"For years, I've been told, 'The safest part of your journey has come to an end.' Initially, I took this to mean just getting home from the airport, but now I question, 'Was I ever truly safe to begin with?'"

Are you struggling to implement Lean methods in your organization? In this column, we will discuss the biggest obstacle to practicing Lean and how emotionally intelligent leaders can address resistance from staff to successfully implement improvement methods.

How to best walk the tightrope between satisfying customers, stake holders, and budgets.

The practice of Lean, and its close cousin “Six Sigma,” can offer powerful benefits to the executive that understands how to leverage the principles. And they can offer you a winning hand.

Engaging an audience on the technical aspects of quality work can be a challenge: inspection, audits, and measurement systems analysis are hardly the stuff of a lecture that you will find gripping and inspirational.

I’ve been pleased to see so many organizations embrace a robust approach to quality improvement through methods like Lean and Six Sigma. There are indeed some detractors out there, but for the most part these are people that have observed failed deployments of quality initiatives. 

Imagine this: Company A is an internationally respected, world-class company that manufactures high-end kitchen appliances. Their products are coveted by homeowners across the globe. 

Back in the day when attending live, face-to-face conferences was “a thing,” I always looked forward to the breaks when I could join my peers around that long, huge table put out by the hotel offering a variety of Danishes, fruit, and of course, coffee.

The first time it happened was in 2009. I was about to take the helm of a 34-foot catamaran in the British Virgin Islands as captain, my baptism into the world of “bareboat” sailing. “You’re good to go,” said the dockhand.