Back to Basics - What is Value?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Value is Lean’s guiding star, Mother Lode and raison d’etre.

So what is value? Here are some common definitions:

• ‘What the customer is willing to pay for.’
• Okay, but what if the customer doesn’t know what they’re willing to pay for? (Would customers have said yes to the IPad in conception?)

• Value = Quality/Cost
• A serviceable definition

• Changes form, fit or function of a product
• A nice manufacturing definition, but does it apply in, say, a bank or hospital?

• An action that moves a process forward
• Nebulous, no?

All of these are correct, in their way. Value is like a gemstone – hold it up to the light and different colors emerge.

Most importantly, the team must connect closely with internal and external customers and understand value from their point of view.

This is the beauty of connectivity and commerce. Work is activity that creates value. Our work enables our customer, who is thereby able to create more value.

The splendid work of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and their teams compound my productivity (such as it is).

Work ennobles and enriches both the worker and the recipient, which is why we revere it so.

(Of course, there are extreme philosophies that demean work, and believe value is fixed and cannot be created. For these, the only question for such is how to divide the economic pie.

But you rarely see them in a factory, hospital, design studio or any place value is created.)

In summary, value is Lean’s guiding star. Get close to your customer and ask them what they need from you.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

You Want to Get More Done? Do Less…
Strategy Deployment & Language
Where Lean Has Gone Wrong & What to Do About It, Part 2
Where Lean Has Gone Wrong & What to Do About It, Part 1

"How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?"

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

An elderly Japanese asked me this question a long time ago and it has stayed with me. How, indeed, do we motivate people to do extraordinary things?

There are many schools of thought. The carrot & stick is perhaps the oldest. "Do as I say or I'll do bad things to you!" There's no denying it works – to a point.

But the carrot & stick is a classic ‘push’ system. Is there any pull? Does it motivate creative work, breakthrough work?

Did Steve Jobs motivate his designers to want to create the IPod, IPhone, IPad by threatening them continually? No doubt there was an element of fear. "Don’t want Steve hollering at me again!"

But there was much more. Transcendent achievement requires connection to a deeper purpose – to a ‘Noble Goal’.

Jobs' celebrated hoshin (motto) is a good example. Let's put a ding in the universe.

Subtext: Let’s kick butt & take names! Let’s shoot the moon! Let’s give it everything we’ve got! And why? Because we’re human & we only live once. So let’s let the universe know we were here, that we lived to the fullest and left our mark.

Despite his idiosyncrasies, Jobs touched the heart. His 2005 Stanford commencement speech gets me every time.

‘Something for the head, something for the heart’, I’ve suggested Getting the Right Things Done.

And so, to motivate a team to strive for the transcendent, define and commit to a Noble Goal. Our hoshin here at Lean Pathways is Laughs, Learning & Lucre! – which reflects our purpose & priorities.

We often get it wrong. But by articulating our Purpose clearly, we can see abnormalities and are usually able to get back to a good condition.

Next time: How do we sustain our activities in the face of hurtles, hassles and hammerheads?

Best regards,

Pascal




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

What is a Good Life?
To Learn Corporate Strategy, Study the Military Masters
Why is laughter important in business?
Practical Problem Solving – Proving Cause & Effect

The Beauty of Making Things

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Poesis is the Greek work for 'making things'.

Not coincidently, it's also the word for poetry.

A good piece of writing is like a fine piece of cabinetry, an elegant circuit board, or a beautiful engine.

Steve Jobs famously insisted that everything should be beautiful in the IPod, IPad, IPhone -- even if the customer couldn't see it.

A great carpenter feels the same way about the back of a cabinet.

This insight informed my life and the arts I've committed to:

• The art of management, and
• The art of writing

But do North American high school students appreciate the beauty of making things?

Have they been given proper guidance? Or do they stumble, by default, into barren general arts programs?

I understand, for example, that there are almost a million unfilled skilled trades positions in America.

Good jobs in fields like mechanical, construction and information technology.

A chance to make something beautiful, to learn & practice a great art.

My sense is our kids don't have a full picture of what's possible.

Can I appeal to our friends and colleagues in the Continuous Improvement community to help?

Please spread the message every chance you get.

Making things is COOL.

Pascal


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

What is Breakthrough?, Part 2
What Does Breakthrough Mean? - Part 1
Suggestion boxes vs Quick & Easy Kaizen
What is Intellectual Capital?, Part 2

Software is Eating the World – What’s It Mean for Lean/CI?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Hard to argue with this strong statement. Is there any major organization nowadays that is not an IT organization?

