Author Archive: Jean Cunningham
Jean is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of lean accounting and lean beyond manufacturing having led the lean transition in those environments since the early 90’s. She has given lectures and consulted on lean back office application since the mid-90s. With JCC, Jean travels world-wide presenting lean workshops, consulting on lean strategy, and facilitating kaizens. Jean is the former Vice President and CFO at Lantech, Inc. and Marshfield Door Systems. She is currently the CFO and a Director-at-Large for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence. Jean was an original Thought Leader for the Lean Accounting Summit and presents there annually. Jean has published two books of practical application based on her corporate lean journey. Real Numbers won the Shingo Prize for research in 2004 and has become an essential lean accounting text. Easier, Simpler, Faster won the Shingo Prize for research in 2008 and is already recommended reading for lean IS/IT efforts. Jean has a BS in Accounting from Indiana University and an MBA from Northeastern University’s Executive Program.
A Lean Leadership Lesson from Marrakech
My wife and I are currently in Marrakech, Morocco, on one of our increasingly frequent trips to explore new locales. Truly a remarkable place, and with the tall snowcapped Atlas Mountains only an hour away in one direction, and the ocean in another, I’m convinced it’s destined to become another mecca for sports enthusiasts similar [...]
Start a Campaign for Clarity
Ambiguity. It’s an increasingly common space within which most organizations operate. Rapid change, increased complexity, and competing interests all make predictability and certainty tougher to achieve. But there’s a big difference between ambiguity that’s externally produced–such as not knowing the full impact of an upcoming regulatory change, or how quickly a key supplier will recover [...]
The Human Case for Lean
Over the decades, many people have tried to make the business case for Lean in an attempt to gain senior management support. They typically start with arguments based on removing waste or improving efficiency. But that, surprisingly, proved to be unconvincing to most executives. So they moved on to arguments such as improving productivity or [...]
Lean is the Strategy
Recently I wrote The Lean Turnaround: How Business Leaders Use Lean Principles to Create Value and Transform Their Company from McGraw-Hill, in order to pass on an approach to implementing lean in any company—something that has worked for me over and over for more than 30 years. I wanted to highlight the role and importance [...]
The Middle Manager Problem
It is common to hear senior managers say that the company’s Lean transformation efforts have been slowed by middle managers. They usually attribute this to resistance to Lean or a fear of change. Senior managers have perceived a problem (an effect) and identified two causes. Unfortunately, they have not identified the real problem and are [...]
Are You Humble Enough to be a Lean CEO?
“Oh Lord, It’s Hard to be Humble … When You’re Perfect in Every Way” Mac Davis If you’ve answered the question with, “Absolutely yes, I am a very humble leader”, you probably are not. But don’t get me wrong … humility, should not be confused with confidence. In fact, perhaps the two greatest assets a [...]
Just Observing
I’m a fairly simple and frugal guy, but there are three, maybe four, luxuries that I do indulge in. When I travel on business I just need a clean bed and I love Marriott’s Courtyard chain. When I travel on vacation I want more – and that’s why regular readers know I’m a Four Seasons [...]
Disruptive Management
There is an article on Financial Times called “Why Sony Did Not Invent the iPod“. If you don’t have a FT account don’t worry about it – the article is not particularly important. It is like countless articles and books that have flowed from the professional management cult, citing a Harvard wizard by the name [...]
Top 10 Signs Your CEO Doesn’t Get Lean
Lean training and programs are more popular than ever. Implementing lean strategies is all the rage, but has your CEO really seen the lean light? Use these 10 signs as a gauge to find out. 10. He initiated a brand new lean department. His thinking: Lean is something new. We don’t want to taint it [...]
Sustaining, Leadership, and Why?
A good friend of mine recently sent me a photo of what his team found while cleaning one of their production areas: Yes, that’s a certificate lauding completion of various 5S activities… except the last one: sustain. And from the mess in the background you can see what happened. Sustaining improvement – lean or otherwise [...]
