Lean Roundup #91 - December, 2016

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of December, 2016.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.

Leadership Development for Business Impact – Bob Emiliani recommends two approaches to leadership development: One that is proven to have substantial actual business impact, and one that has great potential for actual business impact.

Continually Improving Using a Focus on Delighting Customers – John Hunter says the successful application of quality (customer focused continual improvement) naturally integrates and iterates your efforts so that internal process improvement and innovation grows with customer integration.

Leadership Salad – Ronnie Daughtry explains implementing tools alone won’t change culture but there are 10 leadership behaviors that can.

The Lure of Rapid Lean Transformation – Mark Rosenthal finds organizations who want lean results, but they want someone else to do the work to make it that way, however, the problem is you can’t outsource your own thinking.

Reflection - the Breakfast of Champions – Pascal Dennis says reflection is the countermeasure to hubris, overweening pride & arrogance, that destroyer of people and organization.

A Change of Pace – Kevin Meyer advocates slowing down and observing, otherwise you might think you’ve arrived but not know where you’ve been or the interesting things you’ve passed.

How Children Can Help Us Become Better Lean Leaders – Jon Miller explains why learning how to learn is as important as learning the subject matter, especially for lean leadership.

5 Supply Chain Management Habits that Will Land You on the Naughty List - Alexa Cheater says if you haven’t broken these ineffective supply chain management habits, you’re likely to find nothing but a lump of coal in your stocking come Christmas.

Problem Solving and the Worlds of Reflection & Experience – Pascal Dennis says the pattern -- experience - reflection - experience is central to practical problem solving and to Lean as a whole.

Effort is Grossly Underrated – Jamie Flinchbaugh believes we should aspire to work smarter and harder.

Unpacking the Components of Hard Work to Design Better Work Conditions – John Hunter, in response to Jamie Flinchbaugh’s post, thinks you can reduce many of the parts of hard work by creating a better system of work in the organization.

How NOT to Implement a New Business Process - Mikaela Boone shares some things NOT to do when you’re beginning to roll out your new process.

Countering Confirmation Bias – John Hunters explains why we need to learn and then adjust our thinking and our management systems to work well given our understanding of how our beliefs suffer from systemic weaknesses, such as confirmation bias.

Ask Art: Why Is Something As Simple As Lean So Difficult to Do? – Art Byrne says although the lean principles themselves are pretty simple, without the correct leadership it is perhaps one of the hardest changes for any business to make.

Can You Improve Your Processes Next Year? – Alexandra Levit explores 10 questions business leaders must ask before taking action.