Lean Business Practices

Rick Rubin went on stage in Helsinki the day after my talk. Someone asked how he resolves creative differences with artists. His answer was simple: change the conversation from "I disagree" to "let's build it." Then he shared a story: An artist played him a song. The transition didn't work. Rubin told him so. The artist said, "We'll just cut that part in half." Rubin thought to himself: What a dumb idea. But he didn't say that. He said, "Let's try it." The artist played it. It worked. Rubin is a legend. He's produced everyone from Johnny Cash to Jay-Z. Instead, he bit his tongue and let the artist prove him wrong. The principle: when you make an idea tangible, it stops being the person's idea. It becomes something you can both look at objectively and improve together. Once you build it, the truth is obvious. Here's what this looks like in practice: Your designer wants to change the entire homepage layout. You think it's too risky. Instead of three meetings debating it, you say: "Let's build a prototype and test it with 50 users this week." Your sales team wants to restructure the pricing page. Instead of blocking it because you're worried about conversions, you say: "Let's run it as an A/B test on 20% of traffic for two weeks." Your engineer wants to rebuild a core feature from scratch. You think it's overengineered. But instead of killing it in the planning phase, you say: "Spike it out in three days and show me if the performance gain is real." You're not saying yes to everything. You're saying, "Let's find out." Rubin also said something that stuck with me: "If there's disagreement, I always side with the artist's vision. Because to them, it's their career. To me, it's just one piece of my portfolio." Most leaders think backing down makes them look weak. Rubin knows that siding with the person who has the most at stake makes better work happen. Your job isn't to be right. It's to create the conditions where the best idea wins. Stop debating. Start building. P.S. This insight is from this week's newsletter where I break down why Yamaha dominates while Steinway got sold to private equity: https://lnkd.in/efSqP_9K P.P.S. Access additional research links, the podcast, and the full archive in the first comment 👇 Thank you to Nordic Business Forum!

Hiring good people is just the start. Onboarding well is the key to keeping them. The truth about weak onboarding: ↳ It costs you 2-3x more in the long run ↳ Creates unnecessary imposter syndrome ↳ Breeds preventable mistakes ↳ Kills momentum before it starts What strong onboarding actually looks like: 1. Structured First 90 Days • Clear milestones and wins • Regular check-in rhythm • Progressive responsibility increase 2. Support System That Works • Dedicated mentor assignments • Cross-team introductions • "Stupid question" channels 3. Resources Ready Day 1 • Updated documentation • Tool access pre-configured • Team processes explained 4. Learning Built Into The Schedule • Protected learning blocks • Practice environments • Feedback loops Stop expecting people to "figure it out." Start investing in their success. The best companies know: A slow start beats a false start. What was your best (or worst) onboarding experience? ♻ Share if you believe in better onboarding

You have done this a hundred times. You try to plug in a USB. It doesn't fit. You flip it. Still wrong. You flip it back. Finally it goes in. Annoying. But notice something. You can only plug it in the right way. The wrong way is blocked. That is not an accident. It is a 60-year-old idea from a Toyota factory, and it has a name: poka-yoke. In plain English, mistake-proofing. It came from a Japanese engineer named Shigeo Shingo in the 1960s. He noticed workers on one line kept forgetting to put a tiny spring under a switch button. Every manager's first instinct is the same: tell people to be more careful. Retrain them. Maybe write them up. Shingo did the opposite. He changed the process. Instead of grabbing each spring directly, workers first placed the springs in a small dish. Then they took each one from the dish into the product. Now if a spring was left in the dish, anyone could see it instantly. Defects dropped to zero. Overnight. No extra training. No blame. He first called the idea "baka-yoke," which means fool-proofing. Then he dropped that name. Calling workers fools, he said, was the wrong way to think. Everyone makes mistakes. A good system catches them. Here is the useful part. Shingo said you can mistake-proof almost anything in one of three ways. Worth keeping somewhere: 1️⃣ Make it physically impossible to do wrong. Shape it so only the right way fits. (The SIM card. The USB. The diesel nozzle too wide to enter a petrol car.) 2️⃣ Make the right count obvious. Set it up so a missing or extra piece shows at a glance. (Shingo's dish of springs.) 3️⃣ Lock the steps in order. Build it so a step cannot be skipped or reversed. (The ATM that returns your card before it gives you the cash.) Notice what all three have in common. Not one of them depends on people trying harder. They depend on better design. So before you retrain someone for an honest mistake, ask one question: ⁉️ Could I redesign this so the mistake simply cannot happen? That single question is one of the quietest superpowers in Lean and Six Sigma. Now I would love your help with something. I have only ever seen a small slice of this. What is the smartest piece of mistake-proofing you have come across, at work or in everyday life? Add it in the comments. I want to learn the ones I have missed, and I have a feeling this thread could turn into a brilliant list for all of us. Follow Rahul Iyer for Lean, Six Sigma, Project Management & AI Insights.