Five Lessons from my First Five Years in Business

Consulting is filled with ups and downs. Here's what I learned during my first five years.

Consulting is filled with ups and downs. Here's what I learned during my first five years.

Guiding Principles

Once we removed conveyer guides, we improved the performance at the world’s largest ceiling plant.

Once we removed conveyer guides, we improved performance at the world’s largest ceiling tile plant.

Scripting Changeovers Leads to Consistent Performance

Once we added another layer of communication, performance improved.

Once we added another layer of communication, performance improved.

Strengthening the Kaizen Culture

The story of how I was able to support CITY Furniture's Lean Journey

The story of how I was able to support CITY Furniture's Lean Journey

Three Principles for Funding

We had more requests than we could fund. Learn how our principles made these difficult decisions much easier.

We had more requests than we could fund. Learn how our principles made these difficult decisions much easier.

A Random Birthday Message Leads to a Strategic Planning Session

Sending birthday cards to all of my employees surprised them and strengthened our working relationship.

Weld it in Place to Sustain it

Before I developed the Wheel of Sustainability, I had to find other ways to sustain our Kaizen solutions. In this case, we used a welder.

Treat People with Respect

Sitting on the porch drinking lemonade with the property owner, I realized how much my manager truly cared for her and wanted to protect her interests.

True Voice of the Customer

We scheduled live furniture deliveries to test our improvements and the reaction of our customers was fantastic.

Preventing Failures Leads to Success

Using Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) to help us manage the project led to breakthrough results.

Plant Reliability Rollout - the Story of Mobile

I knew I had to do a better job protecting the plant managers and driving the cultural transformation.

Moving Mountains ... of Paint

Walking the shop floor (Gemba) showed us why the tiles were rotating in the paint booth. Now we knew what we had to do to solve the problem.

Visibility Equals Accountability

Taking our meetings out of the conference room and onto the shop floor (Gemba) raised our game and drove results immediately

Be Careful What You Ask For

My words came back to haunt me after an extremely challenging week.

Sometimes You Have to Let Things Go

I should have checked with the Engineering Manager before disposing of so much equipment.

Raise Your Standards and Take Ownership

Keeping the job simple gave us the flexibility to service our customers in a timely way.

Gemba in the Big City

We learned so much from going to our customers' work sites in New York City.

Change Your Perspective

I hoped my discussion with our new plant manager wouldn't lead to my termination.

Why Would You Treat People That Way?

The company we were visiting was known for their focus on safety. Why were they allowing people to take undue risk in a particular job?

When You Want Something Done Right - Outsource it

I learned that I could provide more value to the company by hiring an expert to perform the critical work.