ING Bank, famously, has more IT professionals than Google. Today a Tesla car has more lines of code than macOS or the Windows Vista operation system.

What’s all this mean for the Lean/Continuous Improvement ‘movement’?

Lean/CI practitioners need to raise their games. We have to learn the language, technology and mental models of the digital world.

We have to reach out to our IT colleagues and help them deepen their practice, as they deepen ours.

Lean/CI has had a strong run these past two decades. Most major corporations now in most industries have active Lean/CI ‘programs.’

True, there are still comparatively few brilliant Lean organizations, and most senior executives still don’t understand the methods or the underlying mindsets.

But the Lean/CI tide has lifted most ships, and core concepts such as Value, Waste, Flow and PDCA are firmly rooted in contemporary business practice.

But it’s not enough. Lean/CI has much to offer the digital world. Digitization is an inherently abstract process. Bits & bytes are invisible, as are the circuits that animate a printed circuit board.

The more abstract a practice or technology, the more essential is a counter-balancing engagement with the physical world.

At its best, Lean/CI is simple & concrete. Our old Toyota senseis taught us to continually refine our thinking & processes by removing the unnecessary.

After a while it becomes second nature. Steve Jobs, famously, learned the art of design by studying Japanese calligraphy.

Strategy, problem solving, ideation, rapid experimentation and other core Lean/CI practices require a fluid back & forth between the worlds of reflection & experience.

We go see, reflect on what we saw, and go see again. Such core Lean/CI practices and mindsets can help to enable, focus and refine digitization.

But we have to be humble and open enough to accept that the world is changing very quickly. And we have to work very hard to understand the language, mental models & technology of our colleagues in the digital world.

Good learning, all.

Best regards,

Pascal

"How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?"

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

An elderly Japanese asked me this question a long time ago and it has stayed with me. How, indeed, do we motivate people to do extraordinary things?

There are many schools of thought. The carrot & stick is perhaps the oldest. "Do as I say or I'll do bad things to you!" There's no denying it works – to a point.

But the carrot & stick is a classic ‘push’ system. Is there any pull? Does it motivate creative work, breakthrough work?

Did Steve Jobs motivate his designers to want to create the IPod, IPhone, IPad by threatening them continually? No doubt there was an element of fear. "Don’t want Steve hollering at me again!"

But there was much more. Transcendent achievement requires connection to a deeper purpose – to a ‘Noble Goal’.

Jobs' celebrated hoshin (motto) is a good example. Let's put a ding in the universe.

Subtext: Let’s kick butt & take names! Let’s shoot the moon! Let’s give it everything we’ve got! And why? Because we’re human & we only live once. So let’s let the universe know we were here, that we lived to the fullest and left our mark.

Despite his idiosyncrasies, Jobs touched the heart. His 2005 Stanford commencement speech gets me every time.

‘Something for the head, something for the heart’, I’ve suggested Getting the Right Things Done.

And so, to motivate a team to strive for the transcendent, define and commit to a Noble Goal. Our hoshin here at Lean Pathways is Laughs, Learning & Lucre! – which reflects our purpose & priorities.

We often get it wrong. But by articulating our Purpose clearly, we can see abnormalities and are usually able to get back to a good condition.

Next time: How do we sustain our activities in the face of hurtles, hassles and hammerheads?

Best regards,

Pascal

Reprise: Apple University, Yokoten and Leadership

By Pascal Dennis

Yokoten is a lovely Japanese word which means shared, experiential learning.

The late Steve Jobs set up Apple University to support Yokoten after he was gone.

Apple University is dedicated to developing & sharing the "Apple Way", the set of practices and values, Mr. Jobs left behind.

Jobs was a great admirer of the "HP Way" developed by Dave Hewlett and Bill Packard.

In the last decade of his life, Jobs lamented the loss of Dave & Bill's brilliant, humane culture.

I have a number of HP friends and colleagues and am struck by how strongly Dave & Bill still influence HP Culture.

Sadly, given the organization's recent travails, that influence often entails, "Dave & Bill would never allow that to happen!"

In any event, wise leaders build "leadership pipelines" -- to ensure their organization adapt, survive & prospers for generation.

In difficult times, when it often seems we’re led by swine and psychos, let's honour leaders like Jobs, Hewlett, Packard et al.

