A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Act as an internal cross-functional expert providing guidance and consultation supporting the OpEx transformation.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

So many ideas come together in this final concept. Respect for every individual come to the surface. We lose so many opportunities for new ideas when our team members are overlooked or worse, stifled and stuffed back into a corner. A rising tide lifts all boats.

The Achilles heel of the type A personality is the necessity to be right about everything. The D is DISC, pursuing personal glory, is often the weakest link or chink in the armor that caused the collapse of so many great organizations. If I need to go on, you need to pay more attention to the constant failures in the corporate world. It is happening right now, if you know what to look for.

The benefit of respect for every individual is the willingness to tap into the knowledge that is present in our organization today. Stepping into the opportunities and accepting the role of cross-functional expert, raises our solutions to new levels of response. Raise the bar. Participate!

The next idea is the second pillar mentioned in so much of the lean literature. One of my favorite sources is George Koenigsaecker’s Leading the Lean Enterprise Transformation. I will admit my bias toward George as he is a mentor to me, and I was fortunate enough to have worked for him. It was under his tutelage that I learned the most in the shortest amount of time. Guidance and consultation are part of the culture of continuous improvement. Seeing performance gaps, identifying root causes, creating countermeasures, implementing change, all requires guidance and consultation.

A raising tide lifts all boats.

The more we practice these two pillars, the better we become at both and the more we can see the application of both wherever we are in our organization. Whether as a sponsor, a process owner or a process team member, these practices and the experience that comes from their use only builds momentum in an organization. No one can be successful on an island.

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”

-Henry Ford