The Lean Thinker on Value Enhancement

The guest on the Business901 podcast was Adam Zak (@leanthinker), founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Adam Zak Executive Search and an accomplished senior executive with more than 25 years of experience spanning the areas of management consulting; financial and operations management; and talent acquisition.

During the podcast I was able to ask questions on Customer Value, Value Proposition, and Value Streams, subjects that I am passionate about. Adam did not disappoint me as he challenged the status quo in the continuous improvement field bringing customer value to the forefront.

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Adam has just co-authored a new book, Simple Excellence: Organizing and Aligning the Management Team in a Lean Transformation and it was the topic of the podcast.  The book takes on difficult subjects outside of the normal Lean arena such as Pricing, Human Resources (Could,have guessed that!), Sales and Marketing, Supply Chain and others.  I found the book entertaining and read it rather quickly. However, when finished I found myself thumbing back through certain sections and rereading parts of it. They chose a great title for the book. It reminded me of an Einstein quote: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” This one should be considered for your bookshelf. It is not a fiction book where you get to learn all the answers. It is a book that challenges your thinking through concrete examples with an emphasis on Customer Value. By the way, they allude to know quick fix and ask you to accept the challenge of a journey to excellence.  However simple it may seem.

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Lean thinker on Value Enhancement

This is a transcription of the Business901 podcast, The Lean Thinker on Value Enhancement (Lean) with Adam Zak (@leanthinker), founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Adam Zak Executive Search and an accomplished senior executive with more than 25 years of experience spanning the areas of management consulting; financial and operations management; and talent acquisition.

Lean Thinker on Value Enhancement eBook -

Adam has just co-authored a new book, Simple Excellence: Organizing and Aligning the Management Team in a Lean Transformation and it details the role of senior management in achieving a successful transformation to organizational excellence. ing the Management Team in a Lean Transformation charts a course of simplification through the complexity often associated with managing performance improvement initiatives.

Maintaining a focus on the big picture, the book explains what value streams are and how to use them to structure your business to align everyone with the things that matter most. It boils constraint management down to its practical terms and lays out a sound approach to accounting that enables everyone to spend money where it adds value and to stop spending money where it doesn't.

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10 Sample A3s by 5 contributors + me

I was honored to have these 5 people contribute A3s for the eBook, Marketing with A3. I had several of my own efforts but felt that I could not offer the variety needed. These contributions are real life examples (names and some data has been changed) that captures the essence of an A3; a small story along the path of continuous improvement.  For an A3 example look at this sample A3 on marketing.

Dr. Eric Reidenbach is the Director of the Six Sigma Marketing Institute, a leading organization and authority of Six Sigma Marketing. Dr. Reidenbach has developed a number of unique approaches for measuring and managing value, the best leading indicator of market share growth. Dr. Reidenbach is the author of over 20 books on marketing and market research. Website: http://6sigmarketing.com   email: eric@6sigmarketing.com

Mark Greenhouse is based in York (UK) and holds a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering and Management, as well as Marketing qualifications. His business, ResQ was developed in 2005 to take Lean Thinking outside of production functions and has worked with large blue chip organizations and smaller owner manager business across the UK on continuous improvement. Mark is a visiting lecturer on the Executive MBA at Nottingham University Business School and is also published in the Law Business Review.
Website: http://resqmr.co.uk   email: mark.greenhouse@resqmr.co.uk

Daniel Matthews is an expert trainer with 30 years of training experience including Lean implementation and Training within Industry (TWI). He has spent fourteen of those years with the Toyota Company where he created and made use of the A3 as a core component of continuous quality improvement. Dan is the author of The A3 Workbook: Unlock Your Problem-Solving Mind and presently employed at the Kentucky Manufacturing Assistance Center. Website: http://kmac.org  email: dmatthews@kmac.org

Derek Browning is a Lean Deployment Executive within LeanCor’s Deployment Team. This area of LeanCor executes the lean six sigma training and consulting operations. Team members create customized and effective lean six sigma/logistics and supply chain training programs for all LeanCor customers and coach LeanCor clients through their lean deployment initiatives. Website: http://leancor.com   email: dbrowning@leancor.com

Tracey Richardson is a trainer, consultant and principal of Teaching Lean Inc. She has 22 years of Lean experience and worked at Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY as a team member, team leader and group leader in the Plastics Department from 1988-1998. She has over 460 hours training in Toyota Methodologies and Philosophy and currently is a trainer for Toyota, their affiliates in North America, and other companies upon request. Website: http://teachingleaninc.com    email: tracey@teachingleaninc.com

Thanks Again!

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10 Sample A3s by 5 contributors + me