Blog posts

A collection of my thoughts captured in posts. Some short, some longer. Let me know if you want to talk about any of this.

A3 beliefs commercial strategy continuous improvement cost current state daily management Demand Generation execution fool future state gemba genba kaizen kpi leadership lean Lean Business Leader lean leadership lean management lean thinking luck management marketing marketing budget mindset ohne taiichi philosophy policy deployment problems problem solving process qdip quotes sales standard work standar work strategy strategy deployment tools TPI value stream mapping visual management waste

How a good P-P-C decision will save you time and money

This is not about PPC, Pay-Per-Click. I’m not here to sponsor all Google Executives more than …

The Brutal Truth: Leadership Is Just Problem-Solving

I’m a fan of problem solving, that’s clear from this website. I like problems, I like so…

Lean Sales: How to Eliminate Waste at the Marketing-to-Sales Handoff

Introduction In many B2B organizations, the marketing and sales teams operate like separate entities…

Problem Solving at great heights

Just a few weeks ago I was hiking in the Austrian Alps – don’t ask me why, but I’m…

How to prevent the “cobra effect” by setting proper KPI’s

I’m a very strong believer in KPI’s, how it can drive a business forward, how it support…

When not to call me

Being a self employed professional, a consultant, has its benefits and its downsides. The good thing…

Keeping up is easier than catching up

When running a business, a commercial team, direct or indirect sales, e-commerce, revenue marketing …

The paradox of Standard Work and Continuous Improvement

hint: it’s all about leadership, empowerment and accountability In Lean manufacturing, there&#…

Zooming in and out on your business

Bad news happens fast, good news happens slow Morgan Housel on an interview with Diary of a CEO Morg…

What is the key to Sales and Marketing alignment?

While writing this post I’m trying to process another fine example of how difficult it is (or …

How to use leading and lagging KPIs to steer your business

I keep on coming back to the topic of KPIs. I’ve written earlier about typical mistakes and ho…

3 reasons why the execution of your strategy is failing

It’s september, by now you should have a good idea on what the key breakthroughs for next year…

How Standard Works helps on the worst Monday of the year

Today was the day that after a typical European summer break of six weeks, my two youngest boys had …

Going with the flow – or where East meets West

As I’m camping in Sweden with my family right now, there are always those early morning, looki…

Sales is not an art – but then what is it?

No matter what they say, sales or the act of selling is not an art. (for the record: neither is mark…

Red is the new green

Only last week did a customer for the first time talk about my logo, and he had it figured out. He r…

Lean is about waste, not about growth

Let me try a more provocative title this week. Many people have heard about lean, about manufacturin…

Simple is always better

For a large organisation to be effective, it must be simple. Jack Welch – former CEO of Genera…

How to prevent failing with good KPI’s

Or how to prevent going down the trap known as ‘Goodhart’s Law’. How we know it: W…

6 mistakes setting commercial KPIs for your team

KPIs are meant to give direction, represent priorities and drive behaviour. In many companies howeve…

Stop digging

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. not sure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_holes T…

You don’t need luck

Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity Seneca – Roman philosopher I’m q…

Improvement is not optional

Progress cannot be generated when we are satisfied with existing situations. Ohno Taiichi (大野耐一…

A fool with a tool… is still a fool

Might be weird to say for someone like me that promotes the use of a certain set of tools. But I&#82…

The power of going to genba

Genba (現場, also romanized as gemba) is a Japanese term meaning &#…

A process is not scary – a bad process is

One of the big misconceptions around the concept ‘process’ is that it is scary, cumberso…

The only problem you can have in business, is having no problems

If anything, Lean philosophy talks about problems. And problems come with a solution, otherwise they…