The biggest myth I run into is that Lean is about cutting costs, and by extension cutting jobs. That belief makes employees nervous and makes leaders hesitate, and it gets Lean exactly backward. Lean is about getting healthier as an organization and freeing up capacity so you can grow. Why People Stay Quiet About Waste [...]
Leaders ask me all the time how to get genuine buy-in from their teams instead of grudging compliance. My answer always starts with involvement. People are far less likely to argue with conclusions they reached themselves, and involvement breeds commitment. Start With a Common Mission Before any process work begins, I bring the team together [...]
When I start with a new client, I teach two things right away: the five principles of Lean and a method for getting measurable results quickly, called DMAIC. Together they give a leadership team a shared way to find waste and fix it at the root.The Five Principles of LeanSpecify value in the eyes of [...]
When I walk into an organization that's struggling with change or performance, the first place I look is the executive team. More often than not, the people at the top haven't agreed on which projects matter most, and everyone downstream pays for it. Here's what that looks like day to day. Teams work hard [...]
By John J. Murphy In the book Miracle Minded Manager, I illustrate the concept of “Capital L Love,” a completely different perspective on love than the common ego interpretation. To begin with, capital L Love is unconditional. It is not a feeling we fall in and out of, as the ego understands it, or an attachment [...]
By John J. Murphy “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein Last month I shared an article on Reflection and I introduced a model called The Cycle for Ongoing Improvement Reflection: A Key Element of Mindful Leadership - Mindful Leader. This model highlights the value of taking time to examine our past [...]
