The Remedy -- USA Today review

Hi ya'll,

Pascal here

Pleased to say that USA Today has reviewed my latest book The Remedy.

Would love to hear from you on the following:

What did reviewer get right? What did he get wrong?

Review wasn't totally sold on the doodles in The Remedy

Are doodles and images a good way of communicating ideas? Why or why not?

What are the symptoms of Big Company Disease?

Hi all,
Further to my earlier posting, any thoughts on the above question? Before we can prescribe countermeasures, we need to understand the illness.

So how about it? What does BCD look like? Any war (or horror) stories?

Any inspiring stories -- say, of companies that had a bad case of BCD but were able to heal themselves?

The Remedy -- Taking Lean Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization, is my humble attempt to answer these questions.

Would love to hear from ya'll.

Best,

Pascal

Can small companies get Big Company Disease?

Hi ya'll,

My book The Remedy is about a major automotive company with a bad case of BCD. The past few months, several people have asked me whether BCD can affect small companies.

Short answer: of course, people are people. The mental models, cultural & structural factors that encourage BCD often exist in the smallest firms.

Luckily, the countermeasures are easier. More on countermeasures to BCD later.

By Pascal Dennis

The importance of understanding the customer, both internal and external

Lean begins with understanding Value -- which is defined by the customer's conscious -- and unconscious -- needs.

If we misunderstand the customer, our definition of Value erodes and over time our activities lose meaning.

Think of Dilbert. "Here's one more stupid thing I have to do..."

Here's the rub -- even a small misalignment, say 5 degrees, can become a chasm over time.

So leaders need to reflect on the following: "How do we continually reinforce the idea of Value in our organization?"

What is Big Company Disease and how does it happen? Do all large companies have this? Or, how can you tell if we have Big Company Disease?

By Pascal Dennis

BCD infects companies once they reach a certain size. In a small business, you typically can see your customer and supplier.

You get to understand them and appreciate that your success depends on them. It keeps you humble and hungry to improve.

Once a company grows to multiple sites, perhaps in different countries, and multiple divisions -- you can't see it anymore.

You can't wrap your mind or your arms around the organization. Out of site is out of mind. So you optimize what you can see -- your zone.
With the best of intentions, we optimize our unit -- often at the expense of overall effectiveness

Not all big companies have BCG -- but all are prone to it.

We have to work hard to dispel the fog, connect with our customers, make our purpose and our problems visible.

Lean Thinking & Lean Tools are geared to do this.

Then we have to involve everybody in improvement -- which wakes us up.

Company Fog: What is it and how does it effect how we do our day-to-day activities?

Here are some sypmtoms of fog:

Your purpose is unclear. You're not sure who your customers or suppliers are.

You don't know if you're ahead or behind.

You can't see your biggest problems.

So you spend a great deal of time in the "spin cycle".

Life becomes unpleasant so you naturally look for someone to blame.

You buffer the chaos with capacity -- your time.

Eventually, you burn out.

Creating a value stream map for knowledge workers and invisible processes

Creating a VS map for knowledge workers entails the same steps you'd follow for physical processes:

1) Go see -- walk the flow, 2) Start with the customers, 3) Use a pencil and paper, 4) Don't worry if it's not absolutely "precise" etc.

The hard part is that such processes are invisible -- so go see becomes more difficult, though by no means impossible.

In a promotions process, for instance, there's no reason we can't go to the customer sites running the promo campaign & assess the current condition.

Lean Pathways