Blue-Collar Kaizen

The biggest challenge in process improvement and cultural transformation isn't identifying the problems. It's execution: implementing and sustaining the solutions.

Blue-Collar Kaizen reveals the key leadership principles that Mack Story identified while logging over 11,000 hours leading leaders and their teams through hundreds of kaizen events, process improvement, organizational change, and cultural transformation. In a simple, yet powerful, format, you will quickly discover how to effectively lead Lean and Lean teams. You will develop an understanding of: 1) why the principles are important; and 2) how to apply them correctly.

When it comes to leading Lean and Lean teams, the single biggest success factor is the ability of the Lean manager, leader, or coordinator to create an environment that supports sustainable, positive change and process improvement on a large scale.

Regardless of title, the Lean Leader's success, and therefore that of the organization's process improvement efforts, is based on High Impact Leadership: the ability to connect with others in a way that motivates and inspires them to buy-in, not only to the leader, but also the leader's vision.

High Impact Leadership is highly effective leadership that delivers sustainable results. It's more than improving culture, initiating change, managing an organization, or leading a team. Far beyond short-term initiatives, High Impact Leadership is about lasting, long-term, positive impact and transformation within the organization and in the lives of others.

Helping Lean Leaders become High Impact Leaders is the key to continuous improvement and cultural transformation.

The role of the Lean Leader is to improve communication, create buy-in to change itself and the change leaders, facilitate team-based decision making, remove roadblocks, and ensure execution is occurring while sustaining the gains.

"Only 2% of Lean Leaders create dynamic Lean cultures by focusing on growing people, and not the bottom line." ~ Paul Akers

High impact Lean leaders, coordinators, and managers lead teams through process improvement by engaging, empowering, and encouraging the team in a way that creates authentic buy-in, based on trust, that ultimately leads to cultural transformation. These leaders understand that "Respect for the People" means developing the people.

There are five elements required for transformation to take place in an organization. They are: leadership development, buy-in (to the leader and the leader's vision), a unifying purpose, competency to carry out the mission, and execution. When these elements are missing, there is a sea of chaos filled with frustration, resistance, confusion, anxiety, and stagnation. In other words, at best, the team struggles to maintain the status quo. At worst, a quick and steady decline occurs. Lear...