By Pascal Dennis
Ontario's sad, stagnant energy sector is a good example of what happens when you take the customer out of the equation.
It'd take the Marx Brothers to do justice to the current farce. (Do a brief Google search & you'll see what I mean)
Unscrupulous politicians have exploited the public's suspicion of commerce to erect a stifling web of regulation and special interest.
As a result, among other things, the province is forced to sell highly subsidized power, at a loss, to other jurisdictions. Taxpayers are, of course, stuck with the bill.
Mama mia...and that's not even the worst of it.
Commerce - suppliers & customers interacting in a complex, self-managing web -- is portrayed as a dodgy endeavour, and one requiring oversight by powerful mandarins.
"You need US to protect you from those guys..."
Greece is an extreme example of this syndrome.
To build a hotel in Greece, for example, you need the approval of half a dozen ministries, several unions etc.
You often need a "fakelaki" (small envelopes full of cash) to grease the wheels. Even then it takes years.
That's why the great hotel companies tend to avoid Greece - and why the unemployment rate exceeds 25%.
Things are not as bad in Ontario - yet...
Don't want to be misunderstood.
We need regulation.
Good rules level the playing field, and curb excesses (monopoly, tragedy of the commons, and so on).
But in regulation, as in the business, design and art, less is more.
Here's the corresponding Lean mental model:
We need simple, visual standards for all important things.
Best,
Pascal
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
What is Good Character?
By Pascal Dennis
Been spending a lot of time in Chicago this year.
Splendid town full of vitality as expressed in its architecture, street life, style...
Nasty teachers strike though, during which the above question was raised.
At issue was a rambling, semi-coherent speech by a union leader wherein she, apparently, made light of drug & chemical addiction and a chaotic lifestyle.
So what is good character?
James Q. Wilson tells us it comprises two things:
By this standard, did the union leader demonstrate good character?
Seems she struck out on both, no?
In fact, she seemed to be telling students, "its okay to do this."
A portion will try, and a smaller portion may become drug addicts and suffer terribly.
Self-control & consideration for others are severe standards to live by - (certainly for me they are).
But that's the value of standards - whether in the workplace or the heart.
Standards make problems visible, so that we corrupt, tricky, weak mortals can behave a little better.
As the wise man said, every day a little up.
In summary, good character comprises self-control & consideration for others.
Very tough, but we have to try.
Best,
Pascal
Been spending a lot of time in Chicago this year.
Splendid town full of vitality as expressed in its architecture, street life, style...
Nasty teachers strike though, during which the above question was raised.
At issue was a rambling, semi-coherent speech by a union leader wherein she, apparently, made light of drug & chemical addiction and a chaotic lifestyle.
So what is good character?
James Q. Wilson tells us it comprises two things:
- Self-control, and
- Consideration for others
By this standard, did the union leader demonstrate good character?
Seems she struck out on both, no?
In fact, she seemed to be telling students, "its okay to do this."
A portion will try, and a smaller portion may become drug addicts and suffer terribly.
Self-control & consideration for others are severe standards to live by - (certainly for me they are).
But that's the value of standards - whether in the workplace or the heart.
Standards make problems visible, so that we corrupt, tricky, weak mortals can behave a little better.
As the wise man said, every day a little up.
In summary, good character comprises self-control & consideration for others.
Very tough, but we have to try.
Best,
Pascal
Thursday, November 22, 2012
If Involvement is High, Pascal-san...
By Pascal Dennis
My old sensei, years ago, musing over a glass of bourbon.
"If team member involvement is high, Pascal-san, accidents, defects, lead time and cost are low. But if involvement is low..."
So it proved at our old Toyota plant. In fact, I proved it to myself through scatter plots and ANOVA.
(I long ago confessed to being a propeller-head)
Engaged employees is the Holy Grail in most endeavours.
The exception is, perhaps, monopolies or oligopolies, who for a time can run roughshod over their employees and customers.
But even "all-powerful" monopolies like the Soviet Union -- or the National Football League -- have their day of reckoning.
