Category Archives: The Lean Entrepreneur

‘Be the CEO in your area’ Art Byrne

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Art Byrne’s wonderful book ‘The Lean Turnaround’ is a Lean classic and a book that delivers more and more wisdom on every reading.

Whether you are many years into your Lean journey or just starting out, this is a book for you.

In 2013 I attended the Lean Enterprise Academy Summit and knew I was in for something special as Art took to the stage for his keynote speech. 

I had always known that Lean enabled a better, more efficient, more inclusive way of working, yet even after practicing Lean for a few years, I still couldn’t quite connect the dots and knew I was missing a piece of the puzzle.

Oprah calls it an ‘Aha’ moment, the moment when something falls into place, when a lightbulb goes off in your brain and you understand something with an immense clarity that you previously didn’t have.

My ‘Aha’ moment arrived roughly four minutes into Art’s keynote speech, listening to Art’s simple explanation of Lean, the power of this methodology was finally clear to me, I had found the missing piece of the puzzle – Lean is all about people and the culture within which people work. 

Art simply told us,

❤️ Lean is not a bunch of tools.

❤️ Lean is not a collection of projects.

❤️ Lean is not a collection of coloured belts.

Art, in his humorous honesty, makes it clear that in running a business you are not running a karate class 🤣

❤️ Lean is a growth strategy not a cost cutting strategy.

❤️ Lean is ‘the biggest strategic business weapon you can ever have’  – this is one of my favourite Lean quotes.  Art continued ‘a business being a collection of people and processes trying to deliver value to a set of customers and always the best team wins’.

Art explained the key elements required to be successful at Lean are,

✅ 1. Having Lean and Operational Excellence as your core strategy.

✅ 2. Lean is led from the top.

✅ 3. That people are transformed.

Without these elements, Art explains very honestly, failure will be the outcome!

As Art spoke about transforming people, he explained that people are the only asset a business has that appreciates and you want them to keep appreciating, you need to respect your people because the best improvement ideas come from the people doing the work.

❤️ To do this you need to create a learning environment where people are learning every day and are excited to come to work.

❤️ This then becomes your culture, the way things are done around here, this is Lean.

❤️ Art summed up all of the above by simply saying  ‘Lean is a people thing’.

I met Art at one of the break out sessions, he was gracious, humble and generous with his time. I spoke with him around the challenges I had in my role as I didn’t have the influence of a CEO for Lean to ‘come from the top’.

Art smiled and simply said ‘be the CEO in your area’.

This was to be the most impactful advice I ever received and rings true for anyone trying to make things better when it’s not coming from the top!

🇮🇪 Art signed my copy of his book ‘The Lean Turnaround’ by using a popular phrase synonymous with Guinness, it was Art’s way of saying how much he loved Ireland and how much he respects Kaizen.

And yes, I totally agree with him, Kaizen (like Guinness) is good for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I left the 2013 Lean Enterprise Academy Summit energetic and looking forward to the next steps on my Lean journey. 

As I moved through roles and companies in the corporate world, Art’s advice became more and more essential to my Lean practice. I practiced being the CEO in my own area by implementing Lean wherever I could and however I could. I prioritised my growth and the growth of those who were passionate about Lean. I worried less about what was coming from the top and focused on the value we created and the waste we removed from where we were. 

Art’s advice transformed my Lean landscape, making me a better Lean practitioner and a better person.  

Until one day Art’s advice didn’t work for me anymore.

Not because Art’s advice was incorrect, it was still spot on and exactly what I needed, the problem was I had outgrown my roles in the corporate world.

Resistance is a natural part of practicing Lean yet when resistance outweighs the ability to improve, the 8th Lean waste of under ‘utilised talent’ slowly creeps in. Over a long period of time, the consequences of ‘under-utilised talent’ literally demolishes people from the inside out.

