Following 14 years in a wide variety of roles in a wide variety of industries, I entered the worlds of entrepreneurship and consulting 20 years ago. Experience and many of you have taught me a lot over those years.

My Dad, who hated his job but couldn’t leave it with 4 hungry kids to support, taught me to never be in the position he was in. Live in a way where you always maintain freedom of choice on everything important to you. With that knowledge, I left the “safety” of traditional employment for the “uncertainty” of running my own business, and have never looked back. For each of us, real security is in our skills, knowledge, work ethic, and respect for others. It is not in the hands of anyone else.

My first clients taught me that I didn’t have to know everything; I only had to be honest with myself about what I did and did not know, and willing to learn about the latter. They helped me understand that client and consultant are a team working for common purpose in a mutually beneficial alliance. Any other relationship between client and consultant is simply wrong. I will never forget that.

Professional associates along the way taught me new ways to think, to interact, and to learn. They’ve helped round out my skill set in ways that continue to benefit both me and my clients. I am a much better person and professional today than I would have been without them.

Every client helped, every plant visited, every workshop and conference attended, every “you ought to know him/her” meeting, and every volunteer role accepted has further developed my vision, awareness, empathy, and listening skills.

Twenty years into this adventure, I thank each of you, while eagerly moving toward the experiences yet to come. I hope your ride is as enjoyable.

Sports just lost one of its greatest leaders when John Wooden passed away on June 4, 2010. Widely considered the best college basketball coach ever, Wooden was given the moniker, much to his chagrin, “The Wizard of Westwood,” referring to his amazingly successful UCLA coaching career.

Even if you hate sports, take the time to become familiar with the life and thinking of John Wooden. It takes more than luck to achieve all that he did. It takes great leadership.

Just a few elements from his famous “Pyramid of Success” illustrating 12 lessons in leadership:

• Good Values Attract Good People
• Call Yourself a Teacher
• Little Things Make Big Things Happen
• Make Greatness Attainable By All
• Don’t Look At The Scoreboard

If you are familiar with Deming, Shingo, and Ohno, these sound very familiar. The concepts aren’t complex; living them sometimes is. But we can all at least try.

When you get something other than what you specifically requested at a restaurant, who’s to blame?  The waitron?  The chef? Right!  You don’t care whose fault it is; you just want what you ordered.  Seems reasonable, yet we often here “it’s not my fault” or “I told him, but I guess he didn’t listen.”

If your company delivers exactly what the customer ordered, when it was wanted, and the invoicing / payment is as promised, you’ve succeeded. Anything else, and you’ve failed.  The customer doesn’t care about your new computer system or who’s out of the office today or any other excuses.

If you can’t get it right every time, then at least build your organization to replace “it’s not my fault” with “I will get it fixed immediately” and then do it!

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long been considered the agency with the big hammer if a company creates environmental contamination, whether by intent or by accident.  Over the past several years the agency has become active in spreading information about Lean Manufactuirng concepts every chance it gets.  They know that the “elimination of waste” that is a focus of Lean is good for the environment as well as good for business.  Why not help spread the word?

The EPA has been an exhibitor at the last several AME annual conferences, and distributes “lean” articles and interviews with increasing frequency.  They are proactively helping companies understand opportunities to reduce waste, especially those that involve energy, water. hazardous, or landfill materials.  They can stimulate industry through these efforts.

We tell children that the police are here to help us, yet most adults consider police as consumed with catching someone doing something wrong as with  helping children or ittle old ladies.  The EPA has been similarly considered “big brother” trying to catch us doing something wrong, with no offsetting kind message for kids.  But this is changing.

I’d love to see all government agencies discover ways to help business succeed while serving their mission.  That “government for the people” is a great idea!

A few short years ago, I bought a new 2007 Vespa from a very nice looking, but new, dealership in the Greater Cleveland area.  I took my bike went there for the initial maintenance, and for the subsequent oil change and “spring check-up.”  This year, the dealership is simply gone.  No call, no connection to a different dealership, no notice in the window, no nothing.

