Lean Olympics

Let me begin by saying that, as the father of a child who competes at the world level in their chosen discipline, I have some idea of what it takes to get there and stay there.  I don't know who said it first but I believe it holds true that to compete and succeed at the world level in any discipline one needs an extraordinary amount of each of the following:

1. Natural ability
2. Hard work
3. Support

The first two are self-explanatory, at least for my purposes.  And I make the assumption that when it comes to world-class athletes each and every one of them has these two elements in ample supply.  As a Lean Lean management consultant I am interested in the third requirement.

Those not familiar with Lean Manufacturing will undoubtedly have heard of Toyota.  The concepts of Lean Manufacturing were first developed by Toyota and are largely responsible for allowing the company to grow to the world leader that it is today.  In extremely simplistic terms Lean involves the following:

Ask your customer what they value.  Then spend more time adding value, and less time generating waste.

This is very easy to say, extremely difficult to do.

As a passionate practitioner of Lean I am constantly looking for creative ways where Lean methodologies can be applied to maximize value and minimize waste.  In fact I even conducted a Lean initiative on my own management consulting company.  This soul-crushing journey of self-discovery resulted in the development of a suite of products that allow us to deliver more value than our previous products at about a tenth of the cost to our customers.

So what does Lean have to do with our Canadian Olympic athletes? Well it occurred to me that there might be an opportunity to apply Lean thinking to elite sports.  In particular what excites me is the opportunity to work with people who are very likely more motivated to improve than anyone else on the planet.  Lean can shorten software development life cycles from months to weeks, manufacturing processes from weeks to days, and emergency room wait time from hours to minutes.  Why then can't these same methodologies be used to shave precious minutes, seconds, centimeters, meters, and even point deductions off of personal bests? 

The answer is "I don't know why not."  But I'm willing to try.  Which is why I am making the following offer to any Canadian Olympic athlete from the 2010 or 2012 games:

I will provide, free of charge, my LeanOnMe services for as long as the athlete sees value.

This includes 2 days per month working directly with the athlete and their coaching team to apply Lean techniques.  Plus unlimited emails, texts and phone calls to provide support and guidance when it is needed.  I welcome all inquiries.

First (and only) 10 Steps to Lean

There are as many ways to start your Lean journey as there are blogs on the internet, business books on the shelf, and experts with opinions.  Not to get left behind I have added my 2 cents worth to the conversation.  The following are 10 basic guidelines, in my opinion, for starting your Lean journey as well as some things to watch out for along the way.

Step One: Find your customer

Any Lean journey must start with the customer.  To people not familiar with Lean this will seem shockingly obvious.  However this is often the last place people look to when trying to improve their organizations.  And sadly most never talk to the customer at all.

In some people's defence it is not always obvious who the customer is.  Anyone who works in retail will have a hard time understanding this delima.  However when you are supporting complex IT systems deep in the basement of an insurance company it is easy to forget that the customers are the people purchasing the policies.  The acid test for identifying a customer is as follows:

"Customers pay us money for our products and services"

Consider the following examples of what I mean by this:

• Students in a classroom are not customers - it's the taxpayer or whoever is paying the tuition
• The department receiving internal project management services is not the customer - it's the people buying the company's products and services
• The department receiving the new software upgrade of internal systems is not the customer - it's the people buying the company's products and services
• The employee receiving feedback on a standard Human Resources form is not the customer - it's the people buying the company's products and services
• The production department receiving the test results from Quality Assurance is not the customer - it's the people buying the company's products and services

.....you get the idea

Step Two: Have your customer define Value

Again to anyone outside of the Organizational Improvement industry this will seem very obvious.  But I will guarantee you that right now there are thousands of Value Stream Maps, complete with Fortune 100 consulting firm logos, proudly posted on boardroom walls that classify tasks such as the following as Value-Add activities:

• Update project schedule
• Fill in status report
• Perform quality inspection
• Set up CNC machine
• Back up critical data
• Perform preventative maintenance

(I'm not kidding, look for yourself if you do not believe me).  And you and I both know there isn't a soul on the planet who ever gave a single thought to the person replacing oil filters on snow ploughs each time they signed the cheque for their property taxes.