(A generation ago Major League Baseball was as dominant as the NFL is today.)
In any event, if we accept my sensei's premise, Job One of the leader is engaging team members.
Or, as my sensei put it, "How will you motivate team members, Pascal-san?"
I've been mulling that one over for decades.
Purists may cavil: "Leaders cannot motivate, only de-motivate."
I grant their point but it makes little difference to the practicing leader.
Formulate the question as you will.
The leader's job is to bring to life the following ideal:
Everybody feels that this is "my process, machine, team, production line, site, product, customer."
Everybody is fully alive and connected to everybody else.
To paraphrase W.B. Yeats, the best are full of passionate resolve.
Regards,
Pascal
My old sensei, years ago, musing over a glass of bourbon.
"If team member involvement is high, Pascal-san, accidents, defects, lead time and cost are low. But if involvement is low..."
So it proved at our old Toyota plant. In fact, I proved it to myself through scatter plots and ANOVA.
(I long ago confessed to being a propeller-head)
Engaged employees is the Holy Grail in most endeavours.
The exception is, perhaps, monopolies or oligopolies, who for a time can run roughshod over their employees and customers.
But even "all-powerful" monopolies like the Soviet Union -- or the National Football League -- have their day of reckoning.
(A generation ago Major League Baseball was as dominant as the NFL is today.)
In any event, if we accept my sensei's premise, Job One of the leader is engaging team members.
Or, as my sensei put it, "How will you motivate team members, Pascal-san?"
I've been mulling that one over for decades.
Purists may cavil: "Leaders cannot motivate, only de-motivate."
I grant their point but it makes little difference to the practicing leader.
Formulate the question as you will.
The leader's job is to bring to life the following ideal:
Everybody feels that this is "my process, machine, team, production line, site, product, customer."
Everybody is fully alive and connected to everybody else.
To paraphrase W.B. Yeats, the best are full of passionate resolve.
Regards,
Pascal
Monday, November 19, 2012
Time to Boycott the NFL?
By Pascal Dennis
I'm struck by the number of football fans asking this question.
A quick Google search will yield pages of websites wherein fans vent their frustration.
Fans are increasingly cynical about the NFL's behaviour during the replacement referee fiasco, and its tardy response to the overwhelming evidence of brain injury.
Some people argue that it doesn't matter.
"Demand for the NFL is inelastic," commented former Forty-Niners great Steve Young.
That's MBA talk for, 'You can charge what you want & they'll still come...'
But older fans will tell you that once upon a time, Major League Baseball was as big as the NFL.
Indeed, this was true for most of the last century.
MLB could not imagine it would squander the good will of its fans - but it did.
Is NFL doing the same?
(He who the gods wish to destroy, they first award big ESPN deals...)
Any lessons here for Lean thinkers?
Here are a few:
Our customer defines value - connect with them, and check in regularly.
Problems are gold - treasure & make them visible.
Seek root cause, and run experiments to confirm root cause.
Check with the customer to confirm countermeasures are working as intended.
Best,
Pascal
I'm struck by the number of football fans asking this question.
A quick Google search will yield pages of websites wherein fans vent their frustration.
Fans are increasingly cynical about the NFL's behaviour during the replacement referee fiasco, and its tardy response to the overwhelming evidence of brain injury.
Some people argue that it doesn't matter.
"Demand for the NFL is inelastic," commented former Forty-Niners great Steve Young.
That's MBA talk for, 'You can charge what you want & they'll still come...'
But older fans will tell you that once upon a time, Major League Baseball was as big as the NFL.
Indeed, this was true for most of the last century.
MLB could not imagine it would squander the good will of its fans - but it did.
Is NFL doing the same?
(He who the gods wish to destroy, they first award big ESPN deals...)
Any lessons here for Lean thinkers?
Here are a few:
Our customer defines value - connect with them, and check in regularly.
Problems are gold - treasure & make them visible.
Seek root cause, and run experiments to confirm root cause.
Check with the customer to confirm countermeasures are working as intended.
