Frontiers - Lean & IT

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

By any objective measure, Lean has ‘done well’. Most major organizations have active Lean/Continual Improvement activities. Lean thinking has developed roots far from its manufacturing beginnings and into far-flung fields like healthcare, construction and the process industries.

Yes, there have been dead-ends, detours and growing pains.

Why do so many organizations fail to fully harvest Lean’s potential? How do we sustain Lean as a system, and not merely a set of tools?

How do we engage senior leaders more deeply?

Nonetheless, we’ve made good progress these past few decades.

So what’s next?

Information technology. How to translate the powerful Lean principles methods & principles in this vital, fascinating, yet often arcane field?

There has, of course, been some helpful cross-fertilization. Agile, for example, and its constituent methods (Scrum, Kanban..., are creative expressions of visual management, Pull and PDCA. But my sense is we've barely scratched the surface. (Are respect for people, quality in the process, and Strategy Deployment well understood?)

The obstacles are substantial. Information Technology language, mental models, and gembas are radically different than those in, say, manufacturing, logistics or the process industries.

IT value streams are among the most invisible my team & I have encountered. IT departments tend to be fragmented and often comprise multiple deep silos. (DEVOPS is a valuable attempt to integrate the software development and delivery process, and emphasizes communication and collaboration between product management, software development, and operations.)

On the plus side, IT practitioners are among the most capable and creative people we've ever worked with. As ever, shared experiential learning (Yokoten) begins with a shared understanding. I encourage Lean practitioners around the world to learn the language & business of IT, and to think deeply about how to support our colleagues there. (My daughter and I recently enrolled in a coding course, which took me back to my student days & reminded me I’m a bad coder…)

And I encourage our colleagues in IT shops around the world to learn & adapt the powerful thinking methodologies of Lean.

Should lead to interesting conversations.

Best regards,

Pascal



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

Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
On Big Data
Why Lean Outside the Factory?
Too Often, Power Means the Power to Do Stupid Things

When You’re Convinced You’re Right, You’ve Lost Your Ability to Learn

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

A deep bow to the late great psychologist, John Bradshaw, for the title. Dr Bradshaw, a genuine healer, recognized the corrosive effect of parental self-righteousness on children and families. [Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem]

The philosopher, Eric Hoffer saw self-righteousness as the driving force behind mass movements and fanaticism [The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements]

Self-righteousness is also corrosive to personal growth, and hence to lateral learning in an organization (Yokoten in Japanese). The confident, convinced and unquestioning mind is closed. ‘Been there, done that!’ is its motto.

Self-righteousness is usually caused by hubris, the ancient Greek word for arrogance, and occasionally by fatigue, laziness, and fear. People who are overwhelmed often invent mental shortcuts

What’s this got to do with management systems and leadership?

A strong management system comprises clearly defined end-of-pipe and process goals, visual management, daily huddles that highlight at each level:

• What’s going well,
• What’s not going well, and
• Why

Good leadership is about building a strong management system, and strong people, who can bring it to life. Good leaders try to live the great Paul O’Neill’s mantra:

• What did we discover is broken today?
• How did we fix it?
• How will we share the learning?

In my coaching experience suggests companies and leaders who try to live this way prosper beyond their wildest dreams.

But first we have to recognize the corrosive effect of self-righteousness. We have to cultivate debate, dissent, and a healthy skepticism.

We have to recognize that reality is far bigger than any of us can imagine. We see but a tiny sliver of it, and have no business being self-righteous.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

On Labels – ‘Expert, Master, Sensei’ and the like
Fred Taylor & the Illusion of Top-Down Control - Part 2
Fred Taylor & Illusion of Top-Down Control - Part I
Jackie Fisher – Transforming the Royal Navy

Yokoten, Meta-cognition and Leadership

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

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.

Cheers,

Pascal




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

Caffé Macaroni and Italian Design?
The Loneliness of the Small Business Owner
What is Courage & How does it relate to True North?
Lean, Leadership & Ethics, Part 1

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

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

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




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

Images and A3 Thinking
Why Lean in Sales?
Back to Basics - What is Value?
You Want to Get More Done? Do Less…

Frontiers - Lean & IT

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

By any objective measure, Lean has ‘done well’. Most major organizations have active Lean/Continual Improvement activities. Lean thinking has developed roots far from its manufacturing beginnings and into far-flung fields like healthcare, construction and the process industries.

Yes, there have been dead-ends, detours and growing pains.

Why do so many organizations fail to fully harvest Lean’s potential? How do we sustain Lean as a system, and not merely a set of tools?

How do we engage senior leaders more deeply?

Nonetheless, we’ve made good progress these past few decades.

So what’s next?

Information technology. How to translate the powerful Lean principles methods & principles in this vital, fascinating, yet often arcane field?

