Lean Six Sigma Academy

I was recently reading my all time favorite book and came across some comments that caused me to ponder a few of the articles I’ve recently written about being an expert and how many hours it takes to become an expert.

Here’s the text that brought me amazing clarity.

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all” (Mark 9:33-35).

This pretty much sums it all up wouldn’t you say?

Have a safe, blessed, and outstanding weekend everyone.  And thanks for reading LSS Academy.  I sincerely appreciate it.

10,000 hours. That’s precisely how long you need to practice something before you can even think about calling yourself an expert.

Well, at least this is what Malcolm Gladwell claims in his newest book Outliers, which I must say is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever encountered.

The Story of Success

Outliers is all about what makes people great. But it’s not your typical book that rambles on about if you believe it you can achieve it. No, you won’t read anything like that.

Instead, Gladwell explains why things such as the month you were born may very well explain why most NHL players made it to the big leagues. He also explains why Chinese children dominate American children when it comes to mathematics.

10,000 Hours of Practice

But the thing that really stuck with me, and I’d to share with you now, is how Gladwell hypothesizes that it takes - on average - 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill.

Take Bill Gates. Did you know that the young Bill Gates spent more than 10,000 hours programming computers before starting Microsoft?

How about those lads from England… you know the Beatles? I bet you didn’t know they were quite terrible before having the opportunity to perform as much as five hours a night seven days a week in Hamburg, Germany before making it big.

Sure Gates and the Beatles had talent. But they also worked extremely hard. You see, it seems they practiced their way to the top.

What about Continuous Improvement?

So I couldn’t help but wonder if this 10,000 hour rule applied to those of us “practicing” continuous improvement.

To get in 10,000 hours of practice this really means spending approximately:

• 4 hours a day;
• 5 days per week;
• Over a span of 10 years practicing your trade.

What do you think? Is there anything to this 10,000 hour rule? If not, are you willing to prove the hypothesis wrong?

I’m happy to announce a new LSS Academy feature. You now have the ability to subscribe to hundreds of free trade magazines and newsletters directly from our website.

And don’t let the free stigma fool you, either. There are some excellent resources available, including:

• IndustryWeek is for senior manufacturing executives looking to understand business issues, strategies, trends & technologies needed to succeed in today’s global economy.  This is one of my favorite lean related magazines.
• Maintenance Technology, the magazine of plant equipment reliability, maintenance, and asset management, serves the technical and business information needs of engineers, managers, and technicians responsible for plant equipment availability.
• T&P - Tooling & Production, published since 1934, provides information to metalworking professionals working in large, high-throughput plants.
• Assembly magazine covers this well-defined functional niche that exists across the entire manufacturing market. Assembly serves the information needs of people who are responsible for this product assembly function that exists in every manufacturing company.

There are literally hundreds more I could list in 30+ niches (e.g. engineering, finance, healthcare, and industrial / manufacturing). And the coolest thing is they are all 100% free!

Click here to get your free subscriptions.

Full Disclosure: I do receive a small commission each time someone signs up for a subscription which I will reinvest into the maintenance and growth of LSS Academy (e.g. web hosting, the new Canon camcorder I just bought to make better videos, etc.).

Things have been pretty crazy around here the last few days.  Switching over to this new website was definitely worth it… but not without it’s share of work.

Clean Up

When you switch to a completely new design like this certain things can go nutty… like the formatting of past articles!  I have had to go and clean up many articles one by one as they got “mangled” during the transfer.  If you happen to come across one that looks like one long paragraph please drop me a line so I can fix it up.  Thanks!

There are also a few minor glitches we are still working out.  But we are getting close.  I can’t wait to think about lean and six sigma again!

LSS Academy Guide to Lean

As many of you have obviously noticed I am offering a free ebook focused on lean manufacturing.  The foundation of the book comes from previous articles on the blog.  With this said, I have changed many things so the book flows in the best way possible.  So, if you haven’t downloaded your copy yet please feel free - pun intended!  Just enter your email address in the box (top left side of page).

I have gotten a few emails from people who told me it took them awhile to get the confirmation email.  If you experience any issues please let me know by dropping a comment in below this article, or by emailing me, or by clicking on the “Contact” tab at the top of the page.

Thank You!

Lastly, thank you for all the emails and comments.  Your kind words mean so much to me. 

Well my Buckeyes finally met their match yesterday.  Kudos to Illinois for out playing us in all facets of the game.  We still have a chance to win the Big 10 championship this coming weekend if we can beat that pesky team from up north.  I will be in Ann Arbor for the showdown cheering the good guys in scarlet on!  I will have pictures galore to share after the game.

I must apologize for my lack of blogging as of late.  I have recently been promoted to director of manufacturing within my company.  This is without a doubt the most challenging (and rewarding) position I have ever held.  I have had to travel quite a bit more and this has definitely impacted my “free” time in the evenings, etc.  The good news is I am now working with multiple sites on lean, lean, and more lean (with some six sigma sprinkled in when needed).

Hello from London, England. 

I wanted to drop a line and apologize for my lack of blogging action!  I have been extremely busy as of late and thus my blogging has taken a bit of a hit.  I typically post my blogs in the evenings but due to some changes in my life (personal and professional - all very good changes by the way) this “free” time has been greatly reduced.

In any event I will be back to more regular posting when things settle down a bit.  I am in the process of creating a series of posts on Hoshin Kanri (a.k.a. Policy Deployment) which I am very excited about but don’t want to rush for the sake of simply posting something.

So until then… cheers!

Yesterday I posted my 200th article on the blog!  Also, today we received our 400th comment on the blog.  Now many of these comments are from me responding to others (like the actual 400th comment) but hey who is counting!

I have to say that the best part of starting this blog has been all the amazing people I have met both in person and over email. 

I have also learned so much about two of my favorite topics - lean and six sigma.  I’d like to sit here and say I always fire off each post from memory… but I have had to do my fair share of research lest I write rubbish. I have grown so much from this and hope some of you have as well.

Thanks to all you that stop by to read my ramblings and special thanks to the regular commenters of the blog.  It’s your comments that charge my battery so please keep them coming.

Next stop - 300 posts!

If you wish to stay in tune with this blog please subscribe via RSS feed.

If you want an easy way to follow this blog or any of the other awesome lean and six sigma blogs out there (see blogroll) you need to be using RSS.

What are RSS Feeds?

I won’t go into a lengthy discussion here about what RSS feeds are as I barely understand how they work myself.  But I do know how to use them to my advantage!  If you want to read more about RSS click here. 

5 Steps to using RSS

1. Find a blog or website you like and want to follow.
2. Look for a RSS button (normally orange).  Mine is in the top right hand side of the blog.
3. Click the button.
4. Choose the reader you prefer.  Personally, I choose “View Feed XML” as it places my favorite blogs in the left hand side of my “Favorites Center.”  Although, Google probably has the most popular reader.
5. Once you have the feed saved you can right click on it, go to the properties, and choose how often you want it to look for updates.  Default is usually once per day.

Email Subscriptions

If you don’t want to mess with all this you can also sign up to receive most blogs via email.  You can get LSS Academy by email by entering your email address into the little box under the aforementioned orange RSS button.  Then, when a new post is submitted you will get an email.

Subscribe Today

With this said, if you feel so inclined please practice making your first RSS subscription by clicking here!  If you have any issues or questions please email me and I will help you sort it out.

I apologize for the technical difficulties today.  My hosting company (name starts with a color and ends with the word host) has failed me the last few weeks.  Today the site was down for much of the afternoon.  Needless to say I will be switching hosting companies so if you have a recommendation please drop me a line.

I apologize if anyone had issues with my blog this evening.  I had jacked up some HTML real good.  Luckily I saved it all before hacking it up into pieces. 

All should be fine now… and you may notice the nice little eBay auction ads (focused in on the Lean and Six Sigma niche) in the lower right hand side of the page.  I did this all by myself… aren’t you proud? 

Oh, and for every thing you buy our friend Pete over at shmula gets a free soda from his new eBay boss.  Kidding.  I think.  I am kidding right Pete?