Best,
Pascal
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Leadership – Going to Gemba with a Purpose
By Al Norval
It’s interesting to observe Leaders behavior as they begin to get comfortable with Lean and start to change their own behaviors to match the new Lean Mental Models. It’s obvious most are not comfortable, yet I always give Leaders a great deal of credit for trying, after all part of Leadership is modeling the behaviors you want others to use.
I’d like to highlight a couple of these new Lean behaviors - Going to Gemba and Leader as a Teacher.
Going to Gemba has several purposes:
When leaders observe abnormalities they have two choices on how to respond. They can act like dictators and tell people to fix the problem barking out orders or they can ask why? The first does nothing to develop the capabilities of the team and at best leads to compliance behavior but does not lead people to get engaged. By asking why we get people to think and can teach them to problem solve for themselves. We engage their hearts and minds in solving the problems leaders have observed. Over time people will see these problems for themselves and become actively engaged at eliminating root causes.
Sounds simple but how do leaders do this? A terrific way I observed was a leader who was just getting into the routine of a daily Gemba walk through his section of the factory. He observed a group of operators struggling to keep a piece of machinery running. The equipment was dirty, covered in oil and grime. He could have told the team members what he wanted done but instead asked them why were they having trouble getting the machine to run? They replied that it was an old machine. Another question – what was the problem with the old machine?
No one could pinpoint the problem except to say that it hadn’t been maintained in recent years.
At this point the leader started explaining the concepts of 5S and Visual Management and how they were the foundation of TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) and with these techniques equipment could be put into a like new condition once again. Since the factory was noisy he used a set of pocket cards and images to help explain these concepts to the team. The pictures were like a thousand words. The Team Members understood what needed to be done but more importantly they understood why. They began to work on simple ways to improve the performance of the equipment and over time developed daily clean and inspect checklists, visual indicators of performance and found many sources of problems including air and oil leaks, loose fittings and contamination. The equipment started to run better and the maintenance team was freed up to work on the deeper, more complex machine issues.
A good news story all around driven by a leader who understood his role of teaching his people and building their capability so they can engage and solve problems for themselves.
For more information on Pocket cards/ Lean Brain Boosters and Lean Images see www.leansystems.org
Cheers
It’s interesting to observe Leaders behavior as they begin to get comfortable with Lean and start to change their own behaviors to match the new Lean Mental Models. It’s obvious most are not comfortable, yet I always give Leaders a great deal of credit for trying, after all part of Leadership is modeling the behaviors you want others to use.
I’d like to highlight a couple of these new Lean behaviors - Going to Gemba and Leader as a Teacher.
Going to Gemba has several purposes:
- To see for yourself and understand what is really happening.
- To reinforce the standards of the organization and ask why when deviations occur.
- To show respect for the people
When leaders observe abnormalities they have two choices on how to respond. They can act like dictators and tell people to fix the problem barking out orders or they can ask why? The first does nothing to develop the capabilities of the team and at best leads to compliance behavior but does not lead people to get engaged. By asking why we get people to think and can teach them to problem solve for themselves. We engage their hearts and minds in solving the problems leaders have observed. Over time people will see these problems for themselves and become actively engaged at eliminating root causes.
Sounds simple but how do leaders do this? A terrific way I observed was a leader who was just getting into the routine of a daily Gemba walk through his section of the factory. He observed a group of operators struggling to keep a piece of machinery running. The equipment was dirty, covered in oil and grime. He could have told the team members what he wanted done but instead asked them why were they having trouble getting the machine to run? They replied that it was an old machine. Another question – what was the problem with the old machine?
No one could pinpoint the problem except to say that it hadn’t been maintained in recent years.
At this point the leader started explaining the concepts of 5S and Visual Management and how they were the foundation of TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) and with these techniques equipment could be put into a like new condition once again. Since the factory was noisy he used a set of pocket cards and images to help explain these concepts to the team. The pictures were like a thousand words. The Team Members understood what needed to be done but more importantly they understood why. They began to work on simple ways to improve the performance of the equipment and over time developed daily clean and inspect checklists, visual indicators of performance and found many sources of problems including air and oil leaks, loose fittings and contamination. The equipment started to run better and the maintenance team was freed up to work on the deeper, more complex machine issues.
