How to Manage Watchers? Fukuda’s Parable in the Age of AI (part 3)

 

Watchers comprise the bulk of your team & are the key to sustaining your transformation.  If we can turn them into Rowers, we’re in business.  If they morph into ‘Quiet Quitters’, we’re sunk. Here’s part 3 of my series on Fukuda’s Parable, based on the book Andy & Me.

“How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?”

I quote a revered mentor who once posed this question to a fledgling manager & engineer. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Watchers neither take the oars, nor run away. They sit back & watch, waiting to see how the Rowers make out. Your job as leader is to demonstrate that the new ways of working are fun & rewarding, and to thereby engage the Watchers.

The argument goes something like this: Change is hard, but we have no choice. If we do nothing we’ll soon be obsolete. I’m proposing a Win-Win situation. We want to help you become smarter, more capable, and forever employable. And we want you to do the work that needs doing, and to help us improve.

If the Watchers see the Rowers having fun, getting results, and kicking ass, more & more of them will take an oar. If, by contrast, they see the Rowers having a tough time through lack of visible senior level support, they’ll stay on the sidelines thinking, ‘This too shall pass.’

Do not give the Grumblers a platform – that just distracts the Watchers. It’s best to either ignore Grumblers or to apply the methods of Steve Jobs or Jack Welch, which I described last time.

Quiet Quitters

Gallup polls since the pandemic suggest that quiet quitting is a growing phenomenon, especially among Gen Z. ‘I’ll do exactly what the job requires & no more.’ They won’t stay late, show up early or show up to non-mandatory meetings. Are all Watchers, quiet quitters? Not in my experience. That said, I know senior leaders are keen on Agentic AI at least in part because of frustration with quiet quitters. Other leaders respond to ‘quiet quitting’ with a tit-for-tat approach called ‘quiet firing’.  In other words, we’ll give you less & less responsibility and attention till you go away.

Engaging the Watchers

I am of the ‘everyone-deserves-a-chance’ school of leadership. The leader must lay out a Win-Win scenario and invite people to take an oar. Leaders must be storytellers & orators and must embody the organization’s core Values. Develop a management system that makes visible ‘What Should Be Happening’ versus ‘What is Actually Happening.’ Embed cultural ‘nudges’ in your operating rhythms including Strategy deployment & execution cycles, leader Obeya (Control Tower) meetings, management walks, and daily team huddles. Your Root Cause Problem Solving & Innovation processes are also an excellent source of such tacit knowledge.

Get Results Fast

Prove that ‘this stuff actually works’ with quick wins on thorny problems. I advise my mentees to create stages, forums, and ‘shows’ wherein your stars can shine. These can be Shark Tanks, Innovation Councils, Pitch Competitions, Problem Solving Fairs, and the like. The point is to create momentum by showcasing quick wins and thereby to turn Watchers into Rowers.

Be tough, be fair. Set up a Win-Win and give everybody a chance. If there are Watchers or quiet quitters still refuse to engage, that’s on them.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

Andy & Me and the Hospital – now available!

By Pascal Dennis

There is much opportunity, Tom-san!
Andy Saito

Dear friends,

I’m thrilled to announce the release of Andy & Me and the Hospital – Further Adventures on the Lean Journey [Amazon and Productivity Press].

Tom Papas and his sensei, Andy Saito, face perhaps their greatest challenge yet – a major New York City hospital.

Why a book about Toyota methods (aka ‘Lean’) in a hospital?

Because health-care is a dark realm full of opportunity. If we don't get it right, it could bankrupt us.

Why this book?

I want to answer some basic questions. What does a Lean transformation in a hospital feel like?

What overall approach should we take? What kind of leadership and behavior change is needed?

How do we develop and engage people? How do we improve processes?

How do we build a management system? How do we translate what Deming called the ‘profound system of knowledge’?

At the same time, I want to provide a clear and simple guide to Toyota methods and thinking, how they fit together, and the spirit that animates them.

Why a sequel to Andy & Me and The Remedy?