There has, of course, been some helpful cross-fertilization. Agile, for example, and its constituent methods (Scrum, Kanban..., are creative expressions of visual management, Pull and PDCA. But my sense is we've barely scratched the surface. (Are respect for people, quality in the process, and Strategy Deployment well understood?)

The obstacles are substantial. Information Technology language, mental models, and gembas are radically different than those in, say, manufacturing, logistics or the process industries.

IT value streams are among the most invisible my team & I have encountered. IT departments tend to be fragmented and often comprise multiple deep silos. (DEVOPS is a valuable attempt to integrate the software development and delivery process, and emphasizes communication and collaboration between product management, software development, and operations.)

On the plus side, IT practitioners are among the most capable and creative people we've ever worked with. As ever, shared experiential learning (Yokoten) begins with a shared understanding. I encourage Lean practitioners around the world to learn the language & business of IT, and to think deeply about how to support our colleagues there. (My daughter and I recently enrolled in a coding course, which took me back to my student days & reminded me I’m a bad coder…)

And I encourage our colleagues in IT shops around the world to learn & adapt the powerful thinking methodologies of Lean.

Should lead to interesting conversations.

Best regards,

Pascal

When You’re Convinced You’re Right, You’ve Lost Your Ability to Learn

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

A deep bow to the late great psychologist, John Bradshaw, for the title. Dr Bradshaw, a genuine healer, recognized the corrosive effect of parental self-righteousness on children and families. [Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem]

The philosopher, Eric Hoffer saw self-righteousness as the driving force behind mass movements and fanaticism [The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements]

Self-righteousness is also corrosive to personal growth, and hence to lateral learning in an organization (Yokoten in Japanese). The confident, convinced and unquestioning mind is closed. ‘Been there, done that!’ is its motto.

Self-righteousness is usually caused by hubris, the ancient Greek word for arrogance, and occasionally by fatigue, laziness, and fear. People who are overwhelmed often invent mental shortcuts

What’s this got to do with management systems and leadership?

A strong management system comprises clearly defined end-of-pipe and process goals, visual management, daily huddles that highlight at each level:

• What’s going well,
• What’s not going well, and
• Why

Good leadership is about building a strong management system, and strong people, who can bring it to life. Good leaders try to live the great Paul O’Neill’s mantra:

• What did we discover is broken today?
• How did we fix it?
• How will we share the learning?

In my coaching experience suggests companies and leaders who try to live this way prosper beyond their wildest dreams.

But first we have to recognize the corrosive effect of self-righteousness. We have to cultivate debate, dissent, and a healthy skepticism.

We have to recognize that reality is far bigger than any of us can imagine. We see but a tiny sliver of it, and have no business being self-righteous.

Best regards,

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.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

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

Pascal Dennis Bio

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

Yokoten – Rapid, Shared Learning Across an Organization

By Al Norval

How many times do you come across a great idea at one location and when you go to implement it at another location, you hear a range of excuses that sound like this:

• That works well for them but it won’t work here
• We’re different
• We’ve already solved that problem
• We’ve tried that already and it didn’t work

Ultimately what these boil down to is something we’ve all heard before – the not invented here syndrome. That is, the ability to discount any improvement idea that didn’t originate here with my team, isn’t worth trying or implementing. This is why best practice sharing often doesn’t work.

This leads to huge organizational waste where multiple parts of an organization are all re-inventing the wheel. A great example of the 8th waste – Knowledge Waste. This can be defined as – not having the right knowledge at the right time with the right team. The team then has to re-gain the knowledge and as we all know any process with a rework loop in it is waste.

What’s the countermeasure to this waste?

Yokoten – the ability to share knowledge rapidly across an organization. Not only share the knowledge but more importantly to implement the knowledge and even better to improve upon it and share the improvements back across the organization.

How do organizations do this?

By linking the sharing of knowledge to problem solving. After problems are solved, the problem, the root causes and the countermeasures are shared. Everyone then has the complete picture. Anyone with the same problem can see what the team did and what their thinking was when they solved the problem.

How do you get teams to implement the learning from other teams?

Key to this is for leaders to set stretch goals. If teams believe they can solve their problems and meet their targets without any help, they will be reluctant to implement countermeasures that worked with other teams. Stretch goals need to be set that are high enough that teams realize they need to learn from other teams to meet the goals. This creates a pull for the problem solving knowledge that is so foundational to Yokoten. Once the pull is created, teams will find ways to share and work together. Leaders need to create this pull for learning.

Good lean organizations recognize this and orchestrate many ways for teams to share and learn from each other. This enables them to set higher goals and improve at a faster pace than their competitors. Ultimately, they understand that reducing knowledge waste is one of the keys to long term organizational success.

Cheers

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

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

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