Two Pillars of the Lean Business System

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Continuous Improvement and Respect for People - big ideas that deserve to be capital letters!

These reflect the infinite finesse of the Lean Business System.

They are yin & yang, masculine & feminine, mind & heart.

Each contains the other, as in the famous yin/yang image.


Continuous improvement is largely, though not entirely, an affair of the 'rational mind', which some people call the 'Left Brain'.

We need to know the fundamentals, including Value/Waste, 5 S, Visual Management, Standardized Work & the like.

We need enough problem solving 'reps' so that our core katas become part of our muscle memory.

Respect for People is largely, though, again, not entirely, an affair of the 'heart, which some people call the 'Limbic Brain'.

Respect for People requires empathy, and a solid grounding in core values.

Our readers will know, by now, that for me, this means the Cardinal Virtues:

• PRUDENCE,
• TEMPERANCE,
• COURAGE,
• JUSTICE

These figure strongly in my book, Reflections of a Business Nomad.

By the way, my friend and colleague, Dr. Reldan Nadler, has written persuasively about the importance of Emotional Intelligence in leaders.

I recommend his books warmly.

Best regards,

Pascal


In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Why Do We Learn More from What Did Not Work?
Failure is a Requirement for Innovation
KAIZEN – Small Changes vs. Monster Projects
Is Inventory a waste or a cover-up of deeper waste?

Back to Basics – Employee Engagement

By Al Norval (bio)

This is the second in a series of blogs which get back to the basics of Lean. As I said in my last blog, it seems to me that as Lean gets more mainstream, people are forgetting the basic principles of Lean and are contorting Lean into something it was never meant to be. The worst examples are where people take what they were always doing and re-label the same work as Lean. I’m sure we can all think of many examples of this.

What do I mean by Lean?

It’s the engagement of all people in driving continuous improvement through the elimination of waste to improve Customer Value. The result is the world’s most powerful business system.

Last time I started right at the beginning with Customer Value. Today I’d like to continue with Employee Engagement. Why is this one of the basics? If we are implementing Lean properly, the result will be a win for our Customers, a win for our Employees and a win for the Organization. If there is no win for the Employees, how can we expect to engage them in continuous improvement and drive more value to our Customers?

Let’s explore this a bit deeper. It all starts with the principle of “Respect for People”. This is not just respect in the way we talk to each other and the way we interact with our fellow team members. It goes far beyond that. It means using everyone to their fullest potential and allowing and in fact, encouraging everyone to become the best they can be.

Employees who are continuously solving problems according to the scientific method are continuously learning and continuously building their capabilities and skill sets. I’ll talk more about the Scientific Method in a later bog in this series. Suffice to say, the result is more valuable employees who can drive more value to our Customers.

This type of engagement of employees in solving problems following the scientific method is much different than what is normally referred to as employee involvement. Typically, with employee involvement I see organizations asking employees for their ideas or for feedback on an improvement idea management has come up with. Usually, employees are quite willing give their feedback and to toss these ideas back to their leaders. The Leaders then become the bottleneck in improvement due to the limited time they can spend implementing these ideas. Result – a slow rate of improvement.

The type of engagement I’m referring to is one where employees not only surface ideas for improvement but they are the ones to drive these ideas through to completion following a prescribed process in which leaders act as coaches and mentors. Imagine an organization where every employee is making an improvement, big or small, every day. Result – a faster and faster rate of improvement. Just think of the power in that organization! Just think of the advantage that organization has over its competitors as that kind of improvement is difficult to replicate.

As leaders what is our role in Employee Engagement?

1. We need to provide employees with a process for solving problems
2. We need to train employees and provide on-going coaching as they build their capabilities
3. Most importantly, we need to provide time, every day, to work on solving problems

I believe that people come to work as fully engaged employees and our role as Leaders is to keep them engaged and not to dis-engage them. Sadly, all too often, this doesn’t happen. Result – dis-engaged employees and another employee involvement survey and program. Head for the hills.

Which organization would you rather work for? I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers
Al


In case you missed our last few blogs...please feel free to have another look…

Back to Basics – Customer Value
What is Courage & How does it relate to True North?
Lean, Leadership & Ethics, Part 1

Back to Basics – Employee Engagement

By Al Norval

This is the second in a series of blogs which get back to the basics of Lean. As I said in my last blog, it seems to me that as Lean gets more mainstream, people are forgetting the basic principles of Lean and are contorting Lean into something it was never meant to be. The worst examples are where people take what they were always doing and re-label the same work as Lean. I’m sure we can all think of many examples of this.

