Leading Lean & Lean Teams

Between 2005-2012, Mack Story, Motivational Leadership Speaker, gained over 11,000 hours experience leading hundreds of leaders and thousands of their cross-functional kaizen team members through process improvement, organizational change, and cultural transformation. In his Blue-Collar Kaizen video series, he shares unscripted lessons learned from his experience along with many years of studying, teaching, and applying leadership principles while leading Lean. His focus here is on true "Respect for the People," not the Lean tools.

This video series is based on Mack's recently released 11th book, Blue-Collar Kaizen: Leading Lean & Lean Teams. BCK is a 30 chapter, 3 pages per chapter resource for anyone in any position who is, or will be, leading a team through process improvement and change. You will learn to engage, empower, and encourage your team for short term success, long term buy-in, sustained gains, and ultimately create a culture of kaizen where continuous improvement is the norm, not the exception.

Watch the ~3 minute unscripted video below for Chapter 2: LIVING KAIZEN...Live it to lead it. Below the video, you can read the related excerpt (all of chapter 2) from Blue-Collar Kaizen.

Read Chapter 1 and watch the related video here.

Ch.2:Living Kaizen

Live it to lead it.

“The one thing that separates high impact leaders from low impact leaders is CHARACTER. That one thing is made up of many things.” ~ Mack Story

You will not learn about Lean tools in this book. You will learn about leading teams in a Lean environment while using values and principles to achieve amazing results.

Each chapter is about high impact Lean leadership. You must manage things and processes because they don’t think or feel. But, you should lead people because they do.

Lean tools are related to improving the processes. High impact Lean leadership is related to respecting the people. The most important person you will ever lead is yourself. The degree to which you develop yourself determines the degree to which you will influence others.

You can’t give what you don’t have. You can’t teach what you don’t know. You can’t model what you don’t live. You won’t have high impact influence without high impact character.

Everything I’m about to share with you will help you increase your influence with all people in all situations. High impact Lean leaders have a lot of influence. Low impact Lean leaders have very little influence.

Lean leadership is not about your title, your position, or your authority. Actually, those who struggle to lead Lean the most are those who attempt to leverage their authority to get results. They are doomed from the start. Napoleon Hill said, “One of the greatest leaders who ever lived stated the secret of his leadership in six words, as follows: ‘Kindness is more powerful than compulsion.’”

High impact Lean leadership is based on moral authority, not formal authority. It’s about who you are: your character. It’s not about what you are: your position or title.

Regardless of your position or title, to be a high impact Lean leader, you truly must have respect for the people. All of the people, at all times, at all levels, and in all departments.

Low impact Lean leaders facilitate kaizen events and blame others for their lack of results. High impact Lean leaders lead kaizen events and accept responsibility for achieving results.

After more than 11,000 hours of leading leaders and their cross-functional teams through all types of kaizen events and training many others to do so between 2005-2012, I know one thing for certain. To effectively lead Lean teams through change, you must authentically value people and have a hunger for initiating change for the better, not only in their lives at work and at home, but also in your own life.

I call this living kaizen: the endless, continuous pursuit of personal improvement. If we teach it, we should live it.

I began my manufacturing career in 1988 on the front lines of a manufacturing plant as an entry-level machine operator. In 1995, I started to climb my way up from the bottom. I grew through many positions including Process Engineer, Lean Manager, Lean Consultant, and now, Author and Motivational Leadership Speaker. More on my journey can be found in my first book, Defining Influence: Increasing Your Influence Increases Your Options.

In 2005, I was working as a Process Engineer when the plant manager stopped by and asked me if I would be willing to accept responsibility for leading a plant wide 5S initiative as we started our Lean journey. I agreed without truly knowing what I was agreeing to.

He gave me 12 weeks. I started by creating eight teams that met several hours every week. During that 12 week period, I led 96 5S kaizen events. That’s how my Lean journey began.

I define kaizen simply as continuous improvement or making many small changes for the better. There seem to be many varying definitions that basically mean the same thing: constantly strive to be better tomorrow than you are today. In two simple words, kaizen means get better.

You can get better personally and professionally. You can get better at home and at work. You can get better in the area of character: who you are. You can get better in the area of competence: what you know.

Mark Graban said, “Training people and making lists of waste might create awareness, but we need the courage to take action and lead efforts to improve the system.” It starts with you. Do you have the courage to lead yourself better? Do you have the courage to lead others better?

When it comes to leading yourself and others, your character will launch you or limit you. Your character will determine if you’re a low impact leader struggling to create positive change or if you’re a high impact leader influencing many to embrace, support, leverage, and lead change throughout the organization.

Will you live kaizen? Will you achieve greater success?

“Your best chance for success is reading. Learn to earn. Read to succeed.” ~ Jeffrey Gitomer

Sneak peek at the Blue-Collar Kaizen chapter titles:

1. Creating a Kaizen Culture
2. Living Kaizen
3. Overcoming the Resistance
4. Defining Influence
5. Make it Happen!
6. Leading Up
7. Develop Yourself
8. Develop Others
9. Righting the Wrong
10. Continuous Improvement
11. Respect for the People
12. The Emotional Trust Account
13. Declare Your Intent
14. Connect First
15. Waste Doesn't Motivate
16. Listen to the Voices
17. The Key to Buy-in
18. Be a Leader
19. Prime the Pump
20. Questions Transfer Responsibility
21. Avoid Answering Questions
22. High Impact Delegation
23. Where's the Problem?
24. The Power of How
25. Lead the Team
26. Leverage the Team
27. Expand the Team
28. Leverage the Leaders
29. The Key to Success
30. Sustain the Gain

FREE downloads available:

Click here now for a FREE download of the entire leadership principle-packed Chapter 11, "Get Out of the Way and Lead" from the first book in my Demystifying Leadership Series: Defining Influence. In this nearly 20 page chapter, I share about:

·      Managing vs Leading

·      Scarcity vs Abundance

·      Formal Authority vs Moral Authority

·      The 5 Types of Leaders

·      Compare/Contrast 17 Manager vs Leader Perspectives

Click here to access the first 5 chapters of “Blue-Collar Leadership: Leading from the Front Lines.”

·      Ch. 1: I’m one of you.

·      Ch.2: I believe in you.

·      Ch.3: You’re in the perfect place.

·      Ch. 4: Common sense is never enough.

·      Ch.5: There is an “I” in Team.

Note: I encourage you to be a river, not a reservoir. Please share my blogs with others if you find value in them. I believe in abundance and write them to help others become more effective, successful, and significant.

Make an impact!

Mack Story

My passion is to help you live with abundance, achieve success, choose significance, and leave a legacy. In other words, I want to help you make a    High Impact !