Category Archives: Weekly Challenge

Weekly Challenge: June 2, 2014: Stay Hungry and Humble

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“Don’t be cocky or flashy there’s always someone better than you” -Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos.com

Challenge: Stay hungry and humble; disruption is always around the corner

Just because things are working for you now doesn’t mean they will in the future. Keep learning, growing, and have that ear to the ground. Mastery of a skill is extremely important in stabilizing your process for quality products and services. However, changes in the competitive landscape and how others are learning new ways to do things less expensive, better, faster, or in a more novel ways can quickly obsolete a business model, product, or service. This can be especially disheartening if caught by surprise due to not  being tuned into your environment.  Continue to perfect your course of action, but always be on the guard for those dynamic shifts.

 

 

 

 

Weekly Challenge May 19th, James Thomas, Unplug and Get Active

JT-beer-and-napkin-2 In celebration of National Bike Month  our challenge comes from industrial designer James Thomas.  Studies show that even a moderate amount of activity can increase creativity for hours. Get on your bike and ride! Challenge: Break up your daily routine with a bike ride, run, or walk. Be open to inspiration along the way allow the creative energy to shape your work for the rest of your day. James Thomas, an industrial designer with an interest in cycling, photography, architecture, lighting, active transportation, sustainability, and art & design in general. You will find content about all of those topics and more here. If bicycles are your main interest, check out my old blog at BicycleDesign.net. That one is no longer updated, but there are 8 years worth of archives that are worth exploring. You can follow James here JCTdesign.net and Twitter/JCTdesign

Weekly Challenge May 5, 2014: Mark Oehlert, Nourish Conversations

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Our weekly challenge comes from Mark Oehlert, Customer Success Director at Social Text/PeopleFluent

Quote: “Imagine that the ‘grapevine’ is not a poisonous plant to be cutoff at the roots, but a natural source of vitality to be cultivated and nourished…these conversations are as much a core business process as marketing, distribution, or product development.” -Juanita Brown, MIT Organizational Learning Center and Society of Organizational Learning

Challenge: Find ways this week to nourish conversations and view them as core part of your business.

Mark is an anthropologist, historian, speaker, author, and a technologist. He has worked at the Pentagon, as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies and as a federal employee. Now he works for Socialtext (part of the Peoplefluent family), helping companies be successful using social collaboration tools. I’m fascinated with the intersection of technology and culture. I tweet incessantly and take a lot of pictures with my iPhone. Hi. You can follow him here http://about.me/markoehlert

Weekly Challenge 4/21/14: Robert Hafey, Go to Gemba

BN_WeeklyChallenge_Robert_HafeyOur Weekly Challenge comes from Author and Consultant Robert B. Hafey.  Robert is the author of Lean Safety: Transforming your Safety Culture with Lean Management. Robert has creatively combined lean concepts with safety management to continuously improve organizations. You can learn more about his concepts here at his website Lean Safety Book

Quote: “You can continuously cope or you can continuously improve – the choice is yours!”

Challenge: Engage Others by taking Gemba Walks. (Gemba walks denote the action of going to see the actual process, understand the work, ask questions, and learn) Going to Gemba is a great way to find ideas or improve upon ideas.

Just like how Robert connected the dots with his unique combination of concepts, you can identify ground breaking ideas by getting out to observe and asking questions. As an added challenge Robert suggests drinking good beer! We agree! 

Robert B. Hafey has worked in manufacturing operations and maintenance for forty years. The first part of his career was with U.S. Steel Corporation followed by twenty plus years at Flexco. For the last eighteen years he was directly involved in the definition and implementation of continual improvement. He has been an AME (Association for Manufacturing Excellence) volunteer for the past fourteen years and acquired much of his lean knowledge through this involvement. He has served on the national board, as a regional board president, regional board member and has been a volunteer member of three AME annual conference teams. He is a skilled presenter and keynote who has presented continuous improvement material at AME, SME, PMA, APICS, NIBA, Manufacturing Institute (Manchester, UK), NAEM, Assembly Technology Expo, MRO Today, IMTS and Reliable Plant sponsored conferences. He firmly believes in the email signature tag line he created, “You can continuously cope or you can continuously improve – the choice is yours!” He considers continuous improvement a creative endeavor and he enjoys and finds time for many other varied activities that center on creativity. His creative instincts and an undergraduate degree in professional arts are the foundation that enabled him to master detailed wood carving, gourmet cooking and guiding others on their continuous improvement journeys. One of his joys in life is preparing good food to share with friends and family. You can connect with Robert here Robert’s Linked In Profile