What do I mean by Lean?

It’s the engagement of all people in driving continuous improvement through the elimination of waste to improve Customer Value. The result is the world’s most powerful business system.

Last time I started right at the beginning with Customer Value. Today I’d like to continue with Employee Engagement. Why is this one of the basics? If we are implementing Lean properly, the result will be a win for our Customers, a win for our Employees and a win for the Organization. If there is no win for the Employees, how can we expect to engage them in continuous improvement and drive more value to our Customers?

Let’s explore this a bit deeper. It all starts with the principle of “Respect for People”. This is not just respect in the way we talk to each other and the way we interact with our fellow team members. It goes far beyond that. It means using everyone to their fullest potential and allowing and in fact, encouraging everyone to become the best they can be.

Employees who are continuously solving problems according to the scientific method are continuously learning and continuously building their capabilities and skill sets. I’ll talk more about the Scientific Method in a later bog in this series. Suffice to say, the result is more valuable employees who can drive more value to our Customers.

This type of engagement of employees in solving problems following the scientific method is much different than what is normally referred to as employee involvement. Typically, with employee involvement I see organizations asking employees for their ideas or for feedback on an improvement idea management has come up with. Usually, employees are quite willing give their feedback and to toss these ideas back to their leaders. The Leaders then become the bottleneck in improvement due to the limited time they can spend implementing these ideas. Result – a slow rate of improvement.

The type of engagement I’m referring to is one where employees not only surface ideas for improvement but they are the ones to drive these ideas through to completion following a prescribed process in which leaders act as coaches and mentors. Imagine an organization where every employee is making an improvement, big or small, every day. Result – a faster and faster rate of improvement. Just think of the power in that organization! Just think of the advantage that organization has over its competitors as that kind of improvement is difficult to replicate.

As leaders what is our role in Employee Engagement?

1. We need to provide employees with a process for solving problems
2. We need to train employees and provide on-going coaching as they build their capabilities
3. Most importantly, we need to provide time, every day, to work on solving problems

I believe that people come to work as fully engaged employees and our role as Leaders is to keep them engaged and not to dis-engage them. Sadly, all too often, this doesn’t happen. Result – dis-engaged employees and another employee involvement survey and program. Head for the hills.

Which organization would you rather work for? I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers

Why Continuous Improvement?

By Pascal Dennis

In my travels I've stumbled on many interesting places and characters.

A colleague in a former communist country asked the above question.

Why indeed?

Change is hard, change hurts. Change has no natural constituency, the status quo has many.

People who grew up behind the Iron Curtain had every reason to ask this question.

The system was imposed upon them, and maintained by coercion.

My last book includes a piece called 'Heavy Industry'.

A senior union leader berates the narrator, and ridicules the idea of getting better every day.

"We like our jobs just the way they are..."

Respect for people is the foundation of any great enterprise.

Everybody has the God-given right to be involved in improving their work and organization.

People have knowledge, capability, and creativity. Why shouldn't they be allowed to express them?

This doesn’t mean Shangri-La, a place where everything is nice and nobody is ever stressed.

Sometimes ‘respect for people’ means challenging your people to go places & do things they don’t think are possible.

Going easy on people doesn’t necessarily entail respect. In fact, it could mean the opposite.

We’re on this Earth for a short time.

It’s our duty to try & get a little better every day.

Lord Tennyson put it memorably: ’...to seek to strive and not to yield.’

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Standardized Work and Innovation

By Al Norval

Like many of you in the Lean community, I work very hard to get organizations to implement Standardized Work and follow standard processes. The result is huge improvement through a reduction in waste and variation. Value begins to flow and there is a deeper connection to the customer.

But Standardized Work can have a dark side as well. This was highlighted in the teaching of Frederick Taylor who introduced the idea of “Division of Labor” and breaking down work into smaller and smaller fragments. Each of the fragments were optimized by legions of staff using well intentioned time and motion studies. What were they missing in this approach? After all they were fundamentally just taking waste out of the work.

