Introduction

At Toyota in the 1990s, I was fascinated with what made operations work. The thought of several processes and groups of people all working together to accomplish a goal sparked my attention and curiosity, but not for the first time.

I had grown up in the rough neighborhoods of Richmond, California, trying to avoid the evils of the inner city. Since I was often alone, I had plenty of time to think, and plenty of time to learn about human nature. Thankfully, I focused a lot of my teenage energy on studying people and dreaming of how they could work together.

Eventually I found my way to Cal State University Hayward, where I studied purchasing and operations and then earned an MBA. Finally, I was ready to tackle the corporate world. A post with Toyota was my first journey toward understanding lean management. It opened my mind to this brilliant approach to production efficiency. While working there, I ended up in Japan on special assignment at the same time as Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the auto giant’s founder. He and other leaders noticed me in a presentation and selected me to be on a team that would implement lean manufacturing principles throughout North America. I was on a fast track and had a chance to work with many brilliant executives and team members.

Even with the amazing opportunity in arguably the world’s strongest manufacturing environment, I wasn’t satisfied. Along the way I had developed a love of the service industry, and I had a feeling that what I was learning about lean manufacturing could be applied there. From what I could see, few service organizations were working anywhere nearly as efficiently or with as much consistent customer focus as they could. And so, during my years at Toyota, I spent lunches and breaks grilling lean experts from Japan on how these principles might be applied outside of manufacturing. They admitted the concepts could work, but had never thought of implementing them that way. I brainstormed about using lean in a kitchen, in consulting work, in processing mortgage loans, and in a dozen other applications. At night, I began to think about starting an organization that could use these principles in a manufacturing and service industry setting.

Years ago, Kirchiro Toyoda, Taichi Ohno and those who developed lean manufacturing had come to America to study business processes. Legends claim they visited giant grocery stores, manufacturing plants, warehouses, and anyplace where processes could be found. Everywhere they went, they learned. And they took back what they found to Japan where they worked with it, molded it, and eventually created a philosophy that would change the way most of the world builds products. For me, the experience at Toyota was a similar beginning.

Lean management principles taught me to get rid of waste and improve processes. And yet I wanted to make the principles my own, as well as add the component of a stringent focus on value and a value-centered culture. So in 2001 I went out on my own to show what the concepts might do outside of manufacturing. Founding Stellar Enterprise, I began to employ my own approach to business that I call Value-Centered Management. It is a philosophy that looks at every part of a business, helping managers and team members understand how to truly serve the customer—from the founding philosophies and approach to business, to determining the tangible structure, process and approach that will get the best results.

Together with an outstanding leadership team, we have created seven subsidiaries that employ a host of vibrant team members—many of whom were touched by one of my favorite companies—lifeskills 411™. The lifeskills program has affected the lives of youth and adults throughout the nation, most especially in Northern California, and is near and dear to my heart (but is a story for another day). I’m honored to say that our companies are now thriving, and have been growing at an annual average rate of 25 percent per year over those six years. In addition, at 90-plus percent ratings, our customer satisfaction levels are near the top of each of their respective industries.

With our small successes we have begun taking our message to others. Today, our Value-Centered Management Institute teaches businesses and people to build stronger organizations that serve real customer needs and unleash team members to achieve all they can. In short, we help create lean organizations centered around what the customer values. And when you think about it, that’s what all business should be about. For too long have we accepted traditional wisdom taught in business schools and by many leading our organizations. We have followed because their wisdom produced acceptable results. But who said acceptable is good enough? Who says we can’t achieve more? Successful businesses are not run on tradition anymore. Their leaders are tuning into the spoken and unspoken desires of their customers and are building organizations and team members that focus on value in every aspect of their delivery.

And we have found that anyone can learn how to take these principles and apply them in their work lives—whether they run a consulting firm or manage a team in a multi-national company. We have applied Value-Centered Management in retail, service, financial, manufacturing, technical and other industries, and the results are consistent and remarkable.

After all, if you know what your customers want and deliver it day by day, how can you fail?

Michael E. Parker