Leadership is a game with endless innings. We've struck out badly the past decade, but we'll get to the plate again.

History suggests we'll learn and get better.

Indeed, I feel a growing sense of decency and service among the leaders I work with.

Hopefully, the reign of the toxic "expert" -- the disconnected brain who "manages by the numbers from a distance" -- is beginning to pass.

The continuing indictments of high profile executives of such firms will surely help.

Imagine one of these bozos doing a cost-benefit-analysis on Yokoten!

Stay young, stay foolish.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Yokoten, Meta-cognition and Leadership

By Pascal Dennis

Yokoten is lovely Japanese word, no?

It rolls off the tongue, and ends with a long, pleasing 'nnnn...'

What's it mean?

Here are some definitions:

Horizontal sharing, best practice sharing, lateral deployment, shared experiential learning...

I like the last one. Shared -- experiential -- learning.

Yokoten entails not just cognition (knowing), which tends to be shorter term, but also meta-cognition.

Meta-cognition entails 'knowing about knowing' and mean answering questions like:

How do I learn?

What do I know?

What do I not know very well?

Great leaders know themselves thereby, and can make conscious decisions.

(The Lean Business System is fundamentally about wakefulness.)

Leaders need to ask these questions of their organization:

How do we learn best?

What do we currently know, and not know, well?

Most important question for leaders:

How do I ensure that we'll continue to learn, after our current leaders retire or move on?

A tough one, to be sure.

The late, great Steve Jobs thought about it a great deal.

The result: Apple University.

More in my next blog.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Justice, PDCA and Paris, part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last time I talked about the two aspects of Justice:

1) Adherence to a standard – e.g. a code, law, or for Lean practitioners, an image of ‘what should be happening’

2) “The habitual rendering to each man his lawful due” – Spinoza. In other words, ‘fairness’ – too each, his own.

I suggested that standards protect an organization from chaos, the force of entropy. If we relax our standards, our business results inevitably decline.

Then I asked:

1. Which standard do you think is best, freedom of speech or political correctness (not offending anybody) - and why do you think so?

2. What’s the purpose of standards in an organization, and in a society?

We’ve had interesting comments – thanks, all.

Here are my thoughts on each question:

1. I believe freedom of speech is a higher standard than ‘don’t offend anybody’, and that we need to protect it.

Freedom of speech is also freedom of thought, and both are the wellspring of creativity, fun and prosperity. Without freedom of speech, there is no Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Zuckerberg – and no Albert Einstein, for that matter.

How many Steve Jobs have repressive societies produced? Jobs was difficult, opinionated, abrasive. So were Socrates, Copernicus and Galileo.

So were Aristophanes, Cervantes and Solzhenitsyn. So were Avicenna, Rumi and Naguib Mahfouz. Such people call it as they see it, and if it offends, too bad.

I’m sympathetic to our Muslim colleagues who found the cartoons tasteless and offensive, and to our Christian colleagues whose values are regularly mocked in mainstream publications like the New York Times.

But the remedy is far worse than the disease.

“Drive fear out of the organization,” Deming taught us. He was right – again. Fear kills kaizen, as does political correctness.

(Can you name an interesting politically correct author? Is there a funny PC comedian?)

Similarly, in an organization, kaizen challenges the status quo. Lean practitioners always face the forces of inertia, the corporate anti-bodies, that seek to stifle change of any kind, even beneficial change.

I remember a local union president fighting our efforts to reduce ergonomic burden in some very bad jobs. “We like our jobs just the way they are!” he thundered.

Thankfully, that was some years ago, and both management and the union have embraced a better approach.

2. The purpose of standards in an organization it to support our Purpose by making problems visible.

Thus, in my view, a corporation has every right to not publish material that might be offensive to its customers. In fact, it would be foolish to do so. Why offend your customers?

The purpose of standards (values) in a society is, likewise, to help citizens achieve their purpose – happiness, freedom and prosperity, or some permutation thereof.

Freedom of speech trumps political correctness, in my view, because it better supports happiness, freedom and prosperity.

In summary, Justice is about adherence to standards, and about fairness. Justice informs PDCA and the Lean business system, just as surely as it informs society.

Justice does not exist in nature, only in the human heart and mind. That’s why we treasure it so.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

The Question of Bozos

By Pascal Dennis

A tough one, which often confronts those of us in the transformation business.

