The Merciless Genba

It's been a few months now since I've posted to TWI Blog. My new position has consumed...well, what it hasn't consumed, I have spent with my family, not blogging!

However, I was reminded of a genba genshou (workplace phenomenon) the other night while doing some coaching and thought I should take a few minutes to share with you. The story, if you will, starts with me doing some genba observation and coaching the 3rd shift supervisor and operators to practice their observation and problem solving skills. As we focused on one area within their span of control, a few quick observations were made: a) the operator table was too low (2S level problem), and the inspection device had an unused component (1S level problem). Both problems resulted in potential ergonomic and safety issues that all operators recognized as problems that they have just accepted...check that, that is the manager in me speaking. Rather, perhaps they have learned to live with the problems as I wonder if they would welcome these problems into their daily work routine.

The next thing I had the supervisor do was take a photo of their observations. Then I asked a simple question: "What can be done about this?" The ideas came quickly and were simple. Raise the table to a height all operators agree to so one can sit properly at the table. Remove the unused component so the operators reach is not overextended.

Then, a curious question was put back to me: "Are we allowed to do that?" I was stunned by this. Our people, who butter our bread, felt like they could not make positive changes that would improve their workplace and make the job safer and easier. I was ashamed that I had inadvertently stripped their empowerment away from them. It really had come to this! As I chewed on that thought, I couldn't bring myself to cough up the pretentious answer: "Yes, you have my permission to make your job safer."

In trying to grasp this difficult situation, to try and understand this phenomenon, I could only reply enthusiastically: "This is the United States of America dammit, we can do anything!" At a company that manufactures ballistic eyewear for the Army, I got a few "Hoorahs" in reply! Now, I have to resist that awful instinctive management urge to rein them in and control the improvements! Indeed, leadership is a phenomena that is not always easy to grasp.

Kaizen Teian First. Kaizen Event Last.

It may have been Ohno that espoused "manual" kaizen first, before he encouraged his workers to tackle "machine" kaizen. In other words, he wanted his people to build up this skills of his people with simple things before they tackled more advanced problems.

The same advice can be adapted for leaders who are tempted to jump into their first Kaizen Event. My advice: BEWARE! A cautious approach is required especially when you put others interests in jeopardy. Notice I said, “others interests”. This could mean responsiveness to orders, cost sensitivity, safety or just plain ol’ good will.

I suggest to you that the (in)famous kaizen event often puts leaders into the very undesirable situation that is often difficult to overcome: likely failure.

Kaizen events have been so over-hyped based on short term results that their lack of lasting success is rarely considered as a deterrent to conducting one. Assuming you have few logistic, personnel and resource issues to deal with, here is the number one problem that you may encounter:

Forcing a Solution

As leaders we are supposed to develop people. The goal is NOT how many kaizen events we lead in the fiscal year. A common problem in kaizen events is encountered sometime around the middle of the week, or the, "Pit of Despair". The situation on Tuesday or Wednesday is that a solution is not visible to the team. Sometimes, a breakthrough is made and the team emerges from the Valley of Death, exhausted by trying to meet the "five-days-and-four-nights-deadline", somewhat incredulous of results and often not wanting to participate in a kaizen event for many weeks to come. If this has happened to you, you are half lucky and half successful. At least the team came up with a solution you accepted. 

The alternative path from the Pit of Despair is one that the team CANNOT navigate on their own. Here is where leaders may or may not have a predetermined solution in mind, or has an opinion of what the solution should or shouldn't be and the team members disagree or can't see it as a viable solution. In any combination of these scenarios, the leader resorts to being a manager and imposes his will on the team. In effect, he squashes their creativity, their intelligence, their will and self-esteem. Why do we do this? Sometimes we put our people into a situation where we feel we must impose our will because:

• we have chartered (committed our reputation as a leader) to conduct a kaizen event and promised to solve a problem, and/or,

• we feel our teams mistakes will jeopardize others' interests, including our own as stated previously.

In either scenario, we have failed as leaders.

In both instances, we have bitten off more than we can chew. And we have also probably done a poor job of planning and pre-work with the team members so that the problem and solution is not understood and worked out by the team prior to the event. The kaizen event and its outcomes should be preplanned, BY THE TEAM, prior to kickoff. Where will your people get the skills to do such a thing?

An alternative approach is to put your people in small, local, situations (e.g., workcell, cubicles, workstations, etc.) where they can make safe mistakes while honing there standardization, problem solving and collaborative skills with like minded people. In these situations they will realize many successes. As their kaizen skill increases as an individual, you can then pull those skilled, developed people together as a collaborative team to make safe, large improvements in a kaizen event that have been well thought out using the PDCA cycle – a skill that can only be honed first as individuals under your tutelage.