The right way to have a customer assign Value is to ask them.  This can be as simple as a face-to-face interview where you ask them "can you please tell me some things you Value about our product or service?"  To more complex surveys designed to have customers rank the relative Importance (Value) of as many attributes (Price, Quality, Appearance, etc.) of your product or service as you can. 

Do not skip these steps.  Everything else is a shot in the dark if you do.

Step Three: Value Stream Mapping

This is the point where most "improvement" gurus love to jump in.  In fact business schools churn out thousands of eager young professionals every month who live for this stuff.  And for good reason - its fun.  The idea is to capture on as big a sheet of paper as possible every single task that is performed within your organization to ultimately deliver your product or service.  The key is don't be stingy.  Put everything on there - preferable in little boxes connected by arrows representing the Flow of things.

What is critical is that you capture EVERY TASK from as far up the Value Stream as possible all the way to the customer.  Here again Lean initiatives usually make the mistake of focusing on a tiny subset of the overall Value Chain.  The first risk here is you immediately lose sight of, or never even think of who your customer is.  And the second risk is ..... well never mind any other risk.  That one is bad enough.

The acid test for knowing whether your Value Stream is complete is that everyone in the organization is accounted for.  That includes not only the people in Sales and Marketing, but also the people in Finance, Admin, HR, Facilities, IT.....everyone.  If you find you are unsure how some tasks fit into the overall Value Stream Map don't worry, that means you are doing it correctly.  Just write them down.

Step Four: Task Evaluation

As with Step Three, if you have, like so many others, decided to skip Steps One and Two then stop now and go back.  For unless you have found your (paying) customer and you thoroughly understand what it is they Value about your products and services there is NO WAY for you to properly evaluate each task within your Value Stream Map.

What you want to do is consider each and every task in your Value Stream Map and classify it into one of the following two categories:

1. Value Added
2. Waste

Until you and your organization truly embrace the concept of Value I find the easiest way to do this is pretend to phone your customer and ask them questions like the following:

• "Do you Value the fact that we hold daily status meetings?"
• "Do you Value the fact that we unload material from trucks that deliver things to our back door?"
• "Do you Value the fact that we spend a lot of time moving things from one area within our facility to another?"
• "Do you Value the fact that we key your order into our complicated computer system?"
• "Do you Value the fact that we test our software in multiple lower environments?"
• "Do you Value the fact that we spend hours each day responding to emails?"

And so on.  As you can see you will find almost nothing you do actually adds Value for your customer.  And trust me, this is a good thing.

It is important at this stage to keep in mind a few common pitfalls that could cause you to incorrectly classifying tasks as Value that are actually Waste:

1. A task is not Value add to your customer just because you are good at it
2. A task is not Value add to your customer just because you've always done it
3. A task is not Value add to your customer just because you like doing it
4. A task is not Value add to your customer just because you can't figure out how to stop doing it

Organizational improvement can not be personal.  And unfortunately almost all improvement efforts get caught in this trap which is why I can not emphasize enough the importance of Steps One and Two.

That being said there will undoubetly be a handful of things you do that will add Value for your customers.  To identify Value I like to use the following general rule:

Customers Value tasks that get them what they want or need, but they can't or won't do

For example:

• Helping me select the right options for my insurance policy (not processing the paperwork)
• Selecting the right components for my inground sprinkler system (not stocking the DIY store shelves)
• Writing software that allows me to check Twitter on my phone (not testing and debugging the code to fix their own mistakes)
• Cleaning the windows outside my highrise office (not setting up the ropes)

In each case above it is easy to imagine your hypothetical customer saying "why yes, thanks for asking.  I absolutely find Value in you doing those things for me."

Step Five: Identify Opportunities to improve

At long last we are getting to the good part.  But hopefully you can see how critical it was to carefully go through the previous four steps in order to know what to improve.  For without knowing what you do that adds Value for your customers, and therefor what you do that is Waste, it would be impossible to consider the following guidelines for identifying Improvement Opportunities.  The rule for Identifying Opportunities is to find ideas that do one or more of the following:

1. Optimize Value
2. Minimize Waste

As with any idea generating or brainstorming exercise the key here is to identify as many ideas as possible.  The the best way to do that is to include as many people as possible without putting any limits on their imagination.  You will be be amazed at what they will come up with when they truly accept the concepts of Waste and Value as defined by the customer.  All of a sudden you are not trying to eliminate a few steps here and there.  Rather you are looking to gouge out (or minimize) huge chunks of your Value Stream.

