Center for Business, Industry & Labor

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The Power of Lean: Creating Indelible Impressions that Build Sales

Lean thinking drives the delivery of indelible impressions; the kind of impressions that really “Wow” customers. It does this by creating a workforce made up of individuals who are continually focused on the work they’re doing. This translates into their being completely focused on meeting your customers’ needs. And when this happens, you’re got a winner in the retail marketplace. We can work with you to make this happen.

What kind of encounters with store employees create indelible impressions? Here’s one example. My wife, Dolores, and I were going through the checkout lane at a grocery store in our neighborhood and when the checker picked up a package of blueberries to scan, he stopped, looked at it, and said, “This one looks like it doesn’t have quite enough blueberries in it. I don’t want you to get short-changed. With that, he rang a bell, an associate came up almost immediately, he handed the box of blueberries to the associate and said, ‘this one looks like it’s short on berries. Get another that’s fuller. A minute or so later the box with more berries in it appeared and our checkout continued.

We were both, frankly, stunned. Wow, was this unusual behavior! This checker’s behavior was not only unusual; it was the kind of behavior that creates indelible impressions. It was the kind of experience you just can’t forget. Today, we shop in this store, even though they don’t carry all the items found in a typical full service supermarket, just because we really like the way they treat customers. We’ve been “Wowed” by their completely “focused” employees.

Can a workforce be transformed into one which is focused on creating indelible customer service experiences? Absolutely. Is driving this kind of change difficult? Absolutely. Are resources available that will drive this kind of change? Absolutely. We can provide them for your company. And we’d greatly value the opportunity to meet with you to talk about how to make this happen.

If you’d like to get information about training and consulting services available through St. Louis Community College’s Center for Business, Industry & Labor that will drive the creation of indelible customer service experiences on your sales floor, please call me, George Friesen, at 314.303.0612, and let’s talk. Now.

The Lean Leadership Certification Program: Making Lean Stick

It’s no secret that, although Lean work processes, tools like 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Pull Production, Visual Management, Six Sigma, and others, have driven very significant increases in productivity and profitability for thousands of organizations worldwide, Lean often fails. In fact, studies have shown that Lean fails over 75% of the time. Why is this?

Leans fails for a whole complex of reasons. Some organizations don’t understand that Lean is primarily about respecting the creativity and intelligence of line workers and then continually acting on this belief. They see Lean as being primarily about using the tools of Lean, processes like 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Six Sigma, etc. Other organizations fail to understand that Lean must involve all levels of an organization, top to bottom, and can’t simply be done “on the line,” for example. But the core reason for the failure of Lean has to do with the ability of managers and supervisors to effectively manage and drive the many changes involved in a transition to Lean production.

Why do we believe this? We believe it because this is what our clients have told us, over and over again. Clients have told us loud and clear that the primary roadblock to the successful implementation of Lean work processes was supervisors and managers whose ability to communicate “Lean” effectively to line workers was too limited. Since launching this program, we’re continually receiving e-mails from participants who tell us that what they learned and practiced in the program’s ten seminars had a tangible, immediate, and very positive impact on their ability to communicate with line workers.

During the last two years, we’ve delivered the Lean Leadership Certification Program to nine St. Louis organizations, ranging from manufacturers, to distribution centers, to corporate headquarters. Here, for example, are photos of groups of managers and supervisors at the Rawlings Worldwide Distribution Center actively involved in the Lean Leadership Coaching for Success seminar.

The consistent message we’ve received from clients whose managers and supervisors have earned certification as Lean Leaders by successfully completing this program has been this: It works. A typical response would be this one received from Kelly Foster, Sigma-Aldrich, who stated, “This training was timely and beneficial for our team as its content can assist in future programs.”

Throughout the ten seminars included in the Lean Leadership program, participants focus on the skills and knowledge needed to effectively guide and motivate line workers as the organizations for whom they work implement Lean work processes. Graduates of this program understand the basic beliefs that undergird the successful implementation of Lean and also understand the absolute importance of doing everything they can to drive maximum degrees of engagement in the continuous improvement of work processes on the part of all members of the work groups they supervise. And they not only understand why driving high levels of line worker engagement in continuous improvement is important, they know how to do it.

That’s why this program works. Call us anytime at 314.539.5324 or 314.303.0612. We’d like to introduce you and your company to a powerful set of career changing experiences that will make your investment in Lean really pay off.