Kaizen Teian first. Kaizen Event last.

Further Reading:

Books about Kaizen Teian (employee involvement/idea/kaizen systems):

Kaizen Teian 1

Kaizen Teian 2

Improvement Engine (formerly, Kaizen Teian 3)

40 Years, 20 Million Ideas: The Toyota Suggestion System

The Amazing Oversight (from the seventies, collection of articles from management leaders)

Read about kaizen events some other time.

Stealing Monkeys

No, I'm not going to steal your pet chimp, but it is often tempting and easy to "steal a monkey" from people while in the genba...

While doing some follow up at a manufacturing plant in North Carolina, I heard this strange phrase from a number of supervisors talking to each other about problems on the floor. One described a problem he asked his people to tackle but were having trouble with. The two supervisors invariably started brainstorming solutions to the problem. The other supervisor stopped himself abruptly and said, "wait, wait, wait...let's not steal their monkey." I asked what this meant and the explanation makes perfect sense:

When somebody has a problem, they have a monkey on their back. We all have problems we must face. If I solve the problem for them, then I have stolen their monkey. What a great way to think about empowerment! And what an easy reminder for you to stop yourself before you solve a person's problem that they could solve on their own.

I heard other people saying, "don't take their monkey" but I like the effect "stealing" has on the concept of being a genba leader. When we steal their monkey, we are basically telling people not to think, not to worry, not to solve their own problems within their control. Why do I say this? When we "take" something from somebody as a genba leader, we do it in the context of helping them. But have we... really? Have we really helped them, or hurt them? Put another way, when we steal a monkey, we are stifling responsibility, creativity, morale, and thinking in the workplace, precisely the opposite of what we want in a lean culture. We wonder why people do not take action, or offer ideas - because we "take their monkeys" for them! We decide to do the heavy lifting for them.

Stealing is wrong. And stealing somebody's monkey is just as wrong as stealing their wallet, we are stealing their ideas, their pride and their creativity before they even have a chance to know it is gone. Don't steal their monkeys!

The Truth Hurts

Joe Ely at Learning About Lean shares my favorite lean post so far this year....take a look.

Essentially Joe is upset that his root cause analysis told him the truth, that he was avoiding the difficult task of fixing the problem.

I'm o.k. with people not "getting it." At least they have a fighting chance to learn something about themselves.

But after reading this post, this clarified something for me: sometimes people don't want to get it or maybe they don't know how to. They know the root cause. Why then do they not do anything about it? Well, Joe wanted to get it, so he did!

By paying attention to his root cause analysis, Joe really learned something about himself, one of the first steps to "getting lean." I wonder if, before his revelation, he didn't feel that he could do anything about the problem, was told that it wasn't important, didn't know what to do about it, or was told to back off. Either way, all options are a leadership problem. If Joe is working for a company, is there any excuse for his manager to allow these scenarios to occur?

Some managers though, will continue to use the same tired measures from 40 years ago. They know this causes wasteful behavior, but they continue to do it. Before you write them off, just remember that managers answer to someone just like you do.

This is why it is so important that continuous improvement start with top leadership. It is the leader's job to make people feel as if they are able to tackle problems, not accept them or feel as if they are stuck with them.

Hey, it Works for Buffet Restaurants...

JetBlue has an ALL-YOU-CAN-FLY promotion right now. For $599 (taxes and fees INCLUDED) you can fly to any of their 50 U.S. cities as many times as you can handle for a one month period. Geez! That is not a bad deal!

Sometimes innovation in your industry can be as easy as simple mimicry. Has this ever been done before in the airline industry?

Does Lean Stifle Creativity?

It is possible that the TWI Job Methods program had some influence in the concepts used in Kaizen Teian (creative suggestion) idea systems in Japan, most notably the questioning method. Despite the success of idea systems in Japan, numerous experts claim that monetary rewards are a must in the U.S. if we are to hope for any creativity to come out of our people. Most people I have mentioned suggestion systems to recoil in disgust or horror: "To expensive!" or "Waste of time!" are the knee jerk responses, if not conventional wisdom when it comes to the topic.

I know of two companies in the U.S., outside of Toyota that have implemented over 50,000 improvement ideas in a one year period. Cash incentives for each idea do not exist in the program. How then, do they defy the experts? Is this level of activity only for the short term? Maybe so. In the meantime, here are some thoughts on the matter...

