Reprise - How Do We Learn?

By Pascal Dennis

Used to be, we believed talent was God-given. Mozart, Einstein, Wayne Gretzky and other brilliant talents were born, not made.

Turns out we were wrong. The latest psycho-neural research suggests a different recipe. Talent is acquired by practicing in a certain way.

1. Deep practice -- slow, repetitive "stop & fix"

Turns out Aristotle was right 2300 years ago! We learn virtue by repetition.
Moreover, we learn best by stopping to fix problems that arise. (Sound familiar?)

2. Ignition -- signals in our environment telling us, "You can do this. Nothing is impossible!"

Ignition is about connecting with purpose -- then becoming super-charged by a supportive environment

3. Sensei/mentorship

A good sensei is one who has mastered the "coaching kata" through diligent practice and reflection over many years.

Here are a few of the implications:

• We can turbo-charge learning -- there's a recipe to talent
• Hiding problems makes learning impossible
• Culture is indeed, as Lou Gerstner intuited, everything...
• Organizations without senseis will get out-learned -- and ultimately, out-earned.

I'll let you noodle on others...

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean Laughs

Everything I Learned About Management...

By Pascal Dennis

My wife Pamela teaches kindergarten -- and Lean fundamentals are a big part of it.

Pam has standardized work for basic stuff like tying shoe laces, washing hands, going to the bathroom.

Her classroom is full of excellent 5 S and Visual Management.

Without it she couldn't manage a class of 20 five year olds, including several kids with special needs.

Kids thrive in Pamela's class because they're relaxed.



The classroom is clean, full of bright colors & well-ordered.

There's a place for everything, and not surprisingly, everything is in its place.

Kids know what to expect, and get help with the most important tasks.

(Kids, she tells me, need structure more than anything, except love.)

STW, visual management, 5 S and the like also helps Pam by freeing her up so she can focus on the kids.

(As opposed to looking for stuff, trying to figure out whether a given class is ahead or behind, or dealing with avoidable crises.)

My dear wife even teaches the scientific method in a way that Lean learners would recognize:

In her Science module she asks, "What do scientists do?"

Answer:

"I make a hypothesis. I observe what actually happens. And then I adjust my hypothesis!"

Why do we continually forget the basics?

Best regards,

Pascal

Lean Laughs

Lean Laughs

Gary Kasparov and the Breakfast of Champions

By Pascal Dennis

Chess is arguably our greatest strategy game.

More books have been written about than for all other games combined.

Chess has infused our language: checkmate, stalemate, opening phase, end game, gambit...

Chess has such a strong hold on the human mind that chess champions are notoriously eccentric.

(Check out the recent, excellent documentary called Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World)

Gary Kasparov, the greatest chess player of them all, is the exception.

After retiring in 2005, he has devoted himself to exposing Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime, and to leading Russia's fledgling pro-democracy forces.

He is also successful entrepreneur and author, and is happily married.

So his recent book about chess and business strategy is especially important.

It's called How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves - from the Board to the Boardroom.
Kasparov's insights into excellence are especially interesting.

What makes a champion?

Frequent, frank - even ruthless - reflection and self-assessment, Kasparov tells us.

Indeed, if we think of elite performers across a range of endeavors - Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods (pre-implosion), Yoyo Ma, Yitzhak Perlman come to mind - we see the same pattern.

What's this got to do with you?

The Lean Business System is about elite performance.

It's best practitioners - Toyota, General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, United Technologies, Alcoa, Danaher and the like - ruthlessly self-assess, and adjust based on what they see.

Our improvement kata - tip of the hat to my pal, Mike Rother, is our driving force.

Here at Lean Pathways we've boiled the kata down - and call it Four-Step-Problem-Solving.

(There are others. I'm not into theology - pick a good one & get going...)

We supplement our kata with Brain Booster Pocket Cards and Apps.

But it's all about reflection and adjustment thereby - the Breakfast of Champions.

More about Kasparov in future blogs.

Sayonara ya'll.

Cheers,

Pascal

American Manufacturing Basics

By Al Norval

It’s hard to believe but in 1979, the US Manufacturing workforce peaked at 19.5 million jobs. Since then US Manufacturing jobs have declined by about 40% to 11.7 million jobs with much of the job loss occurring in the last decade. About half the job loss is due to jobs displaced by Chinese manufacturing and much of the rest due to improved labor productivity. Yet with productivity up substantially, the US is still the world’s manufacturing leader producing 19% of the world’s goods compared to China’s 15.6%.

This is quite a dilemma. Labor productivity must go up to enable US Manufacturers to compete with off shore manufacturers who often have lower labor rates. Yet as labor productivity goes up, we face having unused labor.

How do we deal with this in the Lean world? We want labor productivity yet this can often mean job losses as fewer people are required to maintain the same output.

