Lean Times—A Call to Action!

If you spend enough time watching the major news networks these days, you can see a thread weaving through all the rhetoric, fancy graphics, pomp and circumstance. It’s all about OPINIONS. Everybody has one!

Every news program shares the results of opinion polls or seeks to enlighten us on a number of issues using a panel of “experts” who tend to leave most of us frustrated that no REAL solution is offered.

My opinion? You can’t run a business, a country, or anything else on opinions, nor can you effectively manage one that is bogged down in CHAOS! But, now and then comes a voice of reason, a breath of fresh air, a light in the darkness (if you’ll indulge me in a few clichés)—a viable solution that actually has enough merit to be taken seriously.

Years ago, such an idea sparked a dozen-year journey that found me up to my eyebrows in a work that has transformed not only my business, but also my life. I have learned that order CAN come out of chaos—but only after serious planning and hard work.

I was raised to believe there is (or should be) order to everything. There’s enough history to prove that to any thinking human being. Cause and effect, we call it! On the other hand, I don’t believe order just comes naturally to most human beings. It didn’t to me!

When I was a boy, I lived, ate and slept in an amazingly clean home. But, since I wasn’t called on to effect that kind of order inside Mom’s house, you can imagine my amazement when I moved out and into my OWN home—how such cleanliness and order did NOT just follow me. Like so many other human beings, although constantly frustrated by my mess, it took me years to realize I had the power to change it, especially after I discovered the POWER of good systems.