The key is the improvements were done to the people rather than having the people who do the work drive the improvement process. The result – a completely disengaged workforce with low morale and the vision of people robotically working machines alienated from any connection to the final customer.

So what’s different today?

We still want the benefits of Standardized Work but we recognize the need for people to be engaged. People don’t naturally work as islands unto themselves. Cross-functional teams or quality circles allow team members to interact with one another. This interaction allows innovation to flourish and teams to come up with creative solutions to problems . New ideas are generated which are often the result of a combination of ideas thrown out by people and built up as the team has dialogue and discussions. No one person has all the ideas and all the answers.

Taiichi Ohno had a saying that I’ll paraphrase as “There can be no improvement without standards” since without standards we couldn’t apply the scientific method and experiment and learn from our improvements.

To get real innovation we need both Standardized Work and cross-functional teams engaged in solving problems.

Result – stimulated employees who are constantly driving towards the goals of the organization.

Sounds a lot like “Respect for People” which arguably is the most important pillar of Lean.

Which is better – an organization that uses Standardized Work as a straightjacket stifling the creativity of people or one that uses Standardized Work as the basis for engagement and Innovation?

Cheers

Poka Yoke & Respect for People

By Al Norval

I’ve heard Poka Yoke described as “Mistake Proof and Fail Safe” but as with most things in Lean it actually goes much deeper than that. The best translation of Poka Yoke that I’ve come across says that it means “To prevent inadvertent mistakes”. I really like this definition since it ties in several fundamental Lean principles.

The first is quality at the source. We do this by preventing the errors that lead to defects. Errors that are made when the work is being done. To err is human and to expect humans not to make errors is unrealistic. Recognizing this we need to look for ways to prevent the errors from being made. We do this through the use of physical devices that make it impossible to make the error. The best Poka Yoke devises are simple, reliable and designed by the teams themselves. Where we can’t use physical devices we resort to using visual aids such as signage, markings, alarms and check-sheets. By their very nature, these are not nearly as effective at preventing errors from being made.

Have you ever seen someone driving their car with the dashboard engine light on?

How about someone running a red light at an intersection?

Both errors can lead to very expensive defects.

The second Lean principle involved is “Respect for People”. By recognizing the purpose is to prevent “Inadvertent mistakes” a much greater respect is shown to people than to call it “Idiot Proofing” which is a common name I’m sure we have all heard of. We all make mistakes and we all make errors. Sometimes these lead to defects and sometimes they don’t. Have you ever had a close call and thought to yourself “Phew – I got away with one this time”?

Isn’t a better way – to surface the near miss and use the capabilities of the team to come up with ways of preventing the mistake/error from being made? I think so and I believe you’ll find it very empowering for the team. After a little practice, you’ll be amazed at what they come up with.

Cheers

Safety Comes First

By Al Norval

As students of Lean, I’m sure we’re all familiar with the House of Lean from Toyota. It has Standards & Stability as its foundation; JIT and Jidoka as its pillars and Toyota’s True North as its roof. The True North consists of three elements:

• Highest Quality
• Lowest Cost
• Shortest Leadtime

When I present this image I often get a question from the audience that goes something like this – What about Safety?

It’s a great question since in Lean we teach Safety Comes First. By Safety we don’t just mean personal safety and the prevention of accidents and harm to individuals, Safety Comes First goes deeper than that. It means providing an environment that is emotionally safe and intellectually safe as well. It means creating working conditions where people are free from harassment and bullying; where people are encouraged and able to contribute and become the best they can be. It means thinking about Safety as it applies throughout the entire Value Stream; product safety for Customers, material safety with Suppliers and extends to Contractors and Temporary and Casual workers as well. In fact Safety Comes First covers everything we do.

By taking this holistic view of Safety, we truly live the principle of “Respect for People” and in doing so can fully engage people to drive continuous improvement.

So why isn’t it part of the roof of the House of Lean?

It’s so basic to our thinking about Lean, that if we need to remind ourselves or others about it, we’re not at the level of thinking we need to be at as Leaders in a Lean environment.

I’ve been in many organizations that talk about Safety but when you go to Gemba you find out that Productivity truly comes first. Examples include people by-passing machine guarding to keep the product flowing, people taking short cuts to save minutes of downtime, people putting themselves in harm’s way just to meet the production targets. These organizations talk about Safety & Lean but don’t embody them.

