Three Hundred Thousand Views – Thanks, Folks

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

What if nobody reads the damned thing?
Pascal Dennis

A few weeks ago the Lean Pathways Blog & I observed a milestone, a footprint in time: 300,000 views

Mama mia, you all are reading our humble & imperfect offerings. When we started in 2011, I didn’t know if you’d be interested.

But I felt it was important to do for you all, in some small way, what very kind Japanese senseis did for me when I was a young, thick engineer.

There is a right way of managing, of leading, of being. There are core standards of behavior, just as there are core technical standards in the great professions.

Leadership is informed and governed the Great Virtues, just as Chemical Engineering, the profession I was trained in, is informed and governed by the laws of chemistry, physics, mass transfer, heat transfer and the like.

Our blog seeks to highlight these core principles of leadership and management, which are the foundation of achievement, growth & fun.

Let me bow deeply to my collaborators – Dianne Caton, our redoubtable graphic artist, and Steve Macleod, our IT leader.

Thanks, Di and Steve, for all your fine work & support.

And thanks to you all for your interest, fine questions and feedback.

Here’s to a safe, happy and engaging 2017,

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

The Paradox of Standards

By Pascal Dennis

The Toyota Business system is full of paradox -- one of the many things that make it unique.

Standards are one its most paradoxical elements.

Standardized work (STW), for example, the best way we currently know to do a given task.

Our Lean Brain Booster pocket cards and apps teach that we need "simple, visual standards for all important things."

I was taught that STW comprises:

• Work content,
• Sequence
• Timing, and
• Expected outcome

Pretty strict, no?

You'd think, therefore, that STW would be restricting...

But STW frees you up -- for learning and improvement!

My wife, Pamela, teaches kindergarten. Her class includes a number of youngsters with special needs (autism, learning disabilities etc)

Children have difficulty with basic activities like tying their shoe laces, washing their hands, and going to the bathroom.

The latter, in particular, is rife with anxiety for many kids.

So, Pamela developed simple, visual standards for each of these activities.

Result: no accidents, anxiety or humiliation.

Effect: kids have more energy for learning. I'm very happy to report that Pamela's kids are thriving.

Lesson: Standards set you free.

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

Alpha and Omega

By Pascal Dennis

One of the great ironies of our time is the performance gap between Health Care and the so-called Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry.

As anybody who has spent time in the "Waiting Room" will attest. Value-Added time is microscopically small in the former.

By contrast, the good people in the QSR industry are getting better every day -- by applying the Toyota Business System.

Indeed, Business Week has had a series of articles highlighting their achievements.

I grew up in a restaurant, so my heart goes out to people who make the best of slim profit margins, long hours of often difficult work.

Well done, QSR and please continue!

It's easy to make fun, but the best QSR organizations provide excellent value and reliable service, while respecting the customer.

Can Health Care say the same?

Cheers

Pascal

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

How Do You Motivate People to Keep Asking Why?

By Pascal Dennis,

What's the most common attribute of great organizations?

Problem solving...

Whether problems of design, marketing, manufacturing or distribution -- great companies are full of problem solvers.

Toyota's famous Five Why technique has been widely adopted now -- but results vary widely.

Some cultures get it -- others, not so much.

Here are a few thoughts as to why...
To get to root cause, you have to keep asking why. You have to care...

People have to feel, "This is my machine, department, factory, company." and "Getting to root cause benefits me."

So how do leaders create this sense of ownership, loyalty and esprit de corps?

Focus on Safety first -- everything else (Quality, Delivery, Cost...) follows.

Safety is our window on the process, as well as, as concrete message to team members:

“You’re our most valuable asset. We’re going to keep you safe, we’re not going to lay you off except in the direst of circumstances and as a last resort, and we’re going to teach you stuff that’ll make you even more valuable to us.”

Who wouldn’t want to work at a place like that?

Pascal
P.S. We've launched our Lean Leadership Brain Boosters -- to help lock in the fundamentals. Would love to get your feedback on them.

Waste in Hospitals – Healthcare

By Al Norval,

I had an interesting case recently to observe firsthand the waste in some typical Healthcare processes.

My son enjoys playing rugby and plays on the school varsity team. I have to admit, it’s a sport I don’t understand as I never played it as I grew up. To me it’s players bashing each other back and forth trying to score a “touch” all with no pads and little stoppage in the action. In any case, the boys love it and that’s the main thing.

Like any parent, I went to the games to support the home team. At the last game of the season my son broke his thumb making a tackle. So, we iced it up and off we went to the local hospital’s Emergency Department. As we arrived I called my wife and said we’d be back home in about five hours. Surely, it can’t take that long to X-ray his thumb and set it in a cast. We’ll see I said.

