Justice Roberts could use some JIT

The post title above links to Mark Graban's LeanBlog - where he asks, "is it confidence or arrogance" that leads to Justice John Roberts thinking he could make it through the inauguration oath without a problem? If you haven't seen it, he switched some words around, making for an awkward moment - until he corrected himself. The next day, Justice Roberts and President Obama had a do-over of the oath in the White House. So, was Justice Roberts confident or arrogant?

I think the answer is: neither confident or arrogant. I’m going to hazard a guess and say that Justice Roberts put in many hours rehearsing this moment and had the oath down cold. The problem is, we forget that we forget things! And that gets worse when the pressure is on. It's so easy to forget where you were for a multitude of reasons.

A checklist or cue card would have been most helpful, and by making it through the inauguration without a problem would have built up Justice Roberts confidence ( "whew! I did it!") without increasing his arrogance ( "I did it with good preparation and with the help of this aid!" )

The same thing is true with a Job Breakdown Sheet. Trainers, even the most experienced trainers, forget things. Unfortunately, most trainers are the most experienced person in the genba. That fact, however, doesn’t make them good trainers. So, they need an aid to remind them about all the steps, the order and the keypoints for each step – so that they don’t forget.

I’ll wager that if Justice Roberts had been through a Job Instruction session – we would have seen an index card in his hand.