It’s a Marathon, not a Sprint
We have often heard of Lean being described as a “Journey, not a Destination” – in that the pursuit of an optimal business condition is what is important and that an ideal state is never to be realized. So how is it then that so many journeys are abandoned or fail to realize their potential –…
Mass Spec Is Moving To Point-of-Care: Why This Matters To You
Breaking Down Mass Spectrometry For many of you reading this article, the words mass spectrometry will probably mean nothing. However, in the growing field of healthcare and clinical diagnostics, it is an ever increasing term used in the medical lexicon. Mass Spectrometry is an analytical chemistry technique that has been around commercially since the 1950’s, but…
7 Ways to Identify Humility vs Arrogance in Leadership
Can you be confident, aggressive, and humble? Yes you can. Unfortunately, humility is often overlooked in leadership discussions. And yet it is one of the most powerful virtues. As one of the first female F-14 fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy, operating in one of the highest pressure, most extreme environments imaginable, I can assure you…
… AND the Circumstances of Those Who Work There
Those of you who read my articles and follow my missives on social media know that I more often write of the “soft-side” – the “human endeavor” – of Operational Excellence, rather than the forensic details of the tools (including those of Lean Six-Sigma and the like). I do this mostly because I feel that consideration…
You Don’t Need More Space
I’ve been on numerous plants tours over the past few decades. Eventually the tour winds up in either the warehouse or stockroom or both. At some point, I’ll ask whether they’re tight on space and inevitably the answer will be something like “always”, or “we never have enough”, or the real killer “yes, but we have…
Change Takes Courage, But Why Should They Care?
C-H-A-N-G-E – Six little letters that can perpetrate so much anxiety. Reactions to a changing environment are always unpredictable. Leaders never exactly know how the communication of a change will resonate or be absorbed by the organization. Being prepared to address the resistance to push back from change is a key success factor necessary to achieve…