A good news story all around driven by a leader who understood his role of teaching his people and building their capability so they can engage and solve problems for themselves.
For more information on Pocket cards/ Lean Brain Boosters and Lean Images see www.leansystems.org
Cheers
Monday, November 12, 2012
Never Short America
By Pascal Dennis
America's presidential election seems to be devolving into a simple question:
WHO IS THE LESSER BOZO?
Uninspiring, to be sure.
Some suggest that the absence of candidates of the calibre of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Eisenhower, Truman, Reagan is evidence of America's decline.
Certainly, America's political process has seen much better days.
The words "fortitude" and "Washington DC" seldom appear in the same sentence.
It's my good fortune travel this splendid land and work with leaders at all levels, in a variety of industries.
And I'm always reminded that America is much more than Washington, DC.
Never short America, they used to say, and will again.
As bleak as things may seem, America has overcome worse.
Washington bozos are far less important that they seem to be.
In my view, America's rebirth is happening in small businesses all over the country.
In high-tech incubators, in labs, garages and non-descript industrial malls.
In places that rarely appear in the news.
Things will turn out okay, in spite of everything.
Best,
Pascal
America's presidential election seems to be devolving into a simple question:
WHO IS THE LESSER BOZO?
Uninspiring, to be sure.
Some suggest that the absence of candidates of the calibre of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Eisenhower, Truman, Reagan is evidence of America's decline.
Certainly, America's political process has seen much better days.
The words "fortitude" and "Washington DC" seldom appear in the same sentence.
It's my good fortune travel this splendid land and work with leaders at all levels, in a variety of industries.
And I'm always reminded that America is much more than Washington, DC.
Never short America, they used to say, and will again.
As bleak as things may seem, America has overcome worse.
Washington bozos are far less important that they seem to be.
In my view, America's rebirth is happening in small businesses all over the country.
In high-tech incubators, in labs, garages and non-descript industrial malls.
In places that rarely appear in the news.
Things will turn out okay, in spite of everything.
Best,
Pascal
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Economy I and II - Never the Twain Shall Meet?
By Pascal Dennis
In a previous blog I introduced the idea of Economy I & II
The former comprises private sector companies like Apple, Amazon, Toyota and GE.
These companies face withering competition every day.
As a result, they're wonderful at creating value, but not so good at creating jobs.
Economy II, by contrast, comprises government and quasi-government organizations like schools, universities and hospitals.
These organizations face comparatively little competition (or in the case of government agencies, none at all.)
As a result, they're wasteful and inefficient -- but good at creating 'jobs', of a sort.
But Economy II is bankrupting America (and Europe, for that matter). Economy I can no longer create enough off-setting value and wealth.
What to do?
Conservatives argue that Economy II can only be mended by applying the disciplines of Economy I.
Essentially, this means enabling and applying Lean thinking:
Enablers to this approach include education and health care vouchers that put choice into the hands of the customer.
Liberals ("progressives") argue that the philosophies & techniques of Economy II are not necessary and wouldn't be effective in any event.
A better approach, they argue, is to elect capable, charismatic political leaders, who can reform Economy II by force of personality.
They cite Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, as such a leader.
What do I think?
Being an engineer and a businessperson, I'm naturally inclined to the practices I learned at Toyota.
The past twelve years, our Lean Pathways team has applied them with great success in a variety of industries.
Toyota thinking is rocket fuel. Stick to the recipe and wonderful things happen.
This is the evidence of my eyes and whole being.
The liberal/progressive argument seems, forgive me, to entail 'magical thinking'.
Even if it were based in fact, how many Rahm Emanuel's are there? And what happens when Rahm inevitably resigns as mayor of Chicago?
(Insiders say Rahm is there for one term.)
The broken processes mean a rapid regression to the bankrupt mean.
