Allen Iverson's Leadership Lessons Revisited - 10 years later

Like the TWI skills, this one will last forever...I forgot that this existed and a friend recently sent this to my inbox.

What a gem!

Lesson learned: even leaders need to "practice" EVERY day!

Allen Iverson's practice rant with the 76ers - Philly.com:

'via Blog this'

Dealing with The Snuggie Devil

Funny article about an innovative trial service in an international hotel chain in England.

The basic idea is that the recent arctic cold snap resulted in unusually chilly beds - not exactly a warm welcome for travelers. Hotel management responded by offering to warm up the guests bed. Good idea...doesn't sound too bad, right?

Wrong...the bed warmer is a person - wrapped in one piece fleece suit and a hair net. Look, I already grapple with the fact that somebody I don't know was in my hotel bed the night before and I'm not always convinced that housekeeping went through my room as thoroughly as they should have...but all I can say about this idea is...EWWWW!

All I can imagine is this guy warming my bed:




















Hotel management...did you know this is what the Snuggie Devil would make you do when you sold your soul to him?

TWI Blog - 2009 Year in Review

Following are the top ten most viewed blogposts for 2009. Interesting…50% of them are from 2007 and 2008!? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone and God Bless!

Job Breakdown Sheet Vs. Work Instruction

Genba, Genbutsu, Genjitsu in Plain English

Life After Death by Powerpoint

Lean Jargon Part II - Muda, Muri, Mura

Lean Jargon Part III - Gemba, Genba?

Job Breakdown Sheet Example

5S, Poka Yoke and Visual Controls

Lean Manufacturing Book Review - Managing to Learn by John Shook

How to Compress a Truckload of Digital Photos in 60 Seconds - JBS Example

Obama's Lean Government?

Flame Good

A friend of the TWI Blog, John Milan, sent this for your enjoyment:

"I was quite amused by studying a matchbook at a recent family birthday party. I know that simple minds are easily amused, but I wanted to share the instructions on the inside cover of the matchbook for lighting a match. It appears that detailed instructions for procedures and safety are deemed necessary in more than one industry."

From the inside cover of a matchbook Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company: Instructions on how to light a match.

"Firmly grasp individual match, keeping fingers away from the igniting tip. After liberating said match from its confinement, assure that your matchbook cover is closed. Briskly strike the tip across the provided strikeplate on the backside of your matchbook to facilitate ignition of said match. Repeat when necessary. Flame good. For more information, go to www.sfntc.com"

Thanks John!

A bit overdone, eh? Is it no wonder then, with examples like this in everyday life, why people in specialized industries create complicated work instructions? For you Job Instruction trainers out there, this is one of the first battles you will face: most managers will look at JI as a documentation program, rendering most of your documents useless, if not for entertainment purposes like the one provided here by Sante Fe Tobacco.

Have a great Sunday!

Fail to Plan = Plan to Fail

Thanks, Phil, for the holiday weekend laugh!

Dear Sir,

I am writing in response to your request for additional information in Block 3 of the accident report form. I put "poor planning" as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient.

I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I found that I had some bricks left over which, when weighed later were found to be slightly in excess of 500lbs. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley, which was attached to the side of the building on the sixth floor. Securing the rope at ground I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the bricks.

You will note Block 11 of the accident report form that I weigh 135 lbs.

Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel, which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. This explained the fractured skull, minor abrasions and the broken collar bone, as listed in section 3 of the accident report form. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley.

Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope, in spite of beginning to experience pain. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel.

Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, that barrel weighed approximately 50 lbs. I refer you again to my weight. As you can imagine, I began a rapid descent, down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth and several lacerations of my legs and lower body.

Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked. I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks, in pain, unable to move, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of therope and I lay there watching the empty barrel begin its journey back down onto me. This explains the two broken legs.

I hope this answers your inquiry.

Kaizen in Ohio Government?

There is a lot of talk about the need for kaizen in the government. But, like anything, it isn't what you do - its HOW you do it that matters. Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio recently proposed that government offices be allowed to create a non-profit arm that will take in donations that will be used to train state workers in the "kaizen process".

But there are all sorts of contradictions that go along with Kaizen and Government:

1) Government is supposed to be big, slow and dumb. This is designed in by our founders so that power is limited to any one person or group. Power that is concentrated within a small, nimble and 'smart' government may move too quickly for us as normally distracted citizens to scrutinize our representatives motives and actions. This alone invites criticism:

Critics of the already house-passed bill say that this bill has ethical problems. For one, can the Highway Dep't step up ticketing if solicitations and quotas for their non-profit are not met by the publics 'voluntary' donations?

What about business donations? Can businesses win favor from say, the local environmental protection agency?

2) Kaizen is supposed to be fast and cheap. Government is slow and expensive, partly for the reasons stated above.

However, there is no reason why government cannot be efficient. With that said, why can't government leaders form their own kaizen teams today, without additional funding?

3) Non-profits are under fierce competition already. Kaizen can help companies become more competitive, often by reducing cost, under normal market conditions. When the government gets involved, it can become the monopoly player in that market. Just look at disaster insurance for example. Any right-minded citizen would be furious to learn that taxpayer dollars fund poor decisions made by homeowners who rebuild in hurricane coastlines - incentivized by the artificially low government insurance programs. The result is higher costs for Americans. Could government drive local food shelfs, fuel assistance and other non-government non-profits out of the local Cleveland market? Coupling the voluntary non-profit tax with existing taxes simply means the possibility for more government involvement in our lives is likely.