Let’s go back to the basics of Lean and remember the principle of “Respect for Humanity”. This is very deep and can have multiple interpretations but in this case it means that improvements in labor productivity must never result in lay-offs or people being let go to “cash out the gains”. Instead Lean views the unused labor as unused capacity to produce more goods and produce more improvement. Rather than overproduce goods (one of the biggest causes of waste), people are used to drive out waste and solve problems resulting in stronger processes. This allows Manufacturing to work with Sales and Marketing to open new markets and launch new products, both of which drive up volume and use up the excess capacity that was generated.

Organizations that do this are on an upward spiral. The more improvement they get, the more people can be freed up to drive more improvement. At each loop, costs go down allowing volume to go up driving a need to use some people to produce the additional goods.

Sometimes this is short term pain for long term gain as it takes time to develop new markets and launch new products but isn’t that just another opportunity to apply Lean?

This all becomes possible if we view Lean as a growth strategy, rather than a cost reduction strategy and we stay true to the basic principles of Lean including “Respect for Humanity”.

For more on this and other Lean principles see the Lean Manifesto at www.leansystems.org.

Cheers

Alistair Norval

Humor in Adult Learning

By Al Norval

We in the Lean community have a unique challenge. We need to be both students as well as teachers at the same time. While we are rapidly learning and applying many new things, we have an obligation to teach others in our work groups or organizations what we have learned. Part of this is the concept of Yokoten, the rapid sharing of information laterally throughout the organization. This requires a mature Lean organization with systems and structures developed to ensure this happens. More on the topic of Yokoten in a later blog.

For today, I wanted to talk about teaching and adult learning. Adults learn differently from children. Kids are sponges for information. Adults on the other hand are full up or overloaded with information. In order to learn, adults have to replace what they have previously learned. To make matters more complicated, adult retention of things they have learned can be as low as around 10%.

In summary, adults are tougher to teach and retain less of what we teach them. This makes it tough for us in the Lean community to fulfill our role as a teacher.

What are some possible countermeasures to this?

The first countermeasure is “Learn by Do”. The act of applying the learning drives it deeper and makes it real. But what is it about “Doing” that drives higher learning and retention? Because people are involved in “Doing”, their brains create more neural connections with the activity than with just passive listening to a talk about the subject. The more active the participation, the more neural connections are formed and the higher the learning and retention. That’s why just listening to lectures has low learning while Learn by Doing has a much higher retention rate of the learning.

But how to drive the learning even higher?

The first is to teach others. We learn by teaching. After all, you’ve got to know a subject before you can teach it. Nothing tests your knowledge of a subject as much as trying to teach others.

Lastly, adults learn best when the learning environment is light and has some humor. Again we can see how humor creates more neural connections by triggering emotions and so enhances the learning experience.

How to add humor to the learning environment – through the use of images. Not all of us are comedians so we need props. Images with a light, humorous touch provide that and help create a learning environment that is conducive to adults both learning and retaining what has been taught.

Putting this all together, a process of a little training using light images, followed by doing, followed by rapid feedback creates rapid learning cycles that drive home the key learning points in adults. Practicing these ourselves enables us in the Lean community to fulfill our mission as being both students and teachers.

For more information on the use of Lean images to add some humor into your training, visit the Lean Pathways Shop.

Social Media & the Lean Business System -- Risks & Opportunities

By Pascal Dennis,

Been thinking a lot about this lately.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, as well as, the abundance of cell phone apps -- what do they mean for Lean thinkers?

Seems to me social media represent a powerful new learning channel -- provided we keep the fundamentals in mind.

Yokoten -- means shared, lateral, experiential learning.

We learn by doing -- not by browsing.

If we spend too much time at our screens -- we sacrifice depth.

Depth of understanding requires action followed by reflection -- away from your screen.

Use the screen to supplement your knowledge.

Then turn the damned thing off and get to the gemba, where you must practice, practice, practice.

Social media are marvelous, helpful and oh so seductive. Used properly, they're a boon.

But they're no substitute for experience, for the school of hard knocks, of growth & learning.

Regards,

Pascal

Curing What Ails Our Hospitals

By Al Norval

I read this article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine and have to admit it was the catchy title that caught my interest. "Curing What Ails Our Hospitals” went on to talk about a new design for hospitals that dealt with three problems that afflict most current hospitals. That is:

Infections
Energy Efficiency
High Cost

The article stated that infections were the leading cause of death in US hospitals.

In a play on words, the article quoted Norman Cousins saying that “A hospital is no place for a person who was seriously ill”.

I think that one line summarizes the state of Healthcare in North America.

