Everyone is influenced by many thinker’s. I acknowledge the contribution of these particular individuals who have provided either encouragement, mentoring, insight or opportunity over the years.
Gary Fisher: Aston Business School: for his encouragement, research, analysis, advice and evangelism of the Adaptive Approach to managing business.
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld: Senior Research Scientist, Sloan School of Management, and Executive Director, Engineering Systems Learning Center
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: I would like to thank Joel for providing thought leadership and access to academic thinking at MIT Boston. And promoting the Learning and Adaptive concepts within both academic and business circles and publications. In addition over the years he has provided mentoring and coaching on the development of lean and system thinking ideas.
Dan Jones and Jim Womack I would like to thank Dan Jones and Jim Womack for continuing to provide both encouragement and mentoring in the difficult journey to transfer lean ideas from manufacturing to services.
Bernard Marr: Cranfield School of Management, for his encouragement and research into the work of Lean Service. Bernard has been instrumental in developing performance measurement systems that demonstrate the advantages of Lean Services.
Roger Camrass: Business Transformation Director Fujitsu. I had the pleasure of working with Roger at Fujitsu. His insights and recognition of the potential contained within the Sense and Respond adaptive organisation has been instrumental in promoting ideas not only within Fujitsu but evangelising to the business community at large.
Stephen would especially acknowledge Landmark Education, an international training and development company, for the personal journey of transformation he experienced, which gave him the insight to create possibilities for others and to understand the nature of leadership required to transform organisations around the world. This Leadership series lead directly to transformations at Fujitsu and to every major client of mine since 2000. It provides a framework for conversations at all levels of the organisation and created a space for new approaches after placing blame cultures in the past and developing a trust strategy to move forward with new behaviours between staff and management.
Robert Lim: Senior Sales Director at Fujitsu. Robert has been a true inspiration providing encouragement and opportunities to promote Lean Services with Sense and Respond and continuing to mentor me.
Bill Carney: Professor of International Marketing at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, and was Visiting Assistant Professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C: Acknowledging Bill’s contribution and advice to our ideas on customer centricity and emerging customer needs. Bill is a mentor who also provides endless enthusiasm and optimism.
John Seddon: System Thinking Author. I will always thank John for putting me onto the work of Edwards Deming ‘Out of the Crisis’ and Womack and Jones ‘The Machine that Changed the World’., and Shewart. I especially thank him for his early encouragement, mentoring and support at a time when these ideas were still seen as heretical and possibly career limiting. Our early work together set me on a different course of development and investigation.
Brian Gibbons: Director Focus Motivation. Brian was an inspiration, he provided tools and approaches for coping with my development from engineering into management. He succeeded in providing me with a pathway to possibility with lessons that have stood the test of time.