A Toyota Group Leader spent two hours cleaning and organizing his desk that he had just moved out onto the floor. Read about how this left a lasting impression on one of his new employees.

Can you put yourself in your customer’s shoes? Can you walk through your product using your customer’s eyes? What would you see, and how would you rate yourself? If it is less than 10, then you have some work to do. Make it easy to do business with you and customers will line up for your service.

As I approached the bridge, I could see floor trim scattered across the road and a man frantically trying to pick up the splintered fragments as cars zoomed by him. I quickly pulled over to offer my assistance to his plight. He looked at me, shook his head and in an exasperated tone said, “I think I need to go home and get back in bed… it’s been one of those days.”

The first day of a Kaizen is mostly about getting a rock-solid grip on the “current state.” You are trying to guide the team to consensus on how things operate as they are, not as we wish they were. Typically during this process, you can also uncover where the gaps are within the current state and identify some of the problems holding the company, team, or organization back.

“Why don’t my employees bring me these problems?!” Joe the business owner asked me, exasperated.

I believe deep down, no one wants to believe that “work sucks” or that life really is mostly made up of doing things they “hate.” They just haven’t been shown that there is an alternative. Trust me, there is an alternative

Is respect earned, or given? For your own personal experiment, try this little exercise. Instead of waiting for people around you to “earn” your respect, lead yourself by giving them your respect first until and unless they show you a reason to do things differently. Give people your respect, and I bet most people will return the same to you.

While working 2nd shift at Toyota I took the opportunity to eat lunch with my son at his school.

We all know that culture matters. Drucker is famously quoted with the phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast”