Writing, reading, lean. Music. Kindness. Daughters. 'I shall help this Sonny Malone to fulfill his distiny!' he/him/his
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Articles by Tom Ehrenfeld
College H.U.N.K.S. Built a $300 Million Business Around 4 Values—and an 11-Minute Daily Ritual
Can a few minutes every morning prevent expensive mistakes? This founder thinks so. Every day at 11:11 a.m., roughly 70 employees at College H.U.N.K.S., a $300 million storage and moving company (and former Inc. 5000 honoree) headquartered in Tampa, Florida, gather for an 11-minute meeting where they cover the same basic topics every day.
Lean for the modern company
Photograph by Westend61 by Matthew May and Pablo Dominguez, Matt Holt Books, 2023 In the late 1980s, James Womack and a team of MIT researchers identified the enduring value of the Toyota Production System and named it “lean.” Since then, many leading companies, including Fortive and Danaher, have adopted key elements of this systemic, process-focused approach to boosting quality and eliminating waste.
The mechanics of entrepreneurship
Photograph by Hinterhaus Productions by Derek Lidow, Columbia University Press, 2022 Forget the myth of the hermetic genius working in the garage on the next world-changing startup. It’s time to upgrade that thinking and pay more attention to how much entrepreneurial innovation is woven into the fabric of daily life. So says Derek Lidow, a Princeton professor and former corporate executive.
Could it be quitting time? Original
Photograph by Katleho Seisa Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke, Portfolio, 2022 Are you planning to read this entire book review? Or have you already chosen a point at which you’ll stop and move on to something else? If you have considered when you might opt out, you may already understand the key lesson in Annie Duke’s new book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. “Contrary to popular belief, winners quit a lot. That’s how they win,” Duke writes.
Spinning uncertainty into success Original
Photograph by JohnnyGreig, Getty Images by Nathan Furr and Susannah Harmon Furr, Harvard Business Review Press, 2022 Everywhere you turn, uncertainty seems to be on the rise. Dire climate predictions, unease in the workforce, novel diseases, political and economic volatility. The digitization of everything is monetizing our attention and obliterating stable industries. For the average person, burdened by the weight of uncertainty, negotiating even the smallest of daily decisions has become harder.
The hidden costs of the middleman economy
by Kathryn Judge (HarperCollins, 2022) What are the costs of lower costs? Plenty, if you follow the argument in Kathryn Judge’s new book Direct. In this engaging take about a nascent threat in today’s economy, Judge, a professor of law at Columbia University, indicts both the hidden and overt costs that consumers pay in what she calls the middleman economy.
How talented are you at spotting talent? Original
Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) “You can help the world a great deal by being a better judge of talent.” So say Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross in their new book, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World.
To err is human, to regret, divine
Photo by Fizkes @ Adobe Stock A version of this article appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of strategy+business. by Daniel H. Pink (Riverhead Books, 2022) What if you had started saving for retirement in your 20s? Or if you had pursued a graduate degree instead of plunging immediately into the job market? How much richer a life would you have if you’d kept in touch with close friends from the past? If these questions spark a tinge of regret for you, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Avoid the Costly Work of Rework
Recently I fell prey to rework. Spending days completing a particular piece of work only to realize it was not fit for purpose. I was missing a critical slice of information regarding the customer requirement, and as a result, created something that was not quite right. Worse still, the work was shipped off to the customer. The resulting rework included fixing what I had done, as well as the damage control to contain the issue and preserve the relationship. That was painful.
The Post COVID Crisis Supply Chain: a Time to Rise (Part 1)
As companies and consumers reacted to coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, shortages developed of everything from toilet paper to protective medical gear. A big cause of the disruptions, according to misinformed media outlets, was lean management with its over-emphasis on just-in-time production and cost cutting. In a new white paper, Robert Martichenko, founding CEO of LeanCor Supply Chain Group, reminds us that JIT is based on inventory optimization, not inventory minimization.
How Well Can Lean Principles Fuel New Ventures Like Tesla and Rivian?
How well do lean principles apply to the grueling challenge of launching a company—let alone launching a brand new automotive company? That’s the key question discussed in last week’s podcast by Josh Howell and Matt Savas, with CEO R.J. Scaringe and COO Jim Morgan of Rivian, an audacious venture producing electric adventure vehicles, the first of which will be available by the end of this year.
Lean Lessons from Tesla
Once again, Tesla is dominating the news cycle, this time by pulling a series of corporate all-nighters, makeshift workarounds, and frenzied finishing touches to reach their long-announced goal of producing 5,000 Model 3’s in one week.
Tesla vs. TPS: Seeking the Soul in the New Machine
Tesla has been a major disruptive force leading the charge of the future vision of electric, autonomous vehicles. Recently it has captured public attention by having one of its vehicles launched into orbit; and on a less publicized note, CEO Elon Musk challenged the auto industry with a bold vision of accelerating the pace of production through automation. The auto industry got a wakeup call when Musk introduced the Tesla Model S to the world.
Tom Ehrenfeld, The Startup Garden...final installment
In this, our third post, we wrap up Day #4 of the Business Blog Book Tour. Our guest today has been Tom Ehrenfeld, author of The Start-up Garden. Tom answers the final two trends questions we posed to him. (Remember to scroll down two posts to see the first entry in this series.) Small Business Trends Question #5: Will the Internet support entrepreneurs and help them be more successful? How?
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