Step Six:  Prioritize Opportunities to improve

Things are pretty basic here.  You want to consider the dozens and dozens (hundreds) of ideas that people have come up with and start to figure out what you want to do first. In general you want to evaluate your Opportunities based on the following:

1. Ease of Implementation
2. Impact of Change

An improvement with relatively little impact on Waste or Value might make sense if it is straightforward to implement.  Likewise a change that is more challenging might make sense if the Impact is great.

Step Seven: Implement Changes

There are excellent improvement techniques such as Kaizen and 5S that help you do this.  But no matter which methodology you select the key is to involve the people directly associated with the process.  I can not stress this enough.  I like to refer to the following mathematical forumula to demonstrate the power of a group:

1 + 1 = 5 

Or to put it another way, one person can accomplish the work of one person.  But two or more people working together can accomplish more than the sum of their parts.  Ok maybe its not so scientific but it works.

Step Eight: Measure your results

This aspect of Organizational Change could (and probably will) fill its own blog.  For these purposes it is important just to say that as part of the process of selecting which changes to implement it is just as important to quantitatively measure your results.  This should NEVER require the use of a complex computer system.  In fact it is usually best to use a simple white board or log sheet.  The key is for the measurement to be simple and highly visible.

Step Nine: Communicate and celebrate your achievements

Nothing new here.  However making your results and achievements visible is a great way to recognize peoples' efforts by supporting the "1 + 1 = 5" concept.  Plus it is a great way to allow your organization to share ideas and build on the success of others.

Step Ten:  Repeat forever

Anyone who tells you they know how to make an organization Lean is missing the point.  Just as someone who tells you "oh we're already Lean" is also sadly mistaken.  Lean is not about the destination, its about the journey.  Now that you've made it to Step Ten it's time to go back to Step One and start again.

Happy trails :)

Lean Isn't....personal

I find I spend a lot of time listening to people justify the things they do as being Value Added.  And at times they get quite upset when I suggest we "call their customer to make sure that doing X is adding Value for them."  I am told things like "the customer wouldn't understand why we have to do X so there's no point in even asking."

Really?  Are you kidding me?  Who are you Henry Ford with your black cars?  (no offence to one of the great Lean innovators of all time).

Look I am not insensitive to what it feels like to have most of what you love to do classified as Waste.  And I really wish there was a more "touchy-feely" word than Waste for things that are Non-Value Added.  I have written about my firm's own Lean journey where we identified over 94% of what we loved to do as Waste.  I admit it, it hurt.  It crushed our souls.  How could this be?

But more important than our own feelings we realized we were doing it because we had to.  Anyone in the consulting business will tell you that consultants are the canaries in the coal mine.  Long before things actually go bad, if there is even a hint of a downturn in the economy the first thing companies cut is their consulting budget.  So months before the recession of 2008 we were already feeling the effects.

Facing a bleak revenue outlook we turned our Lean microscopes on our own internal process.  And as I said it was not pretty.  I started our Lean journey by telling my associates "look, we tell our clients that if they follow Lean they can take 40%, 50% and more in terms of costs and lead time out of their processes.  So if we follow our own advice we should be able to take out far more than that."

The result was the development of a suite of products we call LeanOnMe that we deliver for approximately 10% of the cost of our original engagements.  And furthermore we now eliminate virtually all of the complaints and frustrations clients have with consultants (I won't list them here, anyone reading this already knows).

My point is this, don't take Lean personally.  You don't hear smokers vehemently defending cigarettes as being good for them.  And diabetics don't get all upset when you suggest that cake might not be the most healthy choice they can make.  Realizing what's Waste and what's not doesn't make it easy to change.  But always keep in mind that the first step to improvement is admitting that you have a problem.  "Hi my name is Kevin, and there is Waste in my process."

Lean Isn't...rocket science

Sometimes Lean can be a four letter word. But don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

These days everyone has an approach to Lean that they assure you is the "right" approach for your organisation. And in many cases they are right. But unless you are running Toyota where the Lean ideals are part of your DNA, simply having the right approach might not be enough.

Ultimately improving the performance of your organisation will involve getting your people to act differently. In order to act differently they will have to make different decisions. And in order to make different decisions they will have to think differently.

