinics, and meditation instructors throughout the world.
This practice will reduce stressful feelings, and increase feelings of well-being,
balance, and energy.
It can be done anywhere and anytime. This can be done sitting down with eyes closed or standing up eyes open.
· Shift your attention to your heart (heart-focus)
· Think of your breath flowing in and out of your heart (heart-breathing)
· Breathe more deeply, rhythmically and slowly but don’t strain
· In addition, as you breathe through your heart area try to recall a positive feeling- a time when you felt good inside-and try to re-experience it. This could be a feeling of appreciation or care for someone or something (heart-feeling). Try to maintain this feeling while heart-breathing.
So remember the basics: heart-focus and heart-breathing, and heart-feeling.
Doing this practice will help you get into a more positive and effective emotional
state. Then, your thoughts will become more balanced. Relaxation will occur and mental focus will improve.
In a Lean Business System you have to make sure that stress is not prolonged because of the effect it has on the creativity and productivity of your employees. Implementing small free items like heart focused breathing are a great way to start.
For more information about Curtis or heart-focused breathing see his page on Heart-Coherence.
For more information on Lean Business Systems call 615.852.LEAN[5326] and don’t forget to visit www.TheLeanWayConsulting.com; and Follow on Twitter and Facebook.
06/18/10 by Ankit Patel | factoid | No Comments »
The Lean Way Consulting works with Non-Profits and has to work with board of directors who do not get paid. Motivating them can be challenging but here are some ways to motivate board members who work on a volunteer basis.
1)Pose provocative questions. Spend a significant part of each board meeting wrestling with critical issues and asking your board to think through the toughest challenges facing your company.
2)Share the stage. Minimize time spent listening to prepared presentations. Be sure the conversation isn’t dominated by one or two members.
3)Spend time one-on-one. Find out about members’ individual interests and how they might translate to helping your company in a unique way — for example, by coaching an executive or attending a critical in-house meeting.
source: http://web.hbr.org/email/archive/managementtip.php?date=061810
How do you motivate your people?
06/15/10 by Ankit Patel | adding value, veterinary clinic | No Comments »
As you know I live in the Nashville TN USA area and we recently had a flood that was the worst non hurricane flood in U.S. history. With about 1.1 billion in damages and over 30 lives lost it was a very tragic event.
The Lean Way Consulting is currently working with Caudle Veterinary Clinic and while Caudle wasn’t hit by the flood the neighborhood the clinic served did get hit hard. The Lean Way Consulting does an exercise with our clients where we ask two questions; “what can you do that will help your clients” and “if you were a client how would you like to be treated.” Caudle did this exercise after the flood and came up with great ways to help the community. As a result Caudle Veterinary Clinic started doing several things the other veterinary clinics in the area did not do.
They boarded flood victim pets – These pets that were either separated from their owners or pets that did not have a known owner. They did this free of charge until the owner was found or there was someone that was willing to adopt the pet.
They kept their community informed – They made daily postings to the community online forum and their Facebook page to update pet owners on the latest from metro Nashville.
They helped out the police – Caudle Veterinary Clinic helped metro Nashville find homes for dogs that were abandoned.
They became a resource for information – When there were questions about pets Caudle Vet Clinic was the place to go to find out information. The manager even gave some people her personal cell phone number to help them during off hours.
All these the things that Caudle Veterinary Clinic did cost them time and money but they did it for free. They did it because that’s what the customer found valuable at the time. It was hard enough for people to deal with the lose of their homes and property and Caudle made it easier for people and their pets to reunite.
How did this effect them? Caudle has been featured on local news at least two times in the last month since the floods. The entire community now sees Caudle as the preferred veterinarian in the community. And their business for this month is tracking over 30% better than June of last year.
By doing what adds value to the customer even if it’s not making money it is almost always the right decision. How do you add value to your business? What have you done for your customers recently? If you could provide more value to your customers how would you know?
06/11/10 by Ankit Patel | world cup | No Comments »
World Cup Refs Run More in Games Than Players
Most of the referees in the upcoming FIFA World Cup tournament have day jobs, such as office work, and train on their own time for the grueling games. Though they’re often twice the age of the athletes, refs tend to run 12 miles during a single game, five miles more than players. And there are no substitutions.
Source: CNN Health
Let’s go USA! My heart is with the US team but Spain is probably going to win. Chile is my dark horse pick to win it all. Who’s your team that you are cheering on? Leave us comments on your team.
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