When we coerce people into doing things, we often get the opposite result of what we desire. People intrinsically don't resent criticism and they don't resist change. But in the real world, they often do because the criticism doesn't come from within; it comes from an external source, usually their supervisor. This is what stubborn, resistant "cavemen" really mean when they say "you are doing Lean TO me, not WITH me." By the way, cavemen is a name given to people resistant to Lean improvements. "Enlightened" professionals use this term in jest during Lean training - slapping people in the face - under the guise of a "fun" PowerPoint presentation. How arrogant can we be? Do we know everything? How does this follow the principle, Respect for People?

I believe doing Lean TO people is what really stifles their creativity. People will lock up like a mule keep their great ideas to themselves. "Why should I provide a good idea, even if it benefits me, only to be criticized again and again? Is this what we have to look forward to with Lean? This isn't worth the grief and trouble." People will find the easiest path to happiness and avoiding criticism helps a person get there sooner, even if avoiding criticism is not in their best interest. What is the cost of avoiding criticism? In the case of suggestion systems and coercion, this is why cash incentives do not matter.

There is proof of this. In the real world, people change vehicles, clothes, appliances, homes, schools, work, citizenship, learn languages, change careers, education, read new genres, write, blog, invent, build new things and in general are demanding new changes from industry, friends, politicians, family and neighbors at ALL TIMES. In fact, people will pay hard earned cash for small changes, or even go into staggering debt for a life altering change. Yet, we think we have to pay them to come up with good ideas.

People do NOT resist change in their real lives, they seek it out even though the result may be sometimes slow to realize. It is us as managers that don't recognize this paradox in our artificial work world. To paint the human race with a broad stroke as unchanging, stubborn "cement-heads" (another derogatory term I've seen in Lean training slides...SLAP!) is not helpful for a continuous improvement paradigm. In fact, everyday as managers, we take people out of their real world and put them into an artificial world of work that, if done that way in the household, wouldn't make sense on so many different levels. And when they don't conform to this nonsensical world, they are punished. When we think about it, we have probably learned more about "lean" from life and work experience then from work and lean consultants. Why then should we expect people to comply to our artificial rules about creativity, improvement and standardization, when all we do is criticize only what they know?

This is why the TWI skills are so important. They provide a simple (better) framework for common sense workplace improvement and coaching, learning, advising, teaching - NOT criticizing and telling. In fact, I would dare say that constructive criticism is implicitly discouraged with TWI J-skills. Instead, the name of the game here is fact-based coaching for self-discovery and self-improvement. Leaders teach others improvement and standardization skills, so people can self-assess, self-criticize and self-improve. We don't tell people how to do their job. We only guide them in finding the best way to improve it and standardize it on their own. This is where the fuel for real creativity comes from, self-realization and ongoing, immediate needs. The only compulsory agreement between a person and their leader is that they try as best they can at what the leader is teaching them.

Example: Cleaning the kids room. We could say: "Your room is a pig stye, no? Go clean your room or you lose TV time tonight!" Or we could go to the area itself and ask, "Why are there toys all over the floor?" The answer may be, "I don't have room for all of my toys," or "My room isn't big enough!", perhaps one honest child will say, "I don't want to, it is too much work!"

As a parent leader, I can ask what my son can do about it. "Do you have toys that you don't use?" This may lead to some better self-discovery for my son that leads to creative solutions like donating the unused toys to other kids who would like to play with them or holding a yard sale so he can save some money. (likely to buy more toys, uggh.) The point is this: the easy way is the short-term-results-oriented-command-and-control-git-R-done method. The harder, long term problem solving method is the way of coaching and leading.

What do leaders really need to teach others without telling them what to do? Direct observation of problems as they occur in the workplace is the first thing to teach and fortunately this concept is built into all TWI J-skills. "What do you see here? Why do you think this happened? Can you look into this and find out more about it? Can I follow up with you about this on Friday?" The second thing leaders can teach is that ONLY a questioning attitude, NOT a telling attitude, is what will lead people to continuously create waste-free standardization. The third is that people must base their improvements on facts, not opinion. What you feel is one thing, what improves the situation is a whole other matter, let's stick to the facts so your solution will work for the long term. This third thing forces us to be really good at the fourth thing: follow-up. Why? Because as everybody already knows, things change...a problem is never really static. What you thought was the problem today is something else tomorrow. We need to follow up with two things as the situation changes: a) get a commitment from someone that they will try their best to work out the problems and b) be reliable and always be there to ask how you can help them.

That's just a few things, but these simple concepts, if only used by all workplace leaders, can go along way towards getting nearly 50K creative improvements realized in your company.

