After the Second World War, the Japanese economy was in ruins. The American economy on the other hand was booming. As a result, a number of leading quality management gurus (Deming and Juran) travelled to Japan to share their teachings. The Japanese took these principles to heart and applied them rigorously. By the 1970s and 1980s, the quality of automobiles coming out of Japan was far superior to American vehicles. Toyota in particular led the way, gaining an outstanding reputation. In an attempt to close the gap to the Japanese automakers, there was a global resurgence of interest in ‘Lean methods and techniques’. This growth spread outside the automotive industry into other manufacturing sectors as well as into transactional environments and even healthcare.
The lean philosophy seeks to eliminate wasteful practices and increase value-producing practices in the manufacturing industry. Essentially, lean is a business process improvement strategy centered on making obvious what adds value by reducing everything else. One philosophical approach to lean focuses upon improving the “flow” or smoothness of production work, thereby steadily eliminating ‘mura’ (‘unevenness’).
In the same way the lean philosophy seeks to eliminate wasteful practices and increase value-producing practices, the Positive Presence philosophy seeks to eliminate negative behavior habits and patterns and by doing so increase value-producing thoughts, feelings and, most importantly, behavior. Positive Presence is a business process improvement strategy centered on making obvious what behavior adds value thus reducing toxic, disruptive and non-productive behavior in the workplace. Like ‘Lean’, Positive Presence focuses upon improving the “energy flow” or smoothness of the work environment by eliminating behavior that is resulting from uneven or incoherent brain wave activity (negativity). Also like the lean approach, the Positive Presence approach naturally takes a system-wide perspective of flexibility and change principally required to allow for an increase in coherent or positive energy flow to drive synergy throughout the organization.
As with Lean, wherein concepts must be understood and embraced by all employees, the Positive Presence concepts have to be understood, appreciated, and embraced by all employees too, right down to the front lines. As well, Positive Presence aims to make the work simple enough to understand, do and manage. What Lean did for manufacturing, the skill of Positive Presence will do for today’s knowledge-based work environments.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.