Article 116. Private Industry Example of Lean Teams
Each year Fortune Magazine surveys industry employees all over the US to determine the top “100 Best Companies That Employees Want to Work For”. The number one ranked company is NetApp. Headquarters: 495 East Java Drive Sunnyvale, CA 94089. Here is what Fortune said about NetApp:
What makes it so great?
Employee enthusiasm for the legendary egalitarian culture helped catapult NetApp to No. 1 after six years on our list.
Typical of its down-to-earth management ethos, NetApp early on ditched a travel policy a dozen pages long in favor of this maxim: “We are a frugal company. But don’t show up dog-tired to save a few bucks. Use your common sense.” Rather than business plans, many units write “future histories,” imagining where their business will be a year or two out.
So why talk about private industry when the subject of this blog is Government Reform? The answer is that you need a “vision” of what can be done firmly implanted in the minds of reformers. And you do this by examining the best of what others are doing in industry and in government. You need to write a good mission statement and begin to shape the culture of the organization. It helps if as many people in the organization as possible share in the development of the mission statement and agree with where the direction the new culture is going. This is where you start with Lean “having a shared vision”.
The NetApp Story
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that help our customers accelerate business breakthroughs and achieve outstanding cost efficiency. Our dedication to principles of simplicity, innovation, and customer success has made us one of the fastest-growing storage and data management providers today.
The NetApp Culture
NetApp is committed to achieving market leadership by living our values and embracing strong principles.
Trust and Integrity:
Our interactions are based upon candor, honesty, and respect for individual contributions. We are committed to earning the trust and confidence of our teammates and to always acting for the absolute good of the whole.
Leadership:
The role of leaders is to articulate and demonstrate our shared vision, values, and goals. Leaders transform individual effort into high-performance teams that are prepared for expanding roles and challenges.
Simplicity:
We embrace the principle that everything should be as simple as possible and no simpler. We maintain simplicity in our internal processes and structures with objectives that are succinct, quantitative, and time bound.
Teamwork and Synergy:
We achieve synergy through the skills and ideas of all participants. Through collaboration, we strive for win/win solutions to issues and problems. Personal success is realized through team achievements.
Go Beyond:
We set extraordinary expectations and goals and believe in the joy of achieving significant results. We embrace creativity, risk taking, and continuous improvement, enabling us to make and meet aggressive commitments.
Get Things Done!