The 3Gs - Lean Thinkers are Detectives

Genba - Go to the Place – the Crimescene
Genbutsu - Get the facts – the Evidence
Genjitsu Genshou – Understanding the reality - why did it happen

Like a crime scene investigator, a lean thinker looks for problems where the problems occur. It’s hard to look at the whole area and see the details. A CSI agent turns out the lights and uses a small flashlight to look, inch by inch for evidence that could break the case.

Lean thinkers do the same thing in the workplace. Use your finger to focus on a very small detail. Or use a laser pointer. Focus on the detail. Perhaps it is a defect. Or an obvious a trip hazard. A sharp edge in a working area. Everyday, the order form is missing the same information. The sum of the details tell the whole story. These lean detectives find the evidence of abnormalities: the 3Ms, ( seven wastes, instability, overburdens) and they try to understand why the problem occurred.

From here, the Lean detective can understand what happened and work on the steps which will prevent the problem from occurring in the future. They know they can’t put these countermeasures in place alone…there are literally millions of problems to tackle. They know the only way to make this work is to encourage everyone to make small kaizen improvements and eliminate these problems from the workplace.

"Buy-in" - What Are You Selling?

A reader emailed and asked how to avoid the "crickets" when pitching an idea to others. You know the feeling....you have the best idea and run it past your people. You know this idea is going to change the way things work, people are going to wonder why we haven't done it before!

Their response: silence, except for the crickets chirping away.

Especially frustrating for managers who need to get things done, getting buy-in from the people that work for you is extremely difficult, if not rare. We have to ask ourselves though, what are we doing when we try to get buy-in? What do we really want from people?

As a supervisor or manager, we usually want someone to think through the great idea you gave them and then go do it. Very rarely does this actually happen. If it does, invariably the idea isn't done the way you had envisioned it. It seemed like such a great idea yesterday morning, while you were in the shower, when you do your best thinking of how it would work just right!

So if we are looking for our people to buy-in to something, what are we selling? An idea. What are you seeking for payment? Usually commitment and action. What do our people get in return? Our idea, that we wanted them to do in the first place. Most people would rather have you just tell them to do it rather than go through the meetings to pitch the idea in the first place. That is so much more efficient!

But do we ever really get buy-in? Do subordinates or peers truly own our ideas once they have "bought-in"? The most likely answer is no.

What we really want is people to own ideas and put them into action. Supervisors that spend their time influencing and encouraging their employees to try out their own ideas as problems arise are far more successful than supervisors that try to sell their own ideas to their employees. This is a key component to successful kaizen teian or suggestion systems found in lean companies like Toyota, Subaru, Canon, Matsushita, Technicolor, Autoliv and many others.

Suggestions for Cutting Costs at the Big Three

“We must eliminate every unnecessary cost in every aspect of our business,” Chrysler’s chairman, Robert L. Nardelli, told employees by e-mail on Friday.

In my experience, the devil is in the details. Chrysler has shut down some plant cafeterias and their executive restaurants. (I don't even know what to say to that) GM is shutting down elevators early, but their sales execs are working till 8:00 pm and can't walk the 39 flights of stairs when they are ready to leave. Maintenance and training budgets are being scaled back. What is bailout prone exec to do?!

These are not real cost reductions. In lean thinking, ideally, cost reductions are permanent and can be passed along or shared by all stakeholders. Eventually, Chrysler will open their cafe. Someday, those elevators need to be turned back on. A machine WILL break down. Parts will need to be replaced. These are NOT cost reductions in the context of long term continuous improvement.

I think the first step to understanding is to ask: what does cost reduction mean and how do we make it permanent then? In my opinion, it doesn't mean grabbing a red pen and slashing your way through the budget to make the bottom line look black for a given period; that is a profitability approach and doesn't address the long term. Real cost reduction means involving each and every person in the company, asking and encouraging them to put forth the effort to rethink how they do things everyday - so that the result is better in terms of cost, quality, safety and so on.

So, its your turn. If you were to advise Mr. Nardelli and his counterparts at GM and Ford on this matter: What would you suggest they consider cutting? Keep in mind that everything is on the table: "eliminate every unnecessary cost in every aspect of their business"

Any suggestions? I'll start. How about the time and resources required to purchase a vehicle? Do I need three salespeople working on my sale? Do I really need to resort to bringing my toddler in to the showroom so I can put him and his muddy shoes in the convertible so I can move things along more quickly? Why the unnecessary costs and aggravation? By the way, this was at a Nissan Dealership. We are talking culture here folks! Can we possibly rethink the method of selling cars and weigh it against the actual customer satisfaction index and perceived value of said method that customers are forced to endure?

Your suggestions for Mr. Nardelli, Mullaly and Wagoner, please!

What is the ROI on employee suggestion systems?