As we entered the waiting area I noticed a short line up in front of the triage nurse. After a short wait it was our turn to answer the questions and fill out the forms after which we took our places in the appropriately named waiting room. Without getting into all the details, I’ll highlight the Value Added steps:
- Thumb examined by Emergency Department (ED) physician.

- Thumb X-rayed by ED technician

- X-rays read by physician

- Broken thumb set in a cast

Needless to say, there were many other steps in the process all of which were waste. Some were necessary steps and the waste was necessary such as the initial filling out of forms, answering questions and even having the thumb re X-rayed in the cast to ensure the bone had set properly. Others such as waiting for the X-ray to be taken and read, waiting for the physician to examine the thumb and answering the same questions several times were pure waste.

As I pondered this during one of our many waiting steps, I realized the key to improvement in Healthcare is no different than any other process. We need to divide the process steps into Value adding, necessary waste and pure waste. We then need to engage our team members in:

- Reducing the necessary waste, and

- Eliminating the pure waste

The overall measure of how much improvement we are making is through examining the Lead time of the process. As we eliminate waste, the Lead time of the process will go down.

How much Lead time did it take for my son’s broken thumb to set in a cast? Five hours...

How much of that time was value added? One hour...

Therefore the waste in the process was about four hours. Fertile ground for making improvements indeed.

Ford’s Mulally: It's OK not to be OK

By Al Norval,

I saw this article in USA Today and thought it was such a great example of Leadership exhibiting the Mental Models, that I wanted to share it with you. Allan Mulally, Ford CEO, was talking about his experience at one of his first management meetings with the Executive Leadership team at Ford after he joined the company. Allan had enjoyed a successful career at Boeing and had recently joined Ford as CEO.

Quoting Allan from the USA Today article,

“In one of the Thursday management meetings, where managers are supposed to show color-coded charts, red for serious problems, yellow for lesser issues, green for all OK, "all the charts were green and I know — we're going to lose $17 billion. I stopped the meeting and I said, 'Is there anything that isn't going well? We're losing $17 billion.'”

Imagine that, Ford was losing $17 Billion and not one Executive raised a problem – everything was OK in my area – it must be the other guys.

The culture at Ford at the time was one where you didn’t surface problems. The underlying Mental Model was problems are to be hidden in closets or swept up under the carpet. Don’t admit you had problems. Mulally realized that it was perfectly natural for organizations to have problems and that the only way to get better was to surface the problems and engage people to work on resolving them.

He went on to say "The next week here comes Mark (Fields, now president of Ford's North and South America operations) and his charts are all red. Everybody else's were green. I started to clap, and I said 'That's great.'

As a Leader, Mulally was exhibiting the Mental Model of “Problems are Gold”. It’s OK to surface problems – everyone has them. He understood the way to improvement was to surface problems and get to root cause. Only then could countermeasures be put in place which strengthened their systems so the problems didn’t surface again and again.

Problems are Gold is a Lean Mental Model which is the opposite of the Traditional Mental Model of hiding problems so they can’t be seen.

Leadership is about changing Mental Models which enable our behaviors to change. As senior leaders change their behavior the rest of the organization watches and begins to change their behavior as well. The changes rapidly spread throughout the organization.

It’s OK not to be OK.

See the attached link for the complete article.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2011-07-26-mulally-bad-news_n.htm

 

For more on Mental Models, please see our Lean Brain Booster pocket cards.

Cheers

Why Brain Booster Pocket Cards?

By Pascal Dennis,

Over the past few years we've spend a great deal of energy on Brain Booster Pocket Cards.

What are we trying to do?

In the spirit of visual management we're trying to crystallize the fundamentals of the Lean Business System.

Less is more -- the cardinal proverb.

We want our three suites -- Lean Thinking, Lean Tools & Lean Leadership -- to complement classic Lean text books.

The Toyota Way, Lean Production Simplified, Managing to Learn, Andy & Me... these are all fine resources -- by they're largely words.

We want to express their essence in pictures.

My personal mission is to translate the profound system of knowledge I was lucky enough to learn at Toyota.

I want to make it available to people all over the world.

So our images will be available in a variety of media: pocket cards, posters, iPhone apps etc.

Next -- how do you use them?

Watch our blog for updates...

BE CAREFUL WHEN GOING TO GEMBA

I read a recent blog by Mark Graban in his Lean Blog http://www.leanblog.org/ that I found intriguing and wanted to pass it on to you.