Most approaches to Change Management focus on getting people to act differently. The reason for this is very practical especially if you are a consultant. You are under pressure to show quick results. So you need to do anything in your power to get your clients to act differently even if it means bullying people or simply doing most of the work yourself.

Some approaches focus on "training" people to make different decisions. These usually involve taking people through carefully planned examples in an attempt to get them to learn what decisions they should make when they get back to their "real" world. The problem here is these 'perfect' situations never happen in the real world. And ultimately you have not helped people to think any differently.

But to truly leverage the power of "1 + 1 = 5" you want to get people to "think" differently. My high school physics teacher taught me the following two things:

1. The force exerted on an object is equal to the objects mass multiplied by the acceleration or F=ma. Who cares unless you happen to be a rocket scientist.
2. You can't push on a rope.  Infinitely more useful to know.

What I have come to learn is that telling people to do something or teaching them a series of steps to approach a situation is the Behaviour Change equivalent to pushing on a rope. They might try something new while you are standing there guiding (harassing) them. But once you leave they will probably go back to making the same decisions as before because you have not got them to think differently.  If however you can get people to think differently you will find they will grab onto and pull any rope they can get their metaphorical hands on.

Let me give you a practical example. My wife (pushes) says to me "we need to buy some new patio furniture. The stuff we have is old and worn out." I think to myself (like I always do) "sure its a little ratty, but its patio furniture, who cares. As long as it can support my weight, its all good. And even if it doesn't there's nothing you can't fix with some wire and duct tape, am I right?"

Later we are invited to a backyard party at the neighbours house. Upon entering their back yard I notice how nice everything looks. In particular their patio furniture which is brand new and just looks great.

The next morning I go out to our own back yard and look at our own furniture with a new perspective. "Maybe she is right" I think to myself. "We have had it for quite a while and we do use it a lot." I then go find my wife and (pull) suggest we check out the sale on patio furniture that was advertised in the flier.

Make no mistake about it. In either case we were going to end up with new patio furniture. Believe me when I say the laws of Behavioural Change physics do not apply in my house. But I think everyone can see how much more effective (sustainable) the change in my behaviour was by getting me to see my back yard (waste) with a new perspective.

A tactic I use with clients as well as myself is I let my customer decide what adds Value and what therefore is Waste.  For example the next time this question comes up say to yourself "....ok let's call the customer and see what they think.  Hello customer, we are sitting in a meeting trying to decide which phase of the Project Lifecycle we are in and we just want to make sure we are adding Value for you."  You can imagine the confusion on the other end of the phone.  All of a sudden when you do this things like status meetings, weekly reports, inventory, work in process, quality inspections, creating schedules, updating schedules, backing up files, driving to work, walking between meetings, reviewing scorecards, storing raw materials, approving purchase requisitions, status meetings, steering committee meetings, update meetings, safety meetings, and better than 90% of everything your organisation does adds no value to your customers. Talk about looking shabby.

If this sounds harsh then maybe you are right.  If it sounds soul-crushing to discover that almost everything your organization does adds no Value to your customer, I hear you.  We recently did an assessment of our firm's Value chain and in the cold, harsh light of Value as defined by our customer we found that we generously added value 5.6% of the time.  That's the bad news.  The good news is we took this new found insight and developed a far superior product that we can now deliver at a 10th the cost and a 10th the effort.  Jealous?  You should be.

Lean isn't.....a 'crash diet' to cut costs

A lot of people, including lean consultants, have the idea that if they implement Lean they will be able to cut costs.  But this is exactly the wrong way to approach their process, or more correctly their Value Chain.  In fact many initiatives calling themselves "Lean" are the organizational equivalent to starting a crash diet or buying the latest exercise equipment to lose weight.

If you approach an existing process with the intent of "cutting costs" there are many ways to do that and just as many consultants to help you along the way.  And a lot of them even work...for a while.  The problem is how do you know you aren't cutting a cost that is actually adding Value to your customer?  Or even worse, cutting a cost that will end up increasing Waste to your customer?  For example I had a client who prided themselves on aggressively cutting costs within their process.  One particular way they found was to source a key component off-shore instead of having them produced locally.  On a unit that retailed for $200 they were able to save an average of $12.  On the surface that seems like a good thing.