Rather than just stating the obvious, the authors did offer several countermeasures. I’ve summarized the approach this way – improving the quality of patient care by reducing hospital induced infections will result in lower a length of stay for many patients. A shorter length of stay translates into savings and improved patient (Customer) satisfaction. Combine that with energy efficient buildings and a focus on prevention using team based care and the costs of healthcare can be brought back into line. Makes sense to me – I’d be interested in your opinions.

Their ideas for team based care included small neighbourhood hospitals which sounded a lot like SMED and small lot size needed for flow. Flow occurs in the absence of waste and I could visualize many waste reduction ideas in their design. Having the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others involved in patient care work as a team eliminates many forms of waste and more importantly allows the team to problem solve quickly and efficiently.

It all comes back to the basics of Lean:

Eliminate waste
Focus on the Customer
Engage team members in problem solving

By doing this, costs will take care of themselves.

Lean Laughs

Aikido and Lean

By Pascal Dennis

Aikido is the Japanese martial art developed by Morehei Ueshiba -- one the greatest Japanese senseis.

I studied aikido for fifteen years -- hard practice 3 or 4 times a week, as well as, summer camps in New England and beyond.

My aikido training has never left me. When I joined Toyota I felt instantly at home.

"I get it, this is a dojo..."

Now, years later, I'm still practicing the techniques our aikido senseis taught us.

Go slow, stop and fix, repeat...

(I pause here and respectfully bow to the late, lamented

• Kanai-sensei of Boston Aikikai, and

• Kawahara-sensei of British Columbia Aikikai)

Turns out this is the best way to learn -- (see Dan Coyne's The Talent Code for more).

I'll say it again: Go slow, stop and fix, repeat...

So easy to say...

Do we have the guts & discipline to do?

Cheers,

Pascal

Success is the Enemy of Future Success

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

1. Ideal condition, and
   
   
2. Target condition.
   

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars?

True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal

East Meets West in the Toyota Production System

By Pascal Dennis

Fall is a good time to reflect on fundamental questions.

What's so special about TPS?

Okay, it has a very good track record in manufacturing and has spread into health care, construction, finance and other sectors.

But over the centuries, have there been other successful management innovations?

What's the big deal?

I believe TPS is unique because it represents a magnificent blending of cultures.

The American occupation of Japan after WWII brought the best of East and West together.

American muscle, optimism and engineering prowess met Japan's (and hence, China's) social, psychological and spiritual inventiveness.

The result -- TPS -- represents an entirely new way of managing.

When ideas "mate" interesting things happen.

Scientific Management, as espoused by Taylor, Ford, Deming and others, enriched -- and was enriched -- by Eastern systems of thinking and feeling.

What other management system combines the rationality of time and motion studies, with the humanity and humor of continuous incremental improvement?

Every day a little up...

What other system is as comfortable with Zen-like paradox?

Lead as if you have no power?

Stop production so it never has to stop...

And what other system embraces the impossibility of perfection, while insisting we must work toward it every day?

TPS is a splendid marriage of East and West, of rationality and intuition, of Left & Right brain.

We're lucky to have it.

So here's an overdue tip of the hat to all those half-forgotten dreamers, engineers and managers who first intuited TPS in the 1940's and 50's.

Arigato gozaimashita!

Cheers,

Pascal

Visual Management - Drawing Helps Us Learn

By Pascal Dennis

I've been a scribbler for many years.

My journals are full of doodles, drawings, chicken scratch.

Now I know why -- it helps me learn.

Check out Science, August 26, 2011, Volume 233.

Ainsworth et al, in a paper called "Drawing to Learn Science" describe what happens when you draw.

Check out their Youtube video too.

Wonderful, no?

Wish I'd learned science this way...

Makes me think of Darwin, Leeuwenhoek and other greats.

Drawing things out in their notebooks, the messiness of the pages mirroring the messiness of learning & discovery...

So...get drawing ya'll!

Cheers,

Pascal

Visual Management -- Reverse Magic

By Pascal Dennis

Visual management infuses every element of the Lean Business System.

In a sense, we're doing "reverse magic".

David Copperfield makes elephants disappear.

We need to make the (information) elephant -- appear!

"Now you DON'T see it -- now you DO!"

Presto!

Many obstacles in most organizations -- fear, need for power & control, lack of knowledge etc.

But we can't move forward without it -- especially once you move outside the factory.

My book The Remedy is about applying this reverse magic in Sales, Marketing, Design, Engineering, Retail...

Cheers,

Pascal

Lean Laughs

Reflections on 9-11

By Pascal Dennis

A decade ago we watched in horror as fanatics murdered innocent people.

What did they hope to achieve?

An immediate goal, evidently (which marks them as pathetic), was carnal delight in the afterlife.

A broader goal appears to have been the destruction of pluralism -- the free interplay of people, ideas, goods and services.

Commerce, if you will, between cultures, religions, ages, genders, with only minimal, common-sense restrictions.

