Partners in EXCELLENCE - Making a Difference
This is Dave Brock’s Blog.
It offers my views on a variety of business, sales, marketing, and leadership topic. My goal is to make a difference for you, the reader, in both your professional and personal lives.
Ir you haven’t had a chance to read the first two articles in this series, take a moment to skim them, What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing and What Sales Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing–Part 2. This post follows on those. If you have been following, I’ve been using the Toyota Production System (TPS) as the foundation for this discussion. It is the foundation form much of our thinking on lean manufacturing. In the last post, I got through the first 4 of the 14 principles in TPS. I’ll continue with Principle 5. Principle 5: Build a culture […]
Read MoreI posed a question on LinkedIn, “Can we self coach?” The responses are interesting and, for the most part, thoughtful. Paul Lanigan made a comment that neatly sums up my thinking: “The whole idea of a coach is to shine a light on what we don’t see.” I think this is an important concept and why any high performer must actively seek coaching from their manager and even mentoring from people they respect. There’s a huge amount high performers can and should be doing for themselves. They should always be seeking to learn and improve, but in a systematic way. […]
Read MoreAs I mentioned in my prior post, there are a lot of people promoting the application of Lean Manufacturing principles in sales. There is a lot we can learn, at the same time, there are huge areas where the comparisons break down. If you haven’t read the first post, What We Can Learn From Lean Manufacturing, be sure to read this. This post continues on the foundation of Toyota Production System’s 4 P’s, by diving into the 14 principles. Recapping them briefly: Philosophy as the foundation: Principle 1: Base your management decisions on a long term philosophy, even at the […]
Read MoreThere a number of people with views that sales can learn a lot from manufacturing and applying lean and agile manufacturing methods to the sales function. I tend to agree, a lot of the underpinnings of great manufacturing have great applicability to selling. At the same time, there are some real limitations, which we can’t be naive about in applying manufacturing techniques where they don’t fit (Read my “Customers Are Not Widgets,” and related posts. Perhaps the foundation for much of today’s modern manufacturing thinking is the Toyota Production System. It was Toyota’s approach to manufacturing developed over decades under […]
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