In the KaiZone Friday Favorites, I present my top ten favorite articles from the last week (give or take a few days) in the world of Lean – and beyond.  With leading content from the world’s foremost improvement authors and future Lean leaders, I do the research so you don’t have to!

10.  Top 5 TPS Lessons from Jedi Master Yoda by Matt Elson.  “Yoda was a Jedi Master for over 900 years, so he saw a few things, made some mistakes and had his failures.  The most important thing about Yoda was that he never gave up.  Ever.  Yoda was also constantly learning and reflecting.  It could be argued that true wisdom comes with experience, both positive and negative.”

9.  Start Your Lean Diary Today by Jens Woinowkski.  “The Lean Diary: One word per day.  Weekly and monthly retrospectives.  That’s it.  #leandiary”

8.  The Trouble with Corporate Clichés by Pascal Dennis.  ““Ducks in a row” “Low-hanging fruit” “Let’s take this off-line” Why do these and other corporate clichés make us cringe so?  Well, they’re often used by lazy people to express stale, tired thinking.  If we haven’t thought about something deeply, why burden people with inanities?  If we can’t express an idea in a fresh way, why should anybody listen?”

7.  Back to Basics – Customer Value by Al Norval.  “I often come across organizations that are in the middle of a Lean transformation and when I ask why are they doing it – what’s the purpose? I get an answer of – to save money, to meet our financial obligations to the organization.  This answer always disappoints me since there is much more to Lean than that. In Lean we need to meet the needs of three publics; the Employee, the Customer and the Organization. If we’re doing Lean and not benefiting all three publics, then we’re not doing Lean properly.”

6.  Speed Leadership by Bob Emiliani.  “Right-sizing the brain and sticking to to the basics is seen by most executives (top image) as weak or unchallenging. But that is what the best Lean leaders do.  It results in what I call “Speed Leadership,” which means a greater intellectual acuity and a reduction or elimination of delays and rework that plague executives steeped in conventional management/  The patience and simplicity characteristic of the best Lean leaders trumps the impulsiveness and complexity characteristic of conventional leaders.”

5.  How Teaming Produces Execution-as-Learning by Amy C. Edmondson.  “ In the factory model of management, it was easy to monitor workers and measure their output. But work today increasingly requires the applications of specialized skills and knowledge. Workers are expected to identify issues, analyze problems, and create new solutions. This shift has changed the dynamic of the workplace and the relationship between those in charge and those doing the work. The most successful leaders in the future will be those who have the ability to develop the talents of others.”

4.  Success is Sweet When You Value Your Core by Joshua Rapoza.  “What does this teach us about listening to our customers? Your value is at your core. Don’t change what your customers value in your product, pay attention to what they value and then change everything else.”

3.  Respect for People (Shingo Edition) by Dan Markovitz.  “Blaming your workers is like spitting in the sky. It comes back down on your face. It’s your teaching that needs to be improved.”

2.  Be Careful What You Wish For – Part II by Bruce Hamilton.  “No oversight. No direct observation, in this case, by the persons who are charged with the corporation’s fiduciary responsibility – its board of directors.   The CEOs in the examples above are no different than the cashier in my 2010 post. They were following damaging directives from absentee leadership.   The difference in these cases however is that when CEOs receive nonsensical objectives the potential for damage to customers and employees is very much greater.”

And, in an excellent week for Lean and continuous improvement posts, this week’s Friday Favorite goes to . . .

1.  Learn the Thinking, Not Just the Doing, Why, How, Where, What, When by Tracey Richardson.  “A true sensei has the knowledge, but shouldn’t be above learning from others with less experience or “fresh eyes”.  I’m personally a sponge, I soak in all I can to learn how to be better the next day, that is a role of a sensei/trainer to me – Continuous Improvement, right?”

Do you have an article that you’d like to share with The KaiZone community?  Post it in the comments section below.  Have a great weekend, friends!

Also, don’t forget about The KaiZone Contest: Make Your Own Leanable Moment.