The fanatics sought to isolate & "purify". (We've heard that story before, no?)

In the Lean Business System, this commerce is called yokoten -- direct, experiential sharing and learning.

Commerce/Yokoten is perhaps our species most distinguishing trait.

Does any other species exchange and build off one another's ideas?

Does any other species record and share its learning across generations?

In our magical age, we are able in a matter of moments, to download the collected wisdom of the ages.

My Kindle library includes free downloads of Epictetus, Seneca, Avicenna,  Maimonides, Rumi, Gracian, Confucius and other sages.

Another of humanity's distinguishing traits is compassion -- the desire to help others in need.

A decade ago, we saw compassion in abundance, did we not?

Are not yokoten and compassion linked?

When we share, learn, break bread with one another, do we not also learn compassion?

Not along ago, the Chinese and Japanese were perceived to be the implacable enemies of America and the west.

After decades of mutual sharing and learning, former adversaries have become friends, colleagues and partners.

We have gotten to know each other & realize we're not that different, so why not be friends?

Yokoten (and compassion) which will continue to grow as we become more interconnected.

And that's why, after a gut-wrenching decade, I believe we are going to be okay.

Best,

Pascal

Lean & Green

By Al Norval,

A topic that doesn’t get as much time as it deserves is the relationship between Lean and Green.

We know that Lean is based on Team Members driving the elimination of waste to provide our Customers with more value. Toyota has summarized these in three key principles:

• Continuous Improvement
• Elimination of Waste
• Respect for Humanity

Green has become the symbolic color of environment protection and social justice. It was chosen for its association with nature, health and growth.

But how are they related?

One of the key tenets of Lean is “do more with Less”
– less human effort, less time and less resources so we’re able to turn our inputs into outputs faster with less waste.

Normally we think of this as the waste of production materials but let’s look deeper and see what other wastes we can uncover. This means less waste in:

• The water & energy used to produce the materials
• The effort, equipment & energy required to move the materials
• The man-power, materials and energy needed to build equipment that over-produces to customer demand
• The energy required to heat & cool buildings built to house these over-sized pieces of equipment
• Information systems needed to track the materials and transactions
• The effort needed to maintain all this extra stuff

The list is almost endless. The truth is our current cost systems don’t track these types of wastes very well, if at all, so they form part of a large, barely visible mountain of waste. The Remedy to this is to begin to see waste with a new set of eyes and that begins with developing a new set of Mental Models to guide us. The Lean Thinking Brain Booster pocket cards are a great starting point for anyone beginning this journey and for people who need a quick refresher.

Elimination of Waste – great for customers, Team Members, Shareholders and good for the environment.

 

Shingo Prize

By Al Norval,

We hear so much about the Shingo Prize, I thought I would investigate it and share some of my findings with you.

The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence is awarded annually by the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, to companies around the globe that "achieve world-class operational excellence status." It was established in 1988 and is named in honor of Shigeo Shingo and is recognized as the premier award for operational excellence in North America.

The prize has three categories:

- Business

- Public Sector

- Research

In the Business category, prizes are awarded to companies that achieve world-class manufacturing status. Shingo Prize (Gold), Silver, and Bronze prizes exist.

In the Public Sector category, prizes are given to the public sectors that achieve world-class manufacturing status. Shingo Prize (Gold), Silver, and Bronze prizes exist.

In the Research category, prizes are awarded recognizing research and writing regarding new knowledge and understanding of Lean and operational excellence.

It is given in four categories:

- Unpublished papers

- Published articles

- Books & monographs

- Applied publications / multimedia programs.

Who was Shigeo? Shingo that the Shingo Prize was named after?

Shigeo Shingo (新郷 重夫, 1909 - 1990), born in Saga City, Japan, was an Industrial Engineer who distinguished himself as one of the world’s leading experts on manufacturing practices and the Toyota Production System. Although the myth prevails that he invented the Toyota Production System, in truth he was an external consultant who taught courses in Industrial Engineering at Toyota. He did document TPS and wrote one of the first books on TPS entitled “Study of the Toyota Production System”. He is recognized as being one of the world’s leading experts in improving manufacturing processes.

Shingo is best known for adding two prases to the Lean Glossary:

- SMED

o Single Minute Exchange of Dies

o Enabling small lot size production

- Poka Yoke

o Mistake-Poofing

o Building quality in at the source

The Shingo Prize was named after him in recogition of his lifelong accomplishments and devotion to assisting organizations achieve world-class status.

The Shingo Prizes are awarded at their annual conference with the next one being in Atlanta on May 7-10, 2012. Please join me in congratulating all the award winners with a special acknowledgement to Pascal Denis who will receive his 4th award in Research for his latest book “The Remedy”

See you in Atlanta

Cheers