People seem to like Tom Papas and Andy Saito, and they’re like family to me now. Moreover, their journey is perhaps a useful metaphor for leaders at all levels.

Gave it everything I got. Hope you find it enjoyable and helpful.

Best regards,

Pascal

PS Special Offer from my publisher:

Please feel free to contact Charles Regan at the Taylor & Francis group for a bulk offer or customized version of Andy & Me and the Hospital,

E: Charles.regan@taylorandfrancis.com
P: 917-351-7122

Pascal Dennis Bio

Andy & Me and the Hospital – and the Great Paradox

By Pascal Dennis

Just sent the manuscript for Andy & Me and the Hospital, the latest Tom Papas-Andy Saito adventure, to my publisher.

God-willing, the book will be published in early Spring 2016.

The ‘Great Paradox’ of Health-Care is a central theme. As Tom puts it, “How can there be miracles within the silos, and disaster across them?”

Tom is referring, of course, to the epidemic of medical errors, infections, mis-medications and the like that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.

(The epidemic is almost certainly as severe in other countries, if not more so.)

How indeed can this be?

Health care workers are among the best educated and most capable in all of industry. They’re committed and caring and use the best and latest technologies.

Something is rotten in the state of Health-Care.

Tom Papas and Andy Saito are on the case.

Keep you posted.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean & Wakefulness - Reprise

By Pascal Dennis

The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.

Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.

Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.

Lean tools like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.

"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"

Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.

Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.

"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."

My books Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me and its sequel, The Remedy, all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.

Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: Lean & Wakefulness

By Pascal Dennis

The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.

Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.

Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.

Lean tools like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.

"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"

Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.

Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.

"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."

My books (Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me, The Remedy) all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.

Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

The Remedy – Four Year Anniversary!

By Pascal Dennis

Four years ago this week, I received my 1st Copy of The Remedy – Bringing Lean Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization. I was blown away! 

Wiley & Sons have outdid themselves. The cover, content, drawings etc. were everything I'd hoped they'd be. 

All the hard work & heart ache, the endless hours researching & writing faded away.

I was proud of the Lean Pathways team, who have taught me so much, and of Dianne Caton, artist extraordinaire, who made magic out of my chicken scratch drawings. The Remedy remains one of my favorite books.

Why write a book about Lean outside the factory?

Because that’s where the opportunity lies. Upstream - in marketing, design, and engineering. Downstream - in distribution, sales, and customer service. 

These, together with health care, service, and government, are Lean’s frontier. I am less and less a factory rat. 

Every core lean principle applies outside the factory. But business processes are harder to fix.

Why a sequel to Andy & Me?

The characters of Tom Papas and Andy Saito seemed a natural vehicle. Readers seem to like them, and I do too. 

We’re still emerging from an economic catastrophe, which claimed many great companies and put millions of people out of work. 

Lean has the potential to reduce human misery and increase human happiness by doing more with less, while providing meaningful work. 

That’s enough for me.

Why should people read The Remedy?

It's a straight up book from the head & heart.

 An honest story about real people trying to implement Lean outside the factory. There are study questions at the end of each chapter – and Dianne’s splendid doodles.

Pardon the plug, but it’s a damn good book.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

In Memory of My Dad

By Pascal Dennis

My dad, Frank, passed away last week.

Restaurateur, raconteur, father & husband.

He was 89 years old and had suffered from dementia the past five years.

It's a time of relief, as well as, sorrow. Dementia is a terrible disease.

Difficult seeing an old warrior suffer so, and especially hard on my mother.

Dad gave us a great deal:

Humor, drive, love of learning, love of family, faith, honesty, compassion for those in trouble, tenacity, courage and a sense of justice.

He was the model for Nick Papas in Andy & Me and The Remedy.

Dad's restaurant, the Imperial Grill, a celebrated joint on Queen Street East in Toronto, was where I began to learn the fundamentals of management.

Here are a few lines I wrote a few years ago:

Bless the gods that made him ornery

Bless his leathery heart

Bless the healing years of laughter & forgetting.

Sleep well, old fighter.

Pascal