Now flash forward several years and I am in a local building supply company looking to buy one of these units for my house.  Because I was familiar with this client, and I always buy my client's products, I specifically asked if the store carried that product.  I was told "well we used to.  But we've had so many problems with units being returned because of faulty [off-shore component] that we switched suppliers."  I was told that they only special order units from my client when people ask them to.  He went on to tell me that if I was going to have them order from my former client that I should also order a replacement [off-shore component] that was locally manufactured since "the factory one wouldn't last a year."  Did this company manage to cut its costs?  The answer is yes.  However doing so resulted in increasing Waste for their customer (returned units) and they ultimately lost that customer.

Getting back to the exercise analogy what this company did was the equivalent to going on a crash diet or buying the latest "get thin quick" gadget advertised on TV.  You might have short term weight loss.  But again any trainer will tell you that these benefits will be temporary at best.  And you will very likely end up in worse shape than when you started.

So if Lean isn't cutting costs then what is it?  If this company had approached its processes from a Lean perspective they would have started with Value as defined by the Voice of the Customer.  And in doing so they would have probably learned that one of the things that their customers (the building supply companies, not homeowners) Value is the fact that their units last a long time, including the component that was re-sourced. With this definition of Value they never would have considered going to a lower quality replacement.

Similarly when you hire a trainer to help you "lose weight" a good trainer will instead help you focus on what you need to do in order to get healthy.  With this broader perspective you will consider all aspects of your lifestyle (Value Chain) including diet, exercise, stress, environment, and so on.  Sure the weight will come off.  But the results will be much more sustainable and in the end more Valuable to you.

Emergency = Value

One of the biggest challenges faced by organizations is trying to separate the Value from the Waste.  Even in my own firm we are so focused on "what we've always done" that it takes tremendous discipline to really listen to the voice of the customer.  Part of this I believe is a basic, protective instinct that keeps us from facing the cold, hard reality that most of what we do is in fact Waste.

But I recently rediscovered a technique for distinguishing Value from Waste that I have stumbled across from time to time throughout my career; The Emergency.  The premis is simple; people in a burning building very quickly figure out what matters and what doesn't.  All of a sudden when your house is on fire the dirty dishes in the sink, the dust on the mantle and the clothes in the dryer become much less important than getting out alive.  And the same is true in any organization.  When nothing is metaphorically burning there is all the time in the world for things like proper documentation, documentation reviews, documentation modifications, more documentation reviews, more documentation modifications, final documentation reviews, documentation approvals and thorough documentation archiving.  You get the picture.

But when there is a crisis equivalent to the building being on fire all that goes out the window and people tend to focus on what really matters (Value).  A crisis can take many forms, but the ones that are most useful are the ones caused by customers.  These can include a sudden rush order, an unexpected change in delivery date or order specification, or even a critical quality issue.  When this happens it's all hands on deck, the documentation reviews are forgotten and everyone focuses on resolving the emergency.

As a management consultant working in a new organization such emergencies make great sources for improvement ideas.  Once the dust settles and the crisis has been averted it is very useful to start from the critical tasks performed during the emergency and work outward.  That means asking the question "why do we do this?" for anything that was not done during the crisis.  There will always be certain "risks" that were taken that probably should not have been.  But if you really challenge much of the non-crisis tasks you will find that most of these fall into one of the following categories: "Weve always done it that way" or my favourite "One time five years ago we had a problem so we put this fix in place."

Over my career I have had the opportunity to work in a number of software development environments.  Any of you familiar with this industry in general and ITIL in particular will appreciate the incredible number of checks and balances that go into developing, testing and deploying software.  And there are good reasons for this, especially when you are dealing with critical applications that can not go down.  But one of my pet peves with ITIL has always been the seeming lack of customer awareness from the Change Management group.  There is not a project manager anywhere in IT that does not cringe at the thought of getting a Request For Change (RFC) approved by Change Management.

Now I am not saying that all Change Managers are sadistic egomaniacs who's sole purpose in life is to compensate for their shattered dreams of becoming customs agents.  Because I would never say that.  But like any good auditor they all believe if they do not find at least one reason to reject an RFC the first and second time it is submitted then they have not done their job properly.  Just sayin'

To make matters worse most 'effective' Change Management departments take great pride in their rigorous RFC approval cadence.  "Cadence" by the way is a fancy way of saying "it's my way or the highway."  The idea of a "cadence" is that in order to get a Change approved one needs to comply with a rigid series of deadlines for approval.  And if at any point your Change gets out of cadence, say because you forgot to dot an "i" or cross a "t", then you have to go back to the beginning and start over, usually the following week.

