If you login to LinkedIn, or any social network for that matter, you’ll probably come across at least three pieces of self-help advice in the first minute or so. I haven’t done the math, but I’d say that’s a fair guess. In the end, it all boils down to a vague and often narcissistic soup
Continue reading »Category Archives: "Employee Empowerment"
What is Morale Exercise?
Have you ever seen those videos of Japanese factories where the workers do morning exercises together? Before you dismiss something like that as a cultural quirk, it might be worthwhile to look at it with an open mind. A lot of useful ideas can seem silly at first, simply because they are new and unfamiliar.
Continue reading »5 Myths About Lean That Are Holding You Back (LinkedIn)
Raise your hand if you have ever had a bad experience with Lean! There is a good chance that it was the result of the misinterpretations of Lean explained in Collin McLoughlin’s new LinkedIn Pulse article 5 Myths About Lean That Are Holding You Back. These myths create a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy, both for those
Continue reading »The Lean Learning Management System
If you deal with training or education, you have probably heard the acronym LMS, which stands for “learning management system”. Learning is a major factor for improvement and competitiveness, regardless of what industry you are in. Acquiring new skills is a must in this fast-moving economy, especially if you are applying Lean principles. Lean can
Continue reading »Multimedia Learning in the Lean Workplace
“Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information.” ― Paulo Freire It’s Monday morning. The kids are eating breakfast and watching cartoons. A parent says, “You’ll miss the bus,” and the children reluctantly turn off the TV. It’s a typical scene for many families. When the children get home, the television is waiting
Continue reading »The Robots Are Coming! A Future of Autonomation
Even if we never find ourselves in the nightmarish futures imagined by The Terminator and The Matrix, people are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the capabilities of machines. Actually, people have been uncomfortable with this for over 200 years. From the earliest days of industrialization in the 18th century, to the 21st century’s upheavals brought on
Continue reading »Are You Short on Time or Short on Effective Planning? Steps to Improve Productivity
Despite feeling like there is never enough time in the day, Americans now have more free time than ever. Sociologist John P. Robinson at the University of Maryland, insists that the issue is one of perception rather than actual commitments. Hanna Rosin summarized his findings in Slate Magazine, “Robinson doesn’t ask us to meditate, or
Continue reading »A Lean Approach to Collaboration
Robert Sheridan is the CEO of Menlo, a software business in Michigan. If you ask him what he fears most from his employees, he would probably say complacency. Sheridan’s solution is a Lean approach to collaboration: constantly shuffling teams and seating arrangements to ensure that everyone in the company works with a variety of colleagues.
Continue reading »Warning signs of disengagement
How do I engage my employees? For many businesses, that's the million-dollar question to which they are still trying to find the answer. While there may be no clear cut ways of truly engaging and empowering workers, employers should always be on the lookout for signs that their workforce is unengaged – this is much easier to
Continue reading »How the ‘fake it until you make it’ approach works for employee engagement
There are a lot of commonly held beliefs about what leaders should be. In the minds of many people, the ideal business owners and managers are smart, innovative, well-spoken, compassionate, driven and level-headed. They work together with their employees and motivate and empower them to achieve great things with their work. For inexperienced leaders, it
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