Is Your Team Properly Trained?
It's football season, and I'm watching a couple of my favorite teams have rough seasons. It happens. As individuals, the teams all have a number of standouts -- players who bring exceptional skills and strengths to the team. However, when they come together to play,...
Metrics for Evaluating Your Team’s Success
Sometimes it's easy to keep score on whether a team is successful or not. Did they win the contest? Yes or no. But sometimes, the team is working on a long-term project that doesn't complete for months and months, which means there aren't any wins and losses to...
Beauty in a Process Map
When I reflect on my journey as a business owner and leader, I realize that I haven’t always appreciated starting with a clear view of the current state. Sometimes, you know that things need to change. Why would you "waste" time corralling all the players to...
Who Else Wants to Double Their Productivity with One Simple Technique?
How many times have you resolved to go on a diet or look for a more rewarding job only to find yourself back to your old habits within a few days? While you may be motivated to make positive changes in your life, it’s also important to use strategies that will make...
How to Have a Life Outside of Work
There’s more to life than work. But it’s not that easy to have a life outside of work in our society. People interact less in person. Everyone is obsessed with their electronic devices. Most people are genuinely pretty busy, too. However, you can have a life outside...
Working with Outsourced Providers
One of the most empowering decisions you can make in your business is the decision to outsource tasks. We enjoy outsourcing those things that we are either not good at or just have no time to do in our businesses. We have to sit down and identify our strengths and...
Detaching from the Outcome
Many, many years ago, I started reading Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. I was really excited about reading it until I bumped into the concept of detaching from the outcome in the first ten pages or so. I couldn’t fathom a world where I should detach...
Which of the Lean Wastes Cause You The Most Pain
In the world of Lean Six Sigma, we aim to remove wastes from processes. Wastes are considered any action or step that does not add value to the customer. In other words, waste is any process that the customer does not want to pay for. For example, what if your...
Why Customers Crave Consistency
Everybody craves consistency. Sure, we like to be wowed and surprised periodically. But we don't want to be underwhelmed. One of my favorite things to do as a lover of food is to try new restaurants. I have my own proprietary algorithm for determining where to dine...