About Clarity, Focus, Discipline, and Engagement

This post is inspired by Karen Martin’s (author of Shingo Research Award-winning book, The Outstanding Organization)  interview by Ron Pereira (Gemba Academy). In this interview (https://www.ksmartin.com/videos/the-outstanding-organization-interview/) Karen explains the importance of Clarity, Focus, Discipline, and Engagement. These are the four fundamental behaviors or common patterns in successful organizations, that are strong foundations upon which to …

Going the extra mile

Going the extra mile is an idiomatic metaphor for describing an extra effort to please a customer. It may sound like a management legend until experiencing it. My little story could have been a scenario base for a Hollywood Christmas movie, but it was only my experience as a stranded Frenchman in Great Britain. With …

(At least) three reasons why you should not run your business with superheroes

Since I came across the quote of Fujio Cho* (Toyota chairman) about broken processes requiring extraordinary people, I keep wondering how many of the businesses I see are relying on superheroes. Superheroes are wonderwomen and supermen, those skilled and highly dedicated people who run processes or whole businesses ordinary people would not be able or …

Ten tricks to get things done

Many action plans share the same problems, they expand with additional todos but little gets done. Here are 10 tricks to change the wish list into real action plan that delivers. 1. accept only important and urgent actions Setup a basic rule to filter out proposed actions or suggestions. A severe one would be for …

The catalyst

I like this word "catalyst" when talking about “a person whose talk, enthusiasm, or energy causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic, or energetic”. We don’t use it currently in French even so the meaning is the same, we’ll talk about “moderator”, “facilitator” or “coach” instead. Yet “catalyst” is much more how I felt recently …

Goal Tree chronicles – The hamster and the tree

Companies in nowadays competition need proactive and engaged people, yesteryear managers are expected to turn into leaders. Despite this general truth and the logical demonstration of required change, some managers just stick to their cosy routine: the hamsters. In this post: How a “hamster” manager refuses to embrace change required by robust logical analysis At …

Tales from the Pyramid – Head first

Imagine a bold general in front of his troops, commanding the assault against the enemy. Spurring his horse to assault he dashed. Alone. His troops didn’t move. It’s more or less how some top executives must feel, when confident about the tactical moves and their overall strategy, they order the decisive manoeuvre but the bulk …

Tales from the pyramid – the ivory tower

In some organization, top management is cut from its base, managing from remote offices and linked to operations and organization's real life through reports, dashboards and KPIs. I've met some of those managers brilliantly talking the talk but seldom, if ever, walking it. If they would - this is what they did with me - …

Tales from the Pyramid – What versus how

Newly promoted team leaders or even managers do not always know how to behave in their new role, especially those climbing up the ladder from operations and technical backgrounds. What these new managers do not always understand is the sudden switch from orders to carry out to empowerment with more autonomy and decisions to take. …

Aon Hewitt’s employee engagement model

Aon Hewitt’s model has six main drivers which shapes the experience within the company, “Engagement Drivers.” These are the areas over which management has a great deal of control—the action areas. Our extensive research formed the six major categories of the work experience that include the work people do, the people they work with, opportunities, …