Never get complacent

 

 

Never get complacent

 

"Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.  It always creates new realities.  It always creates, above all, its own and different problems."

Peter Drucker, from The Daily Drucker, p 262

 

Today's thought from the writings of Peter Drucker is dead on the money for a lean thinker.  Indeed, one of the fundamental concepts of Lean is continuous improvement, kaizen, a relentless and never ending quest to improve. 

 

While this quest can be stated (and often is) as mere pabulum, what does it mean for your company?  Is it, as one process company I know of put it, a continual improvement in their "first batch quality" metric?  Is it, as a retail company describes it, a steady increase in the average purchase per customer visit?  Can you measure it and then improve it?

 

Further, from our understanding of Theory of Constraints, do we apply this improvement most intentionally at the point of constraint?  And, further, do we apply it to make sure we increase capacity for throughput as we expand the constraint?

 

When we succeed, we create new issues.  Face them.  Measure them.  Improve them. 

 

I hope this is helpful.