Home
>
Strategic Planning
>
Troubled Waters Require Capable Leaders at the Helm

Troubled Waters Require Capable Leaders at the Helm

Canada's lean leaders need to look beyond the horizon and chart the future

In stormy times, true leadership skills emerge, says Larry Cot?, the President of Lean Advisors Inc. (www.leanadvisors.com)

The rumbles on our economic outlook are troubling. The dollar is still up, foreign investment, profits and sales are down. Low cost Asian competition is eroding our market share. Financial scandals and corporate governance issues keep flaring into the headlines. Disasters such as terrorism, possible pandemics, and war continually reshape the world in which we work and live. There are so many "big" global issues, so much apparent chaos, that our minds are often distracted from the day-to-day jobs we do leading our businesses.

The world as we know it has changed - both economically and socially. What hasn't changed however, is the customers' insatiable appetite for more value, faster delivery and better service.

Most business leaders are eager to return to their pre-recession profits and growth. But even when the economy is robust again, we may find the bounce back to previous profit levels is not a "slam dunk" in spite of a revived and thriving economy. During the past couple of years, while business executives have been making short-term decisions to survive, customers and markets have continued to change at a rate never seen before.

If we turn our worries and blame for new shortfalls to the currency fluctuations and Asian competition, it starts to sound like the same old "blame game" with different players. It's easy to fly high on adrenaline when you look at these global issues and threats. But, for a moment, let's step back and look at our business challenges from a lower altitude and a more local focus.

In doing this, we need to disregard the factors affecting our businesses that we can't influence and begin to look at those we can. The ones we have little or no influence over are things like the recession, currency fluctuations and major disasters. The area we can influence and affect is our own long and short-term strategies for transforming our companies, making them more competitive and customer focused.

The bottom line is let's stick to our "knitting," do our jobs and focus more on our roles as organizational leaders.

In North America we've proven that we can provide products and services competitively through innovation, inspired product development and comprehensive efforts to eliminate waste. But it does require a prolonged and concentrated effort. Leaders aren't hired to cry wolf when chaos threatens. The terms of employment are to use our leadership talents and drive improvements that will be seen and sustained on the bottom line.

We need to readjust how we use these talents and not be distracted by global factors, which are out of our control for the most part. We must accept the role we were hired for and focus on the business operations where we can have a real impact.

We are leaders, so let's lead. Most activities, whatever the company, can be classified as waste of one kind or another once you start to see it. As leaders, it is our responsibility to set the direction and motivate our staff to understand how to remove this waste properly rather than making incremental or point improvements.

This requires seeing and analyzing the process from end to end, not just at points or segments of the process. That becomes your road map to success.

Beneficial change happens in a very structured, sequential and organized fashion. Your teams aren't caught running around chasing low hanging fruit while creating what we call "exciting chaos." When everyone rushes reactively to improve their individual areas they feel virtuous, after all they are helping the company, aren't they? In fact, they are only improving their areas or departments, often at the detriment of the entire process. It's your leadership and your measured future state plan that will bring order to chaos. Reactive flurry kills profits faster than any big external threat!

Striving to improve our own competitiveness by providing customers faster and better products or services will accomplish more than worrying about the next global crisis looming just around the corner. The only futures game we need to be in is the one that cuts waste so the customer sees more value.

Science tells us that nature likes order - it's human agents that generate the chaos. There are things that we can control - so let's get busy and do it!

Larry Cot? is president of Lean Advisors Inc. You can reach him by email at: www.leanadvisors.com. Larry is also a key organizer of the Lean Conference Canada event being held Sept, 15-16, 2004, at the Ottawa Congress Centre. For event details visit: (www.leanadvisors.com)

For information: www.leanadvisors.com or Contact: www.leanadvisors.comPhone: 613-821-4545

About The Author

Larry Cot? is well known for his penetrating analysis and creative energy. He was employed by the Lean Enterprise Institute in Boston for almost two years as C.O.O./E.V.P. He was the Founder and President of the Lean Enterprise Institute Canada.

Over the years, Larry has worked with 100's of companies at various stages of their Lean journey in many different business sectors. He is particularly skilled at working with senior executives in the boardroom to plan, problem solve and create Lean corporate strategies.

His research and development work along with his past 'hands-on' experience has led to new ways to teach and communicate Lean across North America. These methods used in the past by Lean Advisors Inc. have proven to be very successful in promoting 'sustainability' within the organizations where they have been applied.

Larry has specialized expertise in Toyota Production System concepts, diagnostics and assessment of Lean readiness. He works with the corporate leaders to develop effective plans for transforming entire organizations using Lean and adapting it to their particular culture.

www.leanadvisors.com

kitchen deep cleaning Deerfield ..

In The News:

X Square Robot unveils Wall-OSS open-source AI model that helps robots adapt to unpredictable real-world tasks beyond narrow scenarios.

Airport workers report surge in fake lost luggage claims as scammers retrieve discarded baggage tags containing passenger names and travel information.

Unlike robotaxi competitors, Tensor focuses on consumer-owned self-driving cars that adapt to highways and urban roads with full redundancy systems for safety.

Medicare scams cost $54 billion in 2024 as fraudsters target beneficiaries with fake calls demanding payments and personal information to steal benefits.

Scammers create fake Evite invitations that mimic legitimate event emails, requiring users to verify senders and use antivirus software for protection.

The new Apple Watch hypertension feature passively monitors blood pressure patterns over 30 days using sensors to detect chronic high blood pressure signs.

Chrome extension spyware disguised as a free VPN service highlights security risks after it captured private browsing data from trusted sites.

New research shows how fatty acids in cooking oil can safely dissolve and recover silver from circuit boards without harmful chemicals or environmental damage.

The Fox News AI newsletter gives you information on the latest AI technology advancements, and about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Anthropic investigates alarming AI abuse case where hacker automated entire cybercrime campaign using Claude, stealing sensitive data from defense and healthcare firms.

TikTok, Meta and YouTube restrict Charlie Kirk shooting videos with age gates and warnings while X faces criticism for allowing continued circulation.

Cybercriminals use fake troubleshooting websites to trick Mac users into running terminal commands that install Shamos malware through ClickFix tactics.

San Francisco startup Fable launches Showrunner, an AI platform dubbed the 'Netflix of AI' that generates animated episodes from text descriptions with Amazon support.

Apple raised iPhone prices for some models despite receiving tariff relief from President Donald Trump, with the new lineup starting at $799 for the base model.

A two-story 3D concrete printed home in Western Australia demonstrates faster construction methods that could reshape American housing amid rising costs.

Credit scores remain important during retirement for insurance rates and housing applications, while seniors become prime targets for identity theft and financial scams.

Scammers now send unexpected packages with QR codes that redirect victims to fraudulent websites or download malicious software to steal sensitive information.

Meeting AI tools record private conversations alongside work discussions, creating privacy risks that can be managed with proper settings and awareness.

Hotel privacy concerns are valid but rare, with methods to detect hidden tech using smartphone flashlights, mirror tests and scanning apps.

Improve your Wi-Fi speed and reliability with 10 simple router optimization tips that don't require special apps or expensive subscriptions.

A Columbia University breach exposed names, Social Security numbers and academic records of nearly 869,000 people, with notifications beginning in August.

Rental car drivers use AI-powered apps like Proofr to protect themselves from unfair damage fees as major companies deploy automated inspection tools.

Fox News' AI newsletter brings you the latest on technology advancements around artificial intelligence.

OnTrac data breach between April 13-15, 2025, exposed personal information of over 40,000 people including Social Security numbers and medical records.

Troubled Waters Require Capable Leaders at the Helm

Strategic Planning