When they finally understand that Lean is all about people, and to engage the hearts and minds of people we need to understand “Respect for People”, then they’ll understand why Safety Comes First.

Two Pillars of the Lean Business System

By Pascal Dennis

Continuous Improvement and Respect for People - big ideas that deserve to capital letters!

These reflect the infinite finesse of the Lean Business System.

They are yin & yang, masculine & feminine, mind & heart.

Each contains the other, as in the famous yin/yang image.

Continuous improvement is largely, though not entirely, an affair of the 'rational mind', which some people call the 'Left Brain'.

We need to know the fundamentals, including Value/Waste, 5 S, Visual Management, Standardized Work & the like.

We need enough problem solving 'reps' so that our core katas become part of our muscle memory.

Respect for People is largely, though, again, not entirely, an affair of the 'heart, which some people call the 'Limbic Brain'.

Respect for People requires empathy, and a solid grounding in core values.

Our readers will know, by now, that for me, this means the Cardinal Virtues:

• PRUDENCE,
• TEMPERANCE,
• COURAGE,
• JUSTICE

These figure strongly in my latest, Reflections of a Business Nomad.

By the way, my friend and colleague, Dr. Reldan Nadler, has written persuasively about the importance of Emotional Intelligence in leaders.

I recommend his books warmly.

Best regards,

Pascal

Children or Raccoons - Economy II Gone Mad?

By Pascal Dennis

Our neighbourhood is infested with destructive, aggressive raccoons.

Raccoons are neither cute nor lovable. They're nasty, aggressive & dangerous.

Raccoon poop contains parasites deadly to children.

Parents are afraid to let their children play in backyards, for fear they'll be exposed.

Raccoons destroy property & impose costly repair bills - which fall disproportionately on people who can least afford them.

As in many cities across North America, Toronto's raccoon population is expanding and becoming more aggressive.

Other jurisdictions (e.g. California, Germany) have taken firm measures to reduce the risk posed by urban raccoons.

But in Toronto, if you harm a raccoon you'll be charged and could be imprisoned. Even if you're a poor man driven to distraction by the damage they wreak.

Who is the City of Toronto's customer?

Clearly, it's not Toronto citizens & their children.

In fact, the City will go to great lengths to ensure the safety & comfort of raccoons - at the expense of citizens & their children.

We need to help Economy II - (public services, health care, education, NGO's...) - improve customer service (i.e. Safety, Quality, Service), while reducing Cost.

The first step in this essential journey is asking, "Who is my customer?" and "What do they need?"

(The underlying value is Respect for People.)

Toronto's raccoon fiasco suggests the City isn't interested.

How do we get their - or any public mandarin's attention?

Regards,

Pascal

Lean & Six Sigma

By Al Norval

I deal with several organizations where the competition between Lean and Six Sigma is nothing short of destructive for the organization. These typically large organizations have two camps both of whom are dug in and set in their ways. They seem to spend more time fighting with each other than actually helping people in the organization make improvements. The skirmishes typically involve sending articles around the organization by email where the pundit has an opinion that supports one side or the other.

I’m always puzzled by this as both improvement methodologies are necessary. Some organizations understand this but end up splitting the two improvement methodologies anyway with statements like “Lean is about removing waste and Six Sigma is about reducing variation”

Hogwash. While reducing Muda (waste) is a key pillar of Lean, so is reducing Muri (Strain) and Mura (variation). These three concepts are related as Strain and Variation are causes of Waste. Strain or Overburden applies both to machines and manpower. We can see it when equipment is made to run faster than it’s capable of or IT systems become overloaded with new software. When it’s applied to people it lines up with another pillar of Lean – Respect for People. Strain here often leads to ergonomic issues. Asking people to do work that causes injuries certainly isn’t showing them due respect.

Likewise Six Sigma is about reducing variation but more importantly it’s about making data driven process improvements using DMAIC which is a variant of Deming’s PDCA cycle.

In both cases, organizations have good people working in broken processes.

The trick is to apply the right technique to the right problem. Here’s my recommendation:

When problems require simple problem solving, use Lean. When faced with complex problems use Six Sigma.

Abraham Maslow once said “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it’s tempting to treat everything as a nail”

In my opinion, both improvement methodologies are necessary. Learn to coexist and get on with the real work of helping people make improvements enabling the organization to achieve its goals.

Cheers