I’ve found that transformation obstacles generally bubble up in the following sequence:

Technical – weak standards or adherence to standards for core activities

Organizational – team structure, org structure etc.

People – competence, motivation, mental models etc.

Systemic – governance obstacles, e.g. rewards & recognition structure, core beliefs & values, relationship between senior management & Board etc.

(Yes, they overlap somewhat)

The People category sometimes entails bozos (or as some people say, cement-heads).

Harsh terms perhaps, but a fact of life, and a potentially company-killing problem.

Here’s what I’ve learned. You have to cull the bozos.

Be fair, be humane. Provide fair and generous severance packages, help them find other jobs and so on, all in the spirit of decency.

But cull them. You’ll be stronger for it. In fact, team members will thank you and may ask, “What took you so long?”

Steve Jobs and Jim Collins have coined helpful mantras:

Jobs: ‘No bozos – ever.’

Collins: ‘Get the right people on the bus.’

(Check out Fireside Theatre’s classic comedy album, I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus.)

An important reflection point for senior leaders:

How come there are so many bozos around here?

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Some are born bozos, some achieve it, and others have it thrust upon them.”

Did we hire them? If so, what’s wrong with our recruitment processes?

Did we create them? If so, what’s wrong with our development and appraisal processes, and our culture?

The latter is especially tough. It means we may have let people down.

Why did we promote so many bozos? What’s wrong with our succession planning?

Tough questions -- which point to the centrality of Human Resources. (More to come on that one.)

Here’s a tough reflection point. We have a responsibility to hire good people, develop, involve and motivate them to be ‘the best they can be’.

If our organization is full of bozos, we’ve failed on every count.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Dangerous Lessons from Steve Jobs

By Pascal Dennis

It Depends...

Fine piece in Forbes about the danger of blindly emulating a genius

Steve Jobs famously said, in effect, "Ignore customers, they don't know what they want!"

Not unreasonable, if you're designing undreamed-about consciousness-shifting, behavior-changing products like the IPod and IPad.

But not the best approach if you're designing the next generation of Tier 4 diapers, or the next Ford Taurus model!

And certainly not the best approach if you're leading a team in the middle of a major health care, or automotive, or aerospace value stream!

In such circumstances, your upstream & downstream connections with customers & suppliers, are the air you breathe.

So, as with so many things in life - it depends...

Steve Jobs was right under his circumstances, to more or less ignore the customer.

And the value stream leader, in her circumstances, is right not to.

Some people call this finesse.

Best,

Pascal

The Beauty of Making Things

By Pascal Dennis

Poesis is the Greek work for 'making things'.

Not coincidently, it's also the word for poetry.

A good piece of writing is like a fine piece of cabinetry, an elegant circuit board, or a beautiful engine.

Steve Jobs famously insisted that everything should be beautiful in the IPod, IPad, IPhone -- even if the customer couldn't see it.

A great carpenter feels the same way about the back of a cabinet.

This insight informed my life and the arts I've committed to:

• The art of management, and
• The art of writing

But do North American high school students appreciate the beauty of making things?

Have they been given proper guidance? Or do they stumble, by default, into barren general arts programs?

(See Oct edition of The Walrus Magazine for a piece on the plight of current graduates.)

I understand, for example, that there are almost a million unfilled skilled trades positions in America.

Good jobs in fields like mechanical, construction and information technology.

A chance to make something beautiful, to learn & practice a great art.

My sense is our kids don't have a full picture of what's possible.

Can I appeal to our friends and colleagues in the Continuous Improvement community to help?

Please spread the message every chance you get.

Making things is COOL.

Pascal

How Does Lean Survive a Top Management Change?

By Pascal Dennis

Succession planning is indeed the key, but perhaps not in the conventional sense.

Lean thinking entails meta-cognition, which means 'knowing about knowing' and answering questions like:

How do I learn?

What do I know?

What do I know well?

What do I not know very well?

Great leaders tend to know themselves thereby, and can make conscious decisions.

Leaders need to ask these questions of their organization:

How do we learn best?

What do we currently know, and not know, well?

Most important question for leaders:

How do I ensure that we'll continue to learn, after our current leaders retire or move on?

A tough one, to be sure.

Rendering of the new Apple University campus in Cupertino California

The late, great Steve Jobs thought about it a great deal.

Sounds like Apple University is his posthumous attempt to perpetuate the Apple Way.

