The first step is transformation of the individual . . . The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people. – W. Edwards Deming I reflect on a regular basis about why companies struggle with the application of lean within their businesses. Countless organizations have tried … Continue reading
Changing the culture requires helping people understand that every instance where a standard is not met is a problem and needs to be resolved. Doing this requires spending time at gemba to see when it happens, helping people recognize the small problems that happen (or validating that the problems are important enough to address), and coaching people to effectively solve problems. The objective is to get people solving the problems they face every day. Continue reading
Assuring problems are visible makes perfect sense and is something many organizations mistakenly believe they already do. For a variety of reasons, showing problems is not something that does not come naturally to many people. It is more natural to hide – or at least not openly display – problems with the hope they can be resolved before being discovered. Continue reading
Most leaders fail to appreciate how much the overall system affects the performance of the organization, and that it is their responsibility to develop and maintain the system. If they did understand, they would never put so much effort on trying to “fix” the part of the organization that accounts for less than 3-4% of the company’s performance. Performance ratings assign blame to people who are likely attempting to work in a flawed system, and those who receive higher ratings are often working outside of the system, something that should never be encouraged Continue reading
People don’t go to Toyota to work, they go there to think” – Taiichi Ohno Although much of what we now call lean has been practiced by Toyota and its suppliers for decades, most of the world began to learn about it in the 1990s with books like The Machine that Changed the World and … Continue reading
We rate, rank, and hold people across the organization responsible for performance in a system that is most likely flawed. In other words, rather than focus our efforts on improving the system when performance is below expectations, we assume that putting pressure on the individual will improve results, even though the person may have little or no authority to do anything other than try harder, go around the system, or focus on making it look like improvement is occurring whether it actually is. Continue reading
What many fail to understand is, when the focus of problem-solving is results, very little learning takes place, but when the focus is learning, more significant and sustainable results will follow. Continue reading
Borrowing From Neuroscience to Drive Kaizen Thinking “If you are going to do TPS you must do it all the way. You also need to change the way you think. You need to change how you look at things.” – Taiichi Ohno One of the most common issues lean coaches face when teaching structured problem-solving is keeping people … Continue reading
One of the problems with some of the books and articles on lean leadership is the tendency to oversimplify the concept in terms of a dictator versus coach. It is too easy for people to read about the characteristics of a traditional manager and, because they aren’t that bad, surmise that they are therefore a lean leader. What many do not understand, though, is that the difference between a traditional manager and a lean leader is not … Continue reading
“Why are we here? To learn, to make a difference, and to have fun.” – W. Edwards Deming Many years ago, I was fortunate enough on a couple occasions to attend W. Edward Deming’s 4-day seminar. Early in both seminars, Dr. Deming asked attendees, “Why are we here?” After waiting in silence and repeating the question, he would offer up the notion that we are here “to learn, … Continue reading