When I found myself confronted with the 8th Lean waste, I made a decision to take Art’s advice to the next level, which meant leaving the corporate world and focusing on being the CEO of my own business.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for as long as I have worked in the corporate world which is just over 25 years. One of my biggest dreams was to leave the corporate world and becoming a full time entrepreneur yet was always afraid I’d actually do it someday! 

Reaching the limits of what I could do with Lean in the corporate world and trying to work within the constraints of the 8th Lean waste was the push I needed to exit the corporate world for good. In October 2021, it was time for me to spread my wings and see where the next chapter of my Lean journey could go.

Over the past 4+ years I have been implementing Lean in my life and entrepreneur world. After many ups and downs I’m finally ready to share this journey, as a Lean Entrepreneur.

I will always be grateful to Art Byrne for his time and the wise advice he gave me all those years ago. ‘Be the CEO in your area’ is advice I have since lived by and now it guides me on my next Lean adventure. 

You can watch Art’s keynote speech below, 13 years later I still watch it and refer to Art’s wisdom on a regular basis. That’s the thing with true Lean wisdom, it stands the test of time. Lean isn’t a passing trend that’s popular one day and not the next. Lean is a proven methodology to grow business through the growth of people, that concept is enduring no matter what trends come and go.

What Does it Take to Lead a Lean Turnaround keynote speech by Art Byrne

If you want to join my weekly newsletter on all things positive change, download your free ebook ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below and I’ll see you there 😊

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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Building by Demolition

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Demolish to build

Sometimes you need to demolish what you have to build what you want.

Imagine buying an old derelict building and you want to create the home of your dreams. You have 2 options, work with the current structure of the building or demolish it and start from scratch.

Over the past few years I have been demolishing what took me over 16 years to build.

⭐️ Why would I do this?

Because what I built over 16 years wasn’t sustainable.

I built way too much, I took on way too much work, I wasn’t able to manage everything and I paid a very hefty price.

⭐️ Where did I start with demolition and how did I know what to demolish?

I started with the end in mind.

  • What do I enjoy?
  • What do I want to keep?
  • What can I easily sustain?

This process started five years ago and at the time all I could sustain was my weekly email to my community.

This meant everything else I had built over the previous 10+ years was to be demolished. This was a very painful decision but the silver lining was the lessons I learned. These humbling lessons will ensure I never ever find myself in this impossible situation again, building way more than I can manage and stressing myself out with it all.

✅ And so five years ago I spilt my focus in two.

✅ My first focus was consistently sending my weekly email to my community.

This one weekly email has brought me an incredible amount of joy. Through this weekly email I have learned about my style of writing. built confidence in my writing and built the most rewarding relationships with those who read and reply to my emails.

If you want to join my community and receive my weekly email you can sign up here,

The A-Z of Effective Change.

✅ My second focus was demolishing everything I have built over the previous 10+ years, this has been painful.

It’s really hard to let go of what took such effort and passion to build yet letting go is necessary to create time and space for what I want to build for my future.

Some things naturally stopped and I just didn’t follow up to sustain them.

Some things I had to physically step back from or remove from my life. 

  • I cancelled the hosting on my travel photography website (where I sold my Fine Art prints) which removed it from the internet – that was a sad day.
  • The Fine Art printing studio that I used closed down and I didn’t find another one.
  • My photography software required an upgrade yet I didn’t purchase one.
  • I unsubscribed from most email newsletters, stopped subscriptions to services I no longer needed and left online groups that I loved being a part of.
  • I took a break from writing blog posts and posting on social media.
  • I stopped listening to podcasts, audiobooks and watching youtube videos.
  • I sold all my photography gear, this was a very difficult decision yet one I had to make to create the space I need for my future plans.

Bit by bit I demolished every single thing that I had built.

By far the biggest change I made was leaving my day job without another.

Leaving my day job without another was the scariest professional decision I have ever made yet it turned out to be the best professional decision I have ever made.

Writing all of the above brings tears to my eyes but it also brings a huge relief to my soul. To this day I continue to demolish and remove what no longer serves me while I also start to lay the foundation of my new path.