The basic theme is – there is more to “Go to Gemba” than just showing up. We hear a lot about the need to “Go To Gemba” but if we just go and hang around then we go back to management by walking around and that’s not what we want. Rather we want to “Go to Gemba” with a purpose. We need to have a clear understanding of what we are trying to do. If not, we face the problems Mark Graban describes in a recent blog:

Lean Thinkers might wonder “what is bad about going to the Gemba?” Well, going to the Gemba could be a bad idea and could make things worse if leaders exhibit the wrong kind of behaviours. This old urban legend helps articulate that in a cheeky way:

Thanks to the site Snopes.com, a site that debunks (or verifies) urban legends and myths, here is one version of a classic factory story:
[Braude, 1965]

The proprietor of a shop was once passing during the packing room and noticed a boy lounging towards a field and whistling cheerfully. Thinking of all his cash being wasted on this sort of exertions, the corporation requested gruffly, “How much do you get a week?” “Ten dollars,” the boy spoke back. “Here’s your pay for the week,” stated the person. “Now get out!” On his as far back as the administrative center, the shop proprietor bumped into the foreman and requested him, “When did we hire that boy, and who is responsible for hiring him?”  “We never hired him,” the foreman stated. “He was just delivering a package from another firm.”

The story is a silly one, but it illustrates one possible failure mode involved with going to the Gemba – jumping to conclusions and making on-the-spot top-down decisions out of anger. The words of Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho, “Go see, ask why, show respect” are now famous as basic lean principles.

Thanks to Mark for this story which is a great example of “Go to Gemba” with no clear purpose where we only do the first of the three parts of “Go to Gemba” which is “Go See”.  What we should be doing is all three parts so that we “Go See” but more importantly “Ask Why” based on what we have observed so that we fully understand what is actually happening and finally do so with the intent of building the capability of our teams  and in doing so “Show Respect” for them. Asking questions is a Socratic way of building Team Member capability by getting them to think deeply about the situation and allows Leadership to introduce and reinforce problem solving based on their observations.

So the purpose of “Go to Gemba” is to develop a deep understanding of what is happening and to use that understanding to deepen Team Members understanding and so the Team Members ability to use that understanding to solve problems. Ultimately, we develop many problem solvers in the organization. Without this clear purpose, Leadership can turn “Go to Gemba” into a very different experience from its initial intent.

Cheers,
Al Norval

THE POWER OF IMAGES

By Al Norval,

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s remarkable how true this is. Pictures and images have the power to convey more than the words they represent. They have the power to move us and invoke a connection to our deeper emotions – humour, laughter, sadness even rage and fear. They are able to connect to our emotional core.



Certain images become locked in over time – they become endless. How many of you can recall The Mona Lisa’s smile, Neil Armstrong standing on the moon, Winston Churchill’s portrait and the horrible image of the burning of the World Trade Center. All represent more than a picture or a painting.

Images are more than just photographs. Corporate branding for example, where the iconic images of great brands such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, MacDonald’s and Mercedes all have the power to invoke memories, feelings and thoughts about the products. I’m sure each of you had the brand image dash quickly through your mind’s eye at the mention of these brands.

But what has this got to do with Lean?

Let’s go back to basics. Lean is about engaging our Team Members to solve problems and remove waste every day to create more value for our Customers. To do that we need to not only solve problems but to share the learning rapidly across the organization. By doing this we become a learning organization with the capability of our Team Members getting higher and higher over time. The higher capability people have, the more problems they can solve and so enter a benevolent cycle of learning and problem solving.

The key to sustaining this is the ability of both the organization and individual Team Members to remember what they learned and what was shared in problem solving. Memory is the ability to store, retain, and recall information. But in today’s world of information overload, how do we improve the ability of our Team Members to store, retain and recall information?

Simple answer – we use images.

Images are stored in our brains as Visual Memory. That’s the part of our memory that preserves some of the characteristics of our senses pertaining to the visual experience. We are able to place into memory, visual information which represents thoughts and ideas. The neural connections are stronger if we have an emotional sense tied to the image. That emotional connection is why we can remember images to a far greater degree than we can remember mere facts or words and sentences. As we tie these images into a learning experience that is cheerful, light and engaging, the thoughts and ideas get quickly locked into memory resulting in a higher capability of our Team Members to solve problems.

In summary, we can achieve better recall of key learning points and problem solving if we use simple, elegant images with a touch of humour that ties the message to our soul.

For more on Images and Lean, please see Lean Brain Boosters at http://www.leansystems.org/

Root Cause of Health Care Crisis?

By Pascal Dennis,



Health Care is a disaster North & South of the border.

Neither Americans, nor Canadians can look on their situation with any satisfaction.

