A strange title to an article?, then let me explain. When a bird of prey catches its food, it arches its shoulders and wraps its wings around its prospective meal as if to say, "Get off, this is mine".

In recent times, many organisations have either implemented lean or have considered using lean as a way of bolstering flagging productivity.

At almost every Kaizen training course we deliver, we get asked the same question, how do we get started?

Our answer is always the same.

Maintaining 5S once the excitement of its introduction is over and the easy gains have been achieved is a challenging task. It is vital we introduce some standard work activities to ensure the environment we have worked so hard to create is maintained and built upon.

The media has been full of reports over the past 12 months regarding how the UK lags behind a number of other countries with respect to productivity. The exact reasons for this would appear to be both varied and complex. There have been lots of suggestions from learned commentators regarding how to improve productivity.

Darren, took a big gulp of air and walked in the main office to meet the Production Manager. He had arrived early and there was no one else in the office. His isolation only served to heighten his apprehension. Today was his first official day as a Team Leader. Whilst he had been at the company for 11 years working on the assembly line, today he was starting his new role as Team Leader of Cell 2.

It had unfortunately become a familiar scene at the monthly board meeting, Directors squabbling over who was to blame for the company's poor delivery performance.

"Guys, guys, please, let's have a time out", said Mark the MD.

If you select the right business metrics, they will drive the right lean behaviour.

"Do me a favour, 5S in the office just doesn't work", said Sara as she made her way to the training room. "Yes, I agree. To be honest I am not sure why the new MD is spending the money on yet another 5S training course when.....

I once read a statistic that stated it was 32 times easier to win business from an existing customer than it is to win business from a new customer. If this is anywhere near right it means we need to focus efforts on attracting more business from the organisations who are already aware of us.