Sorry,
Pascal
In a previous blog I introduced the idea of Economy I & II
The former comprises private sector companies like Apple, Amazon, Toyota and GE.
These companies face withering competition every day.
As a result, they're wonderful at creating value, but not so good at creating jobs.
Economy II, by contrast, comprises government and quasi-government organizations like schools, universities and hospitals.
These organizations face comparatively little competition (or in the case of government agencies, none at all.)
As a result, they're wasteful and inefficient -- but good at creating 'jobs', of a sort.
But Economy II is bankrupting America (and Europe, for that matter). Economy I can no longer create enough off-setting value and wealth.
What to do?
Conservatives argue that Economy II can only be mended by applying the disciplines of Economy I.
Essentially, this means enabling and applying Lean thinking:
- Understanding your customers, and thereby, value & waste,
- Visual management and 5 S,
- Standardized work,
- Jidoka (building quality into the process,
- Heijunka (level loading), and
- Point, flow and system kaizen
Enablers to this approach include education and health care vouchers that put choice into the hands of the customer.
Liberals ("progressives") argue that the philosophies & techniques of Economy II are not necessary and wouldn't be effective in any event.
A better approach, they argue, is to elect capable, charismatic political leaders, who can reform Economy II by force of personality.
They cite Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, as such a leader.
What do I think?
Being an engineer and a businessperson, I'm naturally inclined to the practices I learned at Toyota.
The past twelve years, our Lean Pathways team has applied them with great success in a variety of industries.
Toyota thinking is rocket fuel. Stick to the recipe and wonderful things happen.
This is the evidence of my eyes and whole being.
The liberal/progressive argument seems, forgive me, to entail 'magical thinking'.
Even if it were based in fact, how many Rahm Emanuel's are there? And what happens when Rahm inevitably resigns as mayor of Chicago?
(Insiders say Rahm is there for one term.)
The broken processes mean a rapid regression to the bankrupt mean.
Sorry,
Pascal
Monday, November 5, 2012
The Poet Laureate of Travelling Consultants (!?)
By Pascal Dennis
Businessweek interview last week.
Good questions & kind comments by Venessa Wong.
Here it is.
King for a Day!
But just a day, as my teenage daughters have quickly reminded me...
Cheers,
Pascal
Businessweek interview last week.
Good questions & kind comments by Venessa Wong.
Here it is.
King for a Day!
But just a day, as my teenage daughters have quickly reminded me...
Cheers,
Pascal
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Strategy is Storytelling
By Pascal Dennis
Wonderful to see Business Week come to this conclusion in a recent issue.
The context was "PowerPoint is lousy, don't use it. Tell stories instead."
"The medium is the message," said Marshal Mcluhan, and, once more, he's right.
Don't want to be misunderstood. PPT is okay for training.
But it's not a strategy or problem solving tool.
One damn slide after another, the rate of information transfer asymptotically approaching zero...
PPT drains the life & poetry out of the most compelling stories.
Imagine the Sermon on the Mount in PPT.
Blessed are the
For they shall
Or the Gettysburg Address:
Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers
It's enough to make you jump out the window.
So, practice storytelling.
Seek a compelling narrative comprising an introduction, crisis and resolution.
Pascal
Wonderful to see Business Week come to this conclusion in a recent issue.
The context was "PowerPoint is lousy, don't use it. Tell stories instead."
"The medium is the message," said Marshal Mcluhan, and, once more, he's right.
Don't want to be misunderstood. PPT is okay for training.
But it's not a strategy or problem solving tool.
One damn slide after another, the rate of information transfer asymptotically approaching zero...
PPT drains the life & poetry out of the most compelling stories.
Imagine the Sermon on the Mount in PPT.
Blessed are the
- meek
For they shall
- inherit the earth...
Or the Gettysburg Address:
Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers
- brought forth onto this continent,
- a new nation,
- conceived in liberty...
It's enough to make you jump out the window.
So, practice storytelling.
Seek a compelling narrative comprising an introduction, crisis and resolution.
Pascal
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