Building takes time and so does demolition, the benefits of demolishing is not realised overnight, it takes time to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you want to demolish any part of your life to rebuild it, I promise you there is light at the end of the tunnel. You may not be able to see the light in the dark depths of change but it is there, it is waiting to shine on whatever you want to build for your future.

  • What would you like to demolish and remove from your life?
  • What would you like to build and welcome into your life?
  • Do you need to create room for something new?

If you want to join my weekly newsletter on all things positive change, download your free ebook The A-Z of Effective Change below and you’re all signed up!

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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Building What I Couldn’t Sustain

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I have made many mistakes in my career that have given me valuable lessons, the most valuable being to always build with a vision of sustainability.

What I mean by this is when I build anything, it’s really important to know how I am going to sustain it long term.

Building and sustaining are two completely different skills – I learned this the hard way.

Back in 2010 on top of a very busy day job, I decided I wanted to be a travel photographer and so I built everything I needed to be a travel photographer. I created a website where my fine art prints were sold, worked with a printing studio who created my fine art prints and a framing studio who framed them, bought loads of photography gear, bought a new laptop and editing software,

With all of the above in place I held exhibitions of my travel photography prints in the 4 major Irish airports, created business & greeting cards and took part in travel photography workshops in many fascinating locations around the world. 

Around the same time I also decided I wanted to be a writer and so in 2012 I launched my blog The Photographer’s Guide to Travel where I wrote about travel, photography and my adventures with both.  In 2017 I created another blog The Art of Positive Change where I wrote about all things positive change and in 2020 I started hosting webinars and selling online courses.

The amount of infrastructure I had to build to keep all of these plates spinning on top of a busy day job was insane, overwhelming and absolutely 100% unsustainable, a fact I could only learn with the clear vision of hindsight. 

🔥 Something had to give and it did, in early 2021 I suffered burnout.
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For those who haven’t experienced burnout, it’s not a physical tiredness that can be fixed with rest. Burnout is an emotional and mental shutdown of the mind, body and soul. Unable to think and unable to do anything, even the simplest of an every day task feels like a mountain to climb.
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In the following months I stopped all the entrepreneur work outside of my day job, I stopped writing, stopped using social media, stopped creating content and I removed myself from all online groups that I was a part of.
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🔥 I still felt burnt out.​
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And so I further cleared my plate.
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I stopped reading physical books, stopped listening to audiobooks & podcasts, stopped watching YouTube videos, I unsubscribed from the many email lists I had signed up to and I put all online courses that I was doing on hold.
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🔥 I still felt burnt out.​
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Then my attention turned to my day job where I was absolutely miserable. For many years my job had brought me great joy but Covid changed much of my role. These changes left me feeling like I was just someone checking things off a to do list.
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I was no longer using my brain or my skills and I was arguing with people more than I was supporting them.
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I left my day job and only then realised how much of my life I had dedicated to work.
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🔥 I still felt burnt out. ​

Since late 2021, I have dedicated my life to slowing down and eliminating the effects of burnout, to getting off the fast paced rollercoaster of life and enjoying a slower pace with less highs, less lows and less dramatic turns.
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A part of this journey is learning the lesson and committing to never, ever again building what I can’t sustain.

This is easier said than done for me, I have a tendency to overwork which I have to keep a very close eye on. 

⭐️ How do I only build what I can sustain?

I build with avoidance of burnout and sustainability as first priority goals.

⭐️ But what about everything I have already built?

I’ve had to deconstruct everything I spent the past 16 years building. This has been a painful process yet it is necessary if I want to sustain what I build in the future.

  • Are you juggling too many plates?
  • Are you overwhelmed by your to do list?
  • Is what you are building sustainable in the long term?
  • What can you remove to give you more time, space and sustainability? 

If you want to join my weekly newsletter on all things positive change, download your free ebook The A-Z of Effective Change below and you’re all signed up!

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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