Cheers,

Pascal

Apple University, Yokoten and Leadership

By Pascal Dennis

Yokoten is a lovely Japanese word which means shared, experiential learning.

The late Steve Jobs set up Apple University to ensure yokoten after he was gone.

Apple University is dedicated to developing & sharing the "Apple Way", the set of practices and values, Mr. Jobs left behind.

"Thanks, Steve" by Jonathon Mak Long,
19 year old student at Hong Kong's Polytechnic University School of Design.

Jobs was a great admirer of the "HP Way" developed by Dave Hewlett and Bill Packard.

In the last decade of his life, Jobs lamented the loss of Dave & Bill's brilliant, humane culture.

I have a number of HP friends and colleagues and am struck by how strongly Dave & Bill still influence HP Culture.

Sadly, given the organization's recent travails, that influence often entails, "Dave & Bill would never allow that to happen!"

In any event, wise leaders build "leadership pipelines" -- to ensure their organization adapt, survive & prospers for generation.

In difficult times, when it often seems we’re led by swine and psychos, let's honour leaders like Jobs, Hewlett, Packard et al.

Leadership is a game with endless innings. We've struck out badly the past decade, but we'll get to the plate again.

History suggests we'll learn and get better.

Indeed, I feel a growing sense of decency and service among the leaders I work with.

Hopefully, the reign of the toxic "expert" -- the disconnected brain who "manages by the numbers from a distance" -- is beginning to pass.

The recent indictments of high profile executives of such firms will surely help.

Imagine one of these bozos doing a cost-benefit-analysis on yokoten.

"It doesn't make sense for me to teach anybody anything."

Been thinking a great deal about leadership lately. In fact, I have a new book coming: Reflections of a Business Nomad.

More on that later.

Stay young, stay foolish.

Cheers,

Pascal

Yokoten, Meta-cognition and Leadership

By Pascal Dennis

A lovely Japanese word, no?

It rolls off the tongue, and ends with a long, pleasing 'nnnn...'

What's it mean?

Here are some definitions:

Horizontal sharing, best practice sharing, lateral deployment, shared experiential learning...

I like the last one. Shared -- experiential -- learning.

Yokoten entails not just cognition (knowing), which tends to be shorter term, but also meta-cognition.

Meta-cognition entails 'knowing about knowing' and mean answering questions like:

How do I learn?

What do I know?

What do I not know very well?

Great leaders know themselves thereby, and can make conscious decisions.

(The Lean Business System is fundamentally about wakefulness.)

Leaders need to ask these questions of their organization:

How do we learn best?

What do we currently know, and not know, well?

Most important question for leaders:

How do I ensure that we'll continue to learn, after our current leaders retire or move on?

A tough one, to be sure.

The late, great Steve Jobs thought about it a great deal.

The result: Apple University.

More in my next blog.

Cheers,

Pascal

"No Bozos -- Ever"

By Pascal Dennis

"No Bozos - Ever" Steve Jobs mantra!

An interesting expression of the Jim Collins principle, "Get the right people on this bus."

Hard to argue with the wisdom. Excellence entails prolonged focus by exceptional people on a noble goal.

Bozos distract teams from what's most important & ultimately degrade performance.

So, no bozos indeed.

But there are pitfalls.

What is a bozo? Do we have objective, fair criteria?

Or is our process a popularity contest?

Are we humane? Does everybody get a fair shot at proving themselves?

Do we have clear, simple standards for processes, hiring, performance, and strategy deployment?

If the answer to some of these questions is NO, then all bets are off.

I've found that people labeled as troublemakers (or "bozos") are simply bored or frustrated by the chaos all around them.

Give good people clear objectives, quick feedback, and the ability to improve their processes - and they flourish!

By contrast, "stars" that have risen in chaotic cultures often fall apart, when we clear the fog with standards, visual management and good processes.

I call this "splitting" and it's common in transformations.

So, let's heed the wisdom of Steve Jobs and Jim Collins with the caveats noted above.

Be fair and objective. Provide clear standards, quick feedback and clear direction.

Kaizen your recruitment process. Be clear on what you want in new team members & creative in how to check for those qualities.

Above all, be humane.

Everybody deserves a fair chance.

If you've hired people that don't fit - help them find a place where they do.

Cheers,

Pascal

In Memory of Steve Jobs

They say Steve Jobs died the other day.

I don't have to believe it, if I don't want to.

Pascal