From a local Cleveland radio show, Lanigan and Malone offer up their thoughts on Strickland's Kaizen process...again, they don't seem to object to Ohio stateworkers improving their processes, the question is, what is stopping you today?

Value Added Junk

Bill Waddell over at Evolving Excellence talked about serving up value at In-N-Out, a Southwest region burger chain that is extremely profitable and consistently delivers value to customers through a simple, focused strategy. When I saw the low prices on the menu and, subsequently buried within the comments section, fabulous reviews of the food and service – it got me thinking about what the competition has to offer:

Cardboard crowns. Always a hit at your seven year old’s birthday party, but guess who else loves these? Your teenager, while in the back seat of an Audi with neon ground effects on a Saturday night at 11:15 p.m. with a bad case of the munchies! And they are 'free'!

Another freebie: indoor-playground-induced-swine-flu. When the food isn’t unhealthy enough for your kids, send them into the petri dish for a little while!

Cheap, plastic, branded toys from China. Hey kids! Let's play a game: "I spyyyyy with my little eyyyyye...lead paint!"

Creepy mascots watching you sleep.

Grimace and Hamburgler puppet! Does anybody remember these wastes plastic bags that instantly ripped apart at the seams - after waving Grimace's arms only one time?

Seagulls. O.k., In-N-Out also has seagulls, but at In-N-Out's prices - it costs less to feed them!

The Zombie Chronicles

JFK - 3:14 am - Apparently New York had bad weather today. My scheduled flight of 12:20pm out of Raleigh didn't leave until 10:00pm. By the time I arrived at JFK, my flight home to Vermont was cancelled. I could have been in China by now.

I've never seen this many people in Terminal 5 before. There are no hotels available within 45 minute drive and $100 of round trip cab fare. Avis quoted $400 per day for a one way rental with a minimum two day agreement. Yes, $400.

So, I found another flight tomorrow and entered the ranks of the Terminal 5 Zombie gang. There are probably about 150 of us wandering around, playing cards, swearing at sudoku puzzles, catching up on email, or trying to steal an hour or two of sitting sleep.

Me? I can't sleep, I'm bored and then realized I was hungry. When I get bored, I get into trouble. At some point along the way, I decided it would be a good idea to sample every single item in the CIBO all-night salad bar. Folks, my job is to make these mistakes for you, so that you don't make them in the future.

As I proudly sat with my concoction, I suddenly had about four seconds of clarity and snapped this photo of my midnight snack, a digital reminder that I have more bad ideas than good. But don't blame me for trying! Keypoint: cottage cheese, egg salad, chick peas, pesto tortellinis, mozeralla and marinated mushrooms aren't supposed to go together! But like I said, I was bored, so I ate it like a good zombie would.

Genba Comic #7

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Genba Comic #6

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Genba Comic #5

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Genba Comic #4

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Genba Comic - #3

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Life After Death by PowerPoint

Ever since I began learning TWI, I have lived a mostly Powerpoint free life! Yay! For more Powerpoint laughs check out this video below:

Genba Comic #2

Genba Comic - #1

O.k. - I've made some New Year commitments to myself and my online alter ego - the TWI Blog. Something fresh this year will allows me to still contribute to the Lean community when I can't think of anything to say that is intelligible or worth writing about. At least this way, with a comic strip, I can offer a humorous take on how we as Lean thinkers and managers are perceived. We'll see if this idea sticks. In the meantime, a bit of absurdity sometimes speaks volumes:

Click on image for better viewing -

Job Instruction In Daily Life

In Job Instruction we learn that when instructing another person - "telling alone is not enough". How many times do you tell somebody to do something, only to find it not done right?

This person shopping for a decorated cake could have used JI, but then we wouldn't have the Cake Wrecks blog. Take a look.

TWI Blog is back from Vacation!

The Lund & Clarke family had a fantastic week in Acadia, ME. I was a little frightened about black fly horror stories prior to the trip, but the swarms of pests never really materialized. Beautiful weather, lots of mountain biking, hiking, swimming, canoeing and of course, don’t forget lobstah!

One of the things I noticed about Mount Desert Island is that many permanent residents are sprinkled around the periphery of the national park. This understandably leads to parking and trespassing problems: tourists stop in somebody’s driveway to take a photo of Seal Cove for example. Here is our shot of Seal Cove from Bald Mountain - no trespassing required:

Nevertheless, trespassing is pretty easy to achieve with the meandering, often unmarked, borders between public and private land. An occasional map check revealed that we were passing from one to the next within minutes, especially easy to do on bike. It wasn't always clear whether we were on public or private land. There was no question however at the bottom of Bald Mountain; I immediately thought of clear visual rules through 5S, when I saw this sign tacked to the front of a woodshed down the road from the trailhead:

Waste of Waiting

I have discovered a new physical law of nature and it can be expressed mathematically:

Philadelphia Airport + U.S. Airways = Delays

There currently exists no proof that can suggest ontime flights exist when these two variables mingle in the natural world.

Communication Problems

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