06/11/14 by Ankit Patel | motivating employees |

Time is the one resource we can’t get more of. So if you’re a business owner you know that time is precious and it feels like there isn’t enough time in the day.  From our surveys of over 1500 businesses the #1 complaint from business owners is “how can I…

02/22/11 by Ankit Patel | creative thinking, motivating employees, what to standardize |

  I came across an interesting problem. How do you motivate employees to change their behavior after an event or project that changes their work. In my experience I’ve seen some interesting approaches. In a wire harness manufacturing company I saw the stick (punishment) being used to discipline people who…

06/09/10 by Ankit Patel | creative thinking, lean business system, motivating employees |

In a Lean Business System you will operate differently than a regular business system. Some of the key differences are: -Creativity over capital-Action over analysis (where it makes sense)-Understand the entire system and not just the local problem I want to share with you my story. Since starting my work…

06/08/10 by Ankit Patel | motivating employees |

This is the most popular request I get in some form or fashion. There is a sentiment of “I need better employees” and I always ask have you ever had the right employees? The answer is almost always “Ted and Jell are a great and if I had 100 Teds…

06/01/10 by Ankit Patel | motivating employees, Socratic method |

The Socratic Method is when you use questions instead of statements to facilitate learning. It is a great way to manage. Taking orders is a great skill set for the military but in most business management situations the Socratic method is a great way to train and get tasks accomplished….

05/14/10 by Ankit Patel | factoid, lean transformation, motivating employees |

Employee engagement is a key success factor for organizational transformation. In a recent McKinsey survey, nearly 100% of respondents who characterized their companies’ change-management initiatives as extremely successful said employees could contribute ideas to shape the efforts. And nearly a quarter of the extremely successful transformations were planned by groups…

05/03/10 by Ankit Patel | motivating employees |

Building a good team is the corner stone of any management system and is especially crucial with a Lean Six Sigma management system. From personal experience at businesses ranging from fortune 50 companies to a small business, teams and personnel usually have to be coached and trained with the right…

04/26/10 by Ankit Patel | generation y, motivating employees |

Being that Generation Y makes up about 25% of the US population your business will eventually need to attract and keep generation Y employees. Generation Y are people born from about 1981-2002(dates vary depending on the source) and are also called the millennial generation, millennials, or echo boomers. All the…

04/18/10 by Ankit Patel | company culture, increase sales, lean culture, motivating employees, save money |

When running a business there a a whole list of issues. No matter what industry you are in there are some common themes: motivating employees, increase sales, and save money all without money. Many people think that these are all independent and not related but there is a common underlining…

04/09/10 by Ankit Patel | factoid, motivating employees |

Scientist Sam Glucksberg once conducted an experiment where he divided a collection of participants into two groups, assigning both groups the Candle Problem. He gave one of the groups a cash prize incentive if they solved the problem faster than the average person who took the test. Surprisingly, members of…