Costs are exploding -- and crowding out other critical expenditures like education, R & D and infrastructure.
Health care outcomes are disappointing. Miracles occur within the silos, catastrophe across them.

What's the root cause of this sorry state of affairs?

Why can't smart, skilled and caring medical professionals do what they're trying to do?

Deming taught us that the problem is in the system -- and he's right again.

Mis-medication, wrong site surgery, infection and other nosocomial calamities occur despite the heroics of nurses, doctors, pharmacists and the many other specialists who keep hospitals going. Indeed, things would likely be much worse but for their heroics.

So what's the root cause of our health care crisis?

Tom Papas, the protagonist of the business novel, The Remedy, tries to answer this question in chapter 13.

He is in rough shape -- he might be losing his father to a mis-medication.

Tom's conclusion: the customer is not the customer.

Only patients, he concludes, can arbitrate the millions of daily decisions that comprise the provision of medical care.

Yet the patient is not the customer in these transactions.

As evidence he reflects on how difficult it has been for his family to get Safety, Quality or Cost information from hospitals.

"And why should they give me info?" he laments. "I'm not the customer."

I've gotten a lot of mail about this chapter!

So what do ya'll think? Is Tom right, or is he not thinking clearly because of his desperate situation?

Are there other root causes that are more important? Any other thoughts or insights?

I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Jacky Fisher -- Transforming the Royal Navy

By Pascal Dennis

Just finished Dreadnought, Robert Massie's splendid account of the years leading up to World War 1.

My favourite character is Admiral John (Jackie) Fisher who transformed the Royal Navy -- just in time. 

Fisher was a Lean thinker, far ahead of his time.  His obsession was improving the speed and accuracy of Royal Navy operations -- in advance of the German High Fleet's challenge.

He used Lean thinking with intuitive flair.  Go see was a favourite technique, as was standardized work.

He famously took a chair and table into the yard where some operation was to be carried out and declared his intention to stay there until the operation was completed.

The dreadnought, Royal Sovereign, was built in two years rather than three.  Changing a barbette gun on a ship was reduced from two days to two hours. His example obliged all shipyards, both navy and private, to reduce waste, making savings in cost and allowing new designs to enter service more rapidly.

He once observed, "When you are told a thing is impossible, then is the time to fight like the devil."

He was also effective politically.  Winston Churchill, First Sea Lord, was an important (on again/off again) ally.

Had Jackie Fisher been less diligent, would the Royal Navy have checkmated the German High Fleet (confining them to their Baltic ports)?

Transformation is a tough business.  At best you partially succeed.  But that can be the difference between poverty & prosperity -- or death and life.

For my image of what transformation looks & feels like, there's The Remedy...

Strategy Deployment & the D-Day Invasion

By Pascal Dennis,

On June 6, 1944 a vast allied army landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the liberation of Europe.

General Eisenhower commanded the attacking force -- five beaches and five attacking armies.
 

General Irwen Rommel, the Desert Fox, commanded the defenders -- (with little support & much interference from Berlin)

D-Day was a triumph of strategy deployment against long odds. It was the biggest amphibious assault ever planned and the failure modes were daunting.

What if the preceding naval bombardment failed to disable the Nazi guns?

What is the sea was rougher, the waves higher, the tide stronger than expected?

What if the cloud cover lifted and the moon lit up the attackers?

What if, what if, what if -- the strategist's eternal question.

How did Eisenhower and his staff deal with these uncertainties? Did they dictate the tactics of each army at each beach?

"Thou shalt..."

For example, did they dictate minute assault details, in advance, to the Canadian Army on Juno beach or the American 1st Army at Omaha beach?

Of course not -- it would be absurd to do so. Only the army in the field can adjust to the conditions on the battlefield -- they see them best.

In my experience, "Command & control" in military circles does not mean "tightly control/limit/inhibit" -- as it does in civilian circles. It simply means Check & Adjust your plan.

Eisenhower provided overall objectives to each army and suggested tactics -- knowing that these would be adjusted in the field of battle.

Rommel, by contrast, was hindered by interference from Hitler and his inner circle -- people remote from the battlefield, who had rarely, if ever, visited Normandy.

What's the lesson for those of us who develop and deploy business strategies?

Follow the recipe laid out in The Remedy and Getting the Right Things Done:

1. Develop the plan

2. Deploy the plan

3. Monitor the plan

4. Improve the system

Deploy the plan does not mean controlling every tactical element. It means providing guidance and support for those in the battlefield.

It means teaching them how to translate overall objectives into meaningful tactics -- and giving them the freedom to do so.