All of this is put in place under the banner of protecting the client or User from reckless software developers who unfortunately do enjoy finding and fixing bugs far more than they do writing perfect code in the first place.

So how do we separate the Value from the Waste in such a critical process?  Enter the eRFC.  The "e" in this case stands for "emergency."  And as the name implies this is a change that is needed immediately if not before.  Usually either something has gone wrong with a piece of hardware and the Users are being impacted.  Or a defect with the software has been discovered and it has to be fixed right away.

In this case a few amazing things happen.  The first is the usual testing procedures are usually tossed out the window and the modified software is tested in just one environment called "EBF" which stands for Emergency Break Fix.  This simplified environment is kept just for emergencies and is supposed to match the Production environment to allow changes to be fully tested before exposing them to any Users.  This is in contrast to the normal testing process that can involve as many as eight lower environments in which the code must be tested (don't ask - the explanation is very complicated and highly technical).

But by far the most amazing thing that happens is that Change Management's precious cadence gets thrown out the window.  The owner of the Change is still required to provide all the necessary proof that the Change has been properly documented and tested.  But the approvals are done on an 'as needed' basis.  That means all the approval meetings normally scheduled on a weekly basis now get an "e" put in front of them and they are scheduled as soon as everything is ready for review and approval.  Yes this would be what Lean practicioners call "Pull Scheduling."

And for those of you worried that the level of scrutiny is lower for eRFCs I can assure you just the opposite is true.  Following the usual Change Management cadence there can be as many as 20, 30, 40 or more highly complex RFCs batched for approval.  Even with two hours scheduled these meetings are a free-for-all at best.  In fact I once had two RFCs approved at the same meeting where the titles of the Changes and the descriptions had been accidentally interchanged by Change Management.  But because everything else seemed to be in order no one even noticed.  shhhhh

On the other hand for an eRFC when the meeting is called there is only one Change to review.  And in a relatively short period of time everyone at the meeting can focus on what is involved, ask meaningful question, and ensure with confidence that everything is in order.  In this way I have seen eRFCs go from  initial submission to executive approval in a matter of hours.

So I ask you, why not make all Changes go through the eRFC process?  With today's mobile technology it is possible to convene meetings and get approval almost instantly.  The level of scrutiny is much more focused and accurate.  And the customers end up getting what they want when they want it.

Think about the last customer crisis you had in your organization.  What could you learn from that?

My First Lessons in Business...

Throughout my career I have had the privilege of working with many brilliant business people.  Some of these were my colleagues and even my staff, but most were my clients; some of whom, I am humbled to admit, still read my blog.

Despite being their consultant and (in most cases) trusted adviser I can say that I have learned something from each and every one of my clients.  I learned early on in my career that "owning the company" may require luck and fortunate timing.  But it also requires that special mindset to see what others do not and then make it happen.  It is this characteristic that I admire most in the people I work for.  And this characteristic that I strive to always improve in myself.

Of all the lessons I have learned over the years I learned two of my most important lessons from my very first client, although I did not realize it at the time.  Jim was what consultants would call the "worst type of client you can have."  That was because he hated having us there before we had even begun.  We had been brought in by his General Manager to help "fix" the factory.  But as far as Jim was concerned he paid his managers to do that.  I have no idea how they talked him into investing in what would be my first ever consulting project, but he was not happy about it and he let us know from the very first day.

You see Jim was the epitome of an entrepreneur.   Jim didn't just see the potential of dry-erase markers.  Jim put fancy doors on his whiteboards and then proceeded to put them in virtually every meeting room in North America.  Jim didn't invent the wheels he put on desks and dividers to make them easy to move around.  He envisioned transformable office spaces while everyone else was still building walls.  And Jim didn't see the internet as just a great way to send email.  He brought to market one of the first whiteboards that allowed people to share their work on line with virtual offices all over the world.

So what could an engineer with an MBA so fresh the ink hadn't yet dried on the diploma possibly learn from someone like this?  Well back to how much Jim hated consultants.

