Hi! I am Karina Oliveira, a Takt Lean co-founder. I would like to share with you a little about my philosophy of life, Lean. When people ask me why I have become a Lean Consultant and what is my purpose with that, I quickly reply, I want to change people’s lives through Lean. I want to see people happy and motivated because they are doing things that make their lives easier, make their work easier and less vulnerable to mistakes. I want them excited by contributing to the company’s results and motivated to learn and grow with the company. Throughout my career I have had the privilege to be part of the transformation of some people. From the first approach, the fear of the unknown, to the excitement of taking Lean concepts home and to life. It is important to highlight that it is a long journey, which we need to be resilient and diligent, but it is extremely rewarding. One step at a time, sometimes backwards, many others forward, but with the certainty that working by purpose is very worthwhile. When pursuing purpose, the leadership role is fundamental, however, I’d like to bring up a kind of recognition for […]

Lean Leadership Prior to dive into details about lean leadership, I would like to make you think about some internationally famous leaders like Nelson Mandela, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King and so on …. Many others could be remembered here, but the key point here is, did they know the term lean leadership? Certainly not, because the term began to gain prominence in the past decade, however, they are definitely great lean leaders nonetheless! Each one of them with skills and power of massive mobilization and transformation, whether you like the cause or not. Leadership is leadership since the beginning, just a brief consultation to the best leadership manuals to realize that the essence is the same, influencing people, having courage, being a good communicator, making decisions, challenging the team and setting an example to be followed. So, for me what exists is a good leader and a bad leader. Some already are born with this ability and others need to seek their development. Obviously, we are experiencing a period of many uncertainties and the only certainty is that tomorrow will be different from today, as it has always been. Given this statement, the role of a leader […]

Many of us have heard that going to Gemba is an essential practice for the success of Lean philosophy. But at moment with the social distance, you may be asking yourself, how do I go to Gemba? Gemba is a Japanese term that can be translated as “the real place”. Applying Gemba means going to the workplace to observe what really happens. The practice of Gemba is really important to better understand, what the main problems in the company are, collect data and information that can be used to improve the workplace, processes and organizational structures.  It also serves as a basis to better understand your customer’s needs – what they seek as an excellent product or service. Until the first quarter of 2020, in many countries, we practiced Gemba by going to workplace, to the “front line”, to observe and understand how the work really happens, with the aim of observing and identifying improvements or solving problems. With the need to keep the social distance caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies had to relocate their offices to their employees’ homes and redesigned factories and offices to meet health and safety standards. As an example, it was necessary to implement distance between people and processes, teams were distributed in […]