I can take my bike to the one remaining Vespa dealership in this area, but doesn’t it seem that if Vespa were truly interested in customer service, I would have found out about this change other than by getting a call from a friend reporting an empty building?  While the folks at the dealership seemed passionate, nice, and interested in service, they couldn’t make it.

Maybe they didn’t understand service after all, and why would anyone spend thousands of dollars with a company that doesn’t understand service?  I did, but I’ll be very hesitant to buy a Vespa again.  Even if the dealership doesn’t understand service, the manufacturer should.

It can’t. People want things and until things are created via spontaneous combustion, nuclear reaction, or other scientific “cloning” methods, someone will continue to manufacture them.

It’s not a question of “if” but of “where.” Manufacturing locations are based on a few considerations, which more and more countries can meet. Water and energy are basic. The technical ability to meet requirements is another fundamental question.  Then strategic choices can be made.

Close to raw materials or to customers is another decision point. Sometimes we get both. Then there’s costs. Labor is a small portion of overall cost in most manufacturing industries, with materials and overhead contributing the rest. Overhead includes government regulations and related external factors as well as company specific issues.

High labor content manufacturing is likely to continue moving to every-evolving low cost countries.  For those industries, cheap labor may be the holy grail.  But for most, cheap labor is not the critical strategic issue.

Any country with sound infrastructure can become competitive.  If the US wants to continue as a major player in manufacturing, it must focus on technology, speed, and reduced overhead and competitive raw material pricing. 

Reducing overhead is not the same as reducing labor, but is equally possible and more productive in the long term.

Fear of additional regulations. Backtrack on government consideration of additional deep water drilling. Uncertainty about other wells.  Massive loss of oil. Uncertainty of Iraqi elections and impact on oil production / sabotage / pricing.

Commodity prices never like uncertainity and they don’t like bad news either. Get prepared!

An environmental and economic tragedy is spreading in the Gulf Coast as BP’s underwater well continues to pour oil into Gulf waters. Accidents happen, but shouldn’t there be a plan for an accident as serious (and really not all that surprising) as this one?

Many of you golf. Some do it for fun and simply keep score because that’s part of the game. Others are more serious, competing with themselves. Did I get around the course in fewer shots than last time? Continuous improvement is important to these folks.

And then there are the pros. They not only are committed to continuous improvement of their own game; they continually benchmark themselves against the very best. They know who can drive best, who can putt best, and they know the best at every other aspect of the game. That’s called benchmarking.

Businesses are the same way.

Some figure as long as they keep their nose to the grindstone and turn a reasonable profit, they’re okay. Sounds like a hobby.

Some focus on continuous improvement, making sure they are better today than they were yesterday. Absolutely going the right direction, but with no concept of how they compare to the competition. Sounds like a serious hobby.

And then there are the companies that work to get better than the competition every day. They know the weaknesses that cost them the most, the strengths that help them overcome poor performance in other areas. They can distinguish a “hail mary” success from a repeatable one. They know how they stack up against the competition, and against the very best, piece by piece as well as in total. Sounds like a profession.

Whether you golf, ski, bike, run or garden for fun outside the office, make sure that inside it you run your business like a pro.

Awaken by the tsunami alarms on Oahu early last Saturday morning, we turned on the TV to find out what was going on.  We learned to look in the phone book for “inundation” maps, that we had plenty of time to get groceries and water, that we should fill the tub with water so we could flush should the power go out, and that our 30th floor hotel room was just the right place to be.

Oahu safety forces had areas filled with tourists well prepared and the processes to eliminate loss of life and minimize property damage were executed without a flaw (ignoring the idiot on the surfboard who thought it would be “cool”). 

Few organizations have such a well planned and communicated safety plan in case of emergency.  Perhaps they should.  Is your organization well prepared?