Halfway down an article by Lisa Jones on the Corporate Culture Pros blog, this quote from a switched on leader about decision making rang my bell:
“I claim Nagging Rights, but not Decision Rights”
The quote comes from a chap who was staking out the areas of the business in which he would claim final say in any decisions. He came up with only 4 areas in which he would have final say and everything else he claimed “nagging rights”, not decision rights. Continue reading →
On the Lean Thinker blog I came across this thought provoking lean culture deck by Mike Rother, author of (Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results
“The permanent struggle to flow value to one customer”
Mike’s definition hinges around a key concept in great culture, that of mindset. Mindset enables people to apply a consistent cultural standard whatever the situation. Mindset becomes their foundation and starting point rather than which tool to apply.
Mike makes the case that many definitions of Lean treat it as a discrete toolset, something that Company B can pick up and apply in the same way as Company A to get the same results. For example, if Company A uses pink index cards and coloured markers to map their work out and achieved 45% reduction in overheads, Company B thinks all we have to do is get ourselves down to Staples, stock up on index cards and markers and we’ll magically achieve the same performance. Continue reading →
A person’s life is an accumulation of time – just one hour is equivalent to a person’s life. Employees provide their precious hours of life to the company, so we have to use it effectively, otherwise, we are wasting their life. – Eiji Toyoda (Chairman and Toyota luminary, credited with creating much of what we now consider ‘Lean’ approaches to production)
I’ll use this post to collate interesting slide decks on culture I come across, including the legendary Netflix culture presentation.
Great 2 parter on Agile at scale and how Spotify approach their engineering culture
Spotify Engineering Culture – part 1 from Spotify Training & Development on Vimeo.
Spotify Engineering Culture – part 2 from Spotify Training & Development on Vimeo.
“Advertising is a tax you pay on having an unremarkable culture” – Robert Stephens, Founder of Geek Squad – more on this quote