Frequent Asked Questions
We don’t just want products and services people like; we want products and services they love. We want completely satisfied customers, which means understanding what we can do better right now to help them with their individual problems as well as figuring out how to evolve our offer to better satisfy them collectively in the future.
People seek meaning in work just as they do in every aspect of their life. How do we involve all employees in improving their own work and their teams’ work in eliminating all the obstacles that get in the way of doing the best work for customers?
How do we make it richer and more fulfilling because anyone can pitch in, have her say, and be supported in trying her ideas? In addition to this, how do we make work safer as well?
To remain competitive in fast moving markets, how do we continuously reduce our cost base, not by squeezing budgets line by line, but by sharing larger cost issues with the people in the processes themselves and involving them in helping us reduce the total cost of making products or delivering a service? How do we lighten the burden of cost on every product or service by eliminating the waste in the corporate, engineering, production, supply chain, and support systems? And how do we minimize the impact of what we are doing on the environment and the world we live in?
The breakthrough thinking that Lean offers is that of better individual competence and better teamwork. This means taking responsibility when things go wrong (as they do daily) and not explaining them away by blaming someone or something else— confronting the problems together without feelings of guilt or fault. We learn together when we learn to face our problems and support each other without denial or blame. We roll up our sleeves and think deeply about the situation and try various ways to improve, with everyone’s input. True learning is not just about learning to do better what we already know how to do. It is also about discovering what we need to learn that we simply don’t know. Learning faster together requires an underlying atmosphere of trust and effort, and it is nourished by quick feedback, even when it sounds on the spot like criticism (it is not). Learning needs open, curious minds, certainly, but also warm hearts.