It was late one night and I was down in our project office located right next to the factory.  Most people had gone home for the night, but I was still there writing up a study I had conducted that day, deluding myself that I was somehow adding value.  All of a sudden one of Jim's staff appeared in the doorway.  "....Kevin, right?" he asked.  I nodded, trying to figure out what I had done to upset Jim this time.

"Listen a bunch of us are upstairs giving Jim a hand with a project.  Do you think you could help?  We could really use you."

I nodded again and got up to follow the person upstairs.  Suddenly I imagined the partners at my firm hanging on my every word as I described how I had managed to sell a follow-on project in Jim's Sales and Marketing department worth ten times what the first project was worth.  As I hurried upstairs to the hallowed halls of the Jim's domain I pictured the partners smiling and wringing their hands as they anxiously watched me sign the papers making me the first junior partner in the young firm's history.

When at last I followed the fellow who had plucked me from obscurity into a room I saw a dozen people sitting around a large table with Jim seated at the far end.  His eyes lit up as I entered.  And he brightly explained that "...all these envelopes have to be stuffed by 10:00pm so that the invitations to the upcoming Sales conference could make it to the courier on time."

My dreams of instant partnership vaporized before my eyes.  And as I pulled up to the table and started licking envelopes and stamps I realized my story of how I sold our next project would probably have to wait too.

The group chattered happily as they went about their work.  Being from the factory I had little to add to the conversation until suddenly Jim addressed me directly.  "So Kevin..." he began, "tell me what I'm getting for all the money I'm spending on your guys down there in the factory."

Lessons Number One:  At first I thought about the study I had been writing up less than an hour ago.  But as I looked around the table at everyone waiting for my answer I realized that telling this client that I had discovered that "there was 27% lost time in Assembly due to looking for missing parts" provided no Value whatsoever.  Ironically it would take me almost 15 years to digest this simple lesson and allow me to reinvent my own management consulting company.  Instead I babbled something equally non-Value added about streamlining processes, properly scheduling jobs, and installing a Resource Plan.

Lesson Number Two: Jim listened for a minute or so and then pointed his finger at me and said "those [guys] down in that factory had better get it through their heads that this is first and foremost a marketing company.  And if they can't keep up with me then I'll find someone who can."  Once again, it would take many years for this lesson to sink in.

I might have been a brand new consultant at that point, but even I knew when to shut up.  I probably mumbled something in agreement and then went back to stuffing envelopes.  However as I sat in that clean modern room with it's fancy lighting surrounded by office types who probably didn't even know how to find the factory I remember thinking to myself "...Doesn't this guy realize that without a factory he wouldn't have anything to sell?"  I didn't know it at the time, but Jim had just given that know-it-all engineer-come-management-consultant the golden key to success in any business.

Since those days I have gone on to complete dozens of project in every industry imaginable.  And I would like to tell you that I left Jim's marketing department that night inspired by his wisdom.  But in truth it took me better than a decade, many successful projects, a number of spectacular failures including the bankruptcy of a 65 year old company under my watch, and the blood, sweat and tears associated with the start-up of my own business to fully grasp the wisdom of his words.

I still recall the "4 Ps of Marketing" from my MBA days.  The job of Marketing is to identify the right Product, Place, Price and P-distribution.  In other words find out what the customer Values and make sure they get it.  Back then I remember the people in Jim's factory being so hung up on what they could do and couldn't do.  And every time Jim's Marketing team would change a design because they found a feature that customers liked better it would send shock waves through the manufacturing process and generate piles of obsolete WIP.

That isn't to say that there aren't companies out there, very successful companies, that aren't first and foremost marketing companies.  It's easy to think of famous technology companies for example that have been built on and thrived on innovation.  But make no mistake, any that aren't focused on the market are living on borrowed time.  It might take a week, a month, a year or longer.  But eventually someone is going to come along and offer your customers a better product at a better time or a better price or a better place.   And by the time you realize it, it's probably too late.

I should mention that in recognition of me staying late to help stuff envelopes Jim invited my fiance and I, along with several other guests, to spend the day on his boat out on the Toronto harbor watching speedboat races.  And all of us found him to be a most generous and charming host that bright summer afternoon.  It was with sadness that I learned of Jim's recent passing.  It was fitting that the news came from none other than my very first consulting manager on that project all those years ago who is now a good friend and business colleague.

So the next time you erase the marker from that whiteboard in your office, stop for a moment and ask yourself "what do my customers really Value and am I giving it to them?"