Don't worry -- you're not giving up control. You'll have plenty of chances for input in the Check & Adjust phases.

Think of strategy as a river. Leaders define objectives (getting to the sea) and the banks of the river.

Then they let the water go.

Check out The Remedy or Getting the Right Things Done for more.

Last & most important

Let's honour our D-Day veterans, who put their lives on the line to make a better world.

Thanks for all you did for us.

What is a Team?

By Pascal Dennis

In my view, a team is an organized group of people with a clearly defined goal.

"Organized" means team members have clearly defined & interconnected roles -- which in turn, depends on shared purpose.

In the absence of latter, our discourse inevitably devolves into random opinions, factoids and, often, recrimination.

"If only those bozos in... would do their jobs!"

Shared purpose shifts our thinking. "Just how are we going to achieve that objective?"

(Or that "target condition" -- tip of the hat to Mike Rother)

What sort of objectives are most compelling & effective?

Objectives that are just beyond the capability of the team.

(I've found that it's better to err on the side of too aggressive objectives, than the other way)

These compel collaboration. "We hang together -- or separately."

Teamwork, therefore, entails interdependency.

Lean factories are organized such that team members in adjacent work zones can help one another and communicate freely.

Work thus becomes a relay race -- if need be, the faster runner can help the slower runner in the baton transfer zone.

(It triggers problem solving too. "Why is the team member always behind? Is it our layout, ergonomics, part fit...?)

Lean offices should be laid out this way too.

I've seen finance, insurance, order fulfillment teams achieve remarkable performance levels thereby.

I've described some of the more visible aspects of teamwork.

The invisible is as important.

Teams are connected by values -- shared standards of behaviour.

John Wooden's "sets of three" are good examples:

• Don't lie. Don't cheat. Don't steal.
• Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't make excuses.

Tough standards! (For me at least...)

But when a group of people is aligned around values, life becomes more predictable & they can relax.

That's another element of teamwork -- security.


Best regards,
Pascal

Lean Laughs



Go To Gemba

By Al Norval

It’s a simple phrase but one that gives so much trouble to people. Go to Gemba – where the real value added work is done.

It reflects a Mental Model of “Go See for Yourself”. Instead many people find it easier to sit at their desk and let their computer tell them what’s going on. More than that, they find it easier to send e-mails rather than talking to people and asking questions. We know that much of human communication comes from non-verbal cues. The look on the person’s face, the tone they are using, their hand and head gestures, all play a part in good two way communication. Most of that is lost in the world of e-mails or IM messages. Don’t get me wrong, they have a role to play but nothing beats Going to Gemba and seeing for yourself.

Going to Gemba doesn’t mean going to look around and spend some time on idle chit chat with Team Members. Rather it means going with a purpose and this purpose has three elements:

Go See

Ask Why?

Show Respect

Go See – and seek to understand. See with your own eyes. They won’t lie to you or hide things from you. What you see will be closer to the truth than what you hear or read.

Ask Why? – demonstrate Leader as a Teacher. Get to the root cause of problems. Challenge Team Members and develop their Lean thinking.

Show Respect - always be hard on the process and easy on the people. Only then will people open up, stop being defensive and truly find some creative countermeasures to problems.

A big failure of Leadership is the lack of Going to Gemba. By not Going to Gemba and asking why, Leaders really don't know and understand what is actually happening. They don’t see problems and they don’t teach others to see problems.

Makes it difficult to lead and coach your team and to drive the improvement throughout the organization needed to reach our business targets.

Innovation

By Al Norval

“None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration” – Thomas Alva Edison



Fabulous quote from one of the greatest inventors of all time. Edison was very familiar with the scientific method and how it is embodied within the PDCA cycle. It starts with a deep understanding of the Customer, their unmet needs and the problems they are having. From this he was able to define the problem and form a hypothesis after which he would run a series of experiments. The key was the Check/ Adjust of each experiment against his hypothesis. The power of a hypothesis is in its binary nature which allows the scientist either confirm the hypothesis or rule out that experiment. In either case, Edison knew the power of knowledge gained from each experiment. In that way he didn’t see experiments as a failure as he learned something new from each one. What he learned allowed him to constantly refine his designs until he had one that met his hypothesis.

For the electric light bulb this involved over a thousand experiments until he finally came up with a carbon filament that would pass the test of time.

Perspiration indeed!

For us within the Lean community the same holds true. Rapid experimentation against the problems we are trying to resolve, leads to faster learning and ultimately better countermeasures.

Can we all learn from Thomas Edison – observe, set a hypothesis, experiment, check, learn, make adjustments, repeat.

Sounds simple, all it takes is a little hard work.