Canada's lean leaders need to look beyond the horizon and chart the future
In stormy times, true leadership skills emerge, says Larry Cot?, the President of Lean Advisors Inc. (www.leanadvisors.com)
The rumbles on our economic outlook are troubling. The dollar is still up, foreign investment, profits and sales are down. Low cost Asian competition is eroding our market share. Financial scandals and corporate governance issues keep flaring into the headlines. Disasters such as terrorism, possible pandemics, and war continually reshape the world in which we work and live. There are so many "big" global issues, so much apparent chaos, that our minds are often distracted from the day-to-day jobs we do leading our businesses.
The world as we know it has changed - both economically and socially. What hasn't changed however, is the customers' insatiable appetite for more value, faster delivery and better service.
Most business leaders are eager to return to their pre-recession profits and growth. But even when the economy is robust again, we may find the bounce back to previous profit levels is not a "slam dunk" in spite of a revived and thriving economy. During the past couple of years, while business executives have been making short-term decisions to survive, customers and markets have continued to change at a rate never seen before.
If we turn our worries and blame for new shortfalls to the currency fluctuations and Asian competition, it starts to sound like the same old "blame game" with different players. It's easy to fly high on adrenaline when you look at these global issues and threats. But, for a moment, let's step back and look at our business challenges from a lower altitude and a more local focus.
In doing this, we need to disregard the factors affecting our businesses that we can't influence and begin to look at those we can. The ones we have little or no influence over are things like the recession, currency fluctuations and major disasters. The area we can influence and affect is our own long and short-term strategies for transforming our companies, making them more competitive and customer focused.
The bottom line is let's stick to our "knitting," do our jobs and focus more on our roles as organizational leaders.
In North America we've proven that we can provide products and services competitively through innovation, inspired product development and comprehensive efforts to eliminate waste. But it does require a prolonged and concentrated effort. Leaders aren't hired to cry wolf when chaos threatens. The terms of employment are to use our leadership talents and drive improvements that will be seen and sustained on the bottom line.
We need to readjust how we use these talents and not be distracted by global factors, which are out of our control for the most part. We must accept the role we were hired for and focus on the business operations where we can have a real impact.
We are leaders, so let's lead. Most activities, whatever the company, can be classified as waste of one kind or another once you start to see it. As leaders, it is our responsibility to set the direction and motivate our staff to understand how to remove this waste properly rather than making incremental or point improvements.
This requires seeing and analyzing the process from end to end, not just at points or segments of the process. That becomes your road map to success.
Beneficial change happens in a very structured, sequential and organized fashion. Your teams aren't caught running around chasing low hanging fruit while creating what we call "exciting chaos." When everyone rushes reactively to improve their individual areas they feel virtuous, after all they are helping the company, aren't they? In fact, they are only improving their areas or departments, often at the detriment of the entire process. It's your leadership and your measured future state plan that will bring order to chaos. Reactive flurry kills profits faster than any big external threat!
Striving to improve our own competitiveness by providing customers faster and better products or services will accomplish more than worrying about the next global crisis looming just around the corner. The only futures game we need to be in is the one that cuts waste so the customer sees more value.
Science tells us that nature likes order - it's human agents that generate the chaos. There are things that we can control - so let's get busy and do it!
Larry Cot? is president of Lean Advisors Inc. You can reach him by email at: www.leanadvisors.com. Larry is also a key organizer of the Lean Conference Canada event being held Sept, 15-16, 2004, at the Ottawa Congress Centre. For event details visit: (www.leanadvisors.com)
For information: www.leanadvisors.com or Contact: www.leanadvisors.comPhone: 613-821-4545
About The Author
Larry Cot? is well known for his penetrating analysis and creative energy. He was employed by the Lean Enterprise Institute in Boston for almost two years as C.O.O./E.V.P. He was the Founder and President of the Lean Enterprise Institute Canada.
Over the years, Larry has worked with 100's of companies at various stages of their Lean journey in many different business sectors. He is particularly skilled at working with senior executives in the boardroom to plan, problem solve and create Lean corporate strategies.
His research and development work along with his past 'hands-on' experience has led to new ways to teach and communicate Lean across North America. These methods used in the past by Lean Advisors Inc. have proven to be very successful in promoting 'sustainability' within the organizations where they have been applied.
Larry has specialized expertise in Toyota Production System concepts, diagnostics and assessment of Lean readiness. He works with the corporate leaders to develop effective plans for transforming entire organizations using Lean and adapting it to their particular culture.
scheduled cleaning services Winnetka ..Remember Chux? The disposable diaper that took the market by... Read More
"Did you hear what your competitor is doing?" This question... Read More
Anyone who has been watching the Idaho Market Carefully for... Read More
Have you been in a "brainstorming" session where each person... Read More
David E. Gumpert, author of Burn Your Business Plan, often... Read More
A recent conversation started with a typical question, "How's business?"... Read More
How often does your company make a quantum leap forward?... Read More
1. Largest Selection -One way that you can make your... Read More
Succession planning requires the owner of a small or medium-sized... Read More
Business plan financial projections seem daunting because they are so... Read More
Growing your own small business can be one of the... Read More
Writing a business plan is not an easy endeavor, nor... Read More
No matter what business you plan to start in your... Read More
"Begin with the end in mind," says Stephen Covey in... Read More
How important is a vision statement to your company or... Read More
Too much goal setting and strategic planning can leave you... Read More
When developing the competition section of your business plan, companies... Read More
Whether you are seeking capital for your company or are... Read More
The decision to sell, or not to sell your business... Read More
Many of Ohio's downtown areas are in need of upgrading... Read More
With a heightened awareness of opportunity, ideas can often be... Read More
How are you feeling today? Good, not so good, great?... Read More
Twice a year, Bill Gates goes to a remote island... Read More
Do you work in or own a business that's affected... Read More
"I don't need a business plan."Neither did Alice in Wonderland."Would... Read More
reliable maid service Lincolnshire ..Do you work in or own a business that's affected... Read More
Many business start-up kits or consultants will tell you one... Read More
When looking at Akron carefully one cannot help but notice... Read More
I'm not talking about posting the HBO schedule on your... Read More
Microsoft Great Plains, former Great Plains Dynamics is excellent fit... Read More
In most business plans, no matter how striking the idea,... Read More
Much of what we heard in the mass media about... Read More
Before becoming a netpreneaur, I was an entrepreneur. First, I... Read More
Every decade we seem to come up with a buzz-word... Read More
A piano tuner recently moved to Buffalo, NY, and would... Read More
Fun From The StartFor those with the will to start... Read More
Most companies that are worthy of raising venture capital have... Read More
Businesses tend to avoid doing their annual business plan thinking... Read More
One of the most important initiatives in the domain of... Read More
Strategic planning and consulting is the strategy roadmap to manage... Read More
This week I coached a wonderfully lovely woman I'll call... Read More
One of the difficulties we face in our industrialized age... Read More
Regroup?is this a new management trend? Not a chance! Regroup... Read More
These may sound like no brainers, but you'd be surprised.... Read More
The boom of the dot-com era in 1999 brought the... Read More
"Did you hear what your competitor is doing?" This question... Read More
You might be thinking to yourself, "Why should I waste... Read More
The new check cashing instant clearing will take some time... Read More
The first step in starting a restaurant is proper planning.... Read More
Building a dynamic small business is a constantly evolving, increasingly... Read More
Strategic Planning |