Bring up the phrase "suggestion system" and most managers bristle at this taboo discussion. Here is a great example of why we should engage in kaizen teian everyday - example provided by Anshu Jalora on the LinkedIn network:

Around early 90s, a leading toothpaste manufacturer in India was faced with the challenge of increasing its sales. The sophisticated approaches developed by the marketing and sales personnel, who had big degrees from top business institutes (Harvard, Stanford, IIMs, etc.) were having little effect. VP-marketing wanted an innovative approach, and opened the floor to all employees of the company to give suggestions. They received a very interesting suggestion from a junior shop supervisor. His suggestion was to increase the diameter of the opening of the toothpaste tube by 25%. If this is done, then for the Same length of toothpaste squeezed out, the volume will be 56% more. More consumption, more sales. His suggestion was accepted, and the company noticed an increase of 20% in year over year sales. Simple enough!

Norman Bodek in Vermont - Sustaining a Lean Culture

Norman Bodek came to visit us in the great state of Vermont on Friday, 2/29. About 100 of the finest people representing Vermont manufacturing gathered at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Waterbury to hear what Norman had to say about sustaining a lean culture.

Norman worked the morning crowd in typical fashion - he had them laughing, wondering where he was going with all of this. Just when you were trying to put it all together in your head, Norman brings you back on topic, and the pieces fall together.

The first message I took home: ask people to make two improvements every month, and support them in doing just that. Sustainment isn't saying that we are doing lean, dabbling in the tools - sustaining is to "learn by doing".

The second message: keep it simple. I was reminded of my first "lean" project as Norman spoke about measuring the eight wastes themselves...people were complaining about taking time from production to go see engineering about changes to the job. I set up a "toll booth" to the door of engineering - every person through those doors ticked off their toll, an average $7 per visit in lost production time, to correct information errors found on the shop floor. People were EAGER to highlight this waste. Problems in engineering package design were fixed as a result of highlighting these wastes: direct measure of the waste of motion, waiting and over-processing.

Often we get caught up in making simple concepts complex. Ask people to come up with two ideas per month and suppor them in it. Directly measure the eight wastes, NOT indirectly through innocuous financial or cost accounting measures.

Thanks Norman, for the reminder!

Kaizen Teian Poll Results

I constantly test the waters with the following question: "what about a suggestion system?" only to be met with a sideways glance, slight rolling of the eyes and the nail in the coffin: "Suggestion systems don't work."

I posed a more detailed question on the TWI Blog. Results are below.

98% of total respondents think Kaizen Teian (suggestion or proposal system) is possible in the U.S., however...

38% of the total responses indicated an overhaul of management culture is required to make it so.

2% think Kaizen Teian is not feasible in the U.S.

Normally, the "Suggestion systems don't work." is followed up with, "a box on the wall doesn't make any improvements." I personally couldn't agree more that this style of suggestion system, with no active management-worker engagement, is doomed for failure. This helps explain the results of the poll: many people feel kaizen teian systems are possible in the U.S., but requires a different set of management behaviors to sustain the program.

Sample size 47 online respondents

Is Lean a religion?

I've seen quite a few discussion forum posts on the Lean debate being compared to a debate on religion. Either you are a believer or you are not is one argument. The other typical argument is that there is common ground in the middle somewhere. A common criticism of this argument is that lean could be advanced much more quickly and effectively if the zealots would stop viewing lean as a religion. My take is this:

It sounds (and in a way it is) a religious argument because as many people will realize about lean, over time we are talking about a philosophy in leading an organization.

Encarta Dictionary: Philosophy

1) school of thought - a particular system of thought or doctrine

2) guiding or underlying principles - a set of basic principles or concepts underlying a particular sphere of knowledge

3) set of beliefs or aims - a precept, or set of precepts, beliefs, principles, or aims, underlying a person's practice or conduct.

There are many similarities between traditional manufacturing and lean manufacturing: each requires production control, sales and marketing, engineering, supervision, human resources and accounting. But the philosophy of HOW to do this while respecting people is drastically different; if not polar opposites. For this reason alone, it is not unreasonable to expect severe differences of opinion in how to run business. Because we hang on to our old habits, we fail at understanding the lean philosophy, and this is due to the cultural behaviors so prevalent in the discipline of U.S. management. When we do not understand, we will not try; when we do not try, we will not do it; when we do not do it, we will not understand. In lean, the concept of 'learning by doing' and experiential learning is so highly valued in the gemba.

A couple of the underlying disciplines in Lean/TPS are production engineering and manufacturing engineering. These two disciplines heavily influence the philosophy of TPS. In my experience, I can think of many examples where a manager of a department or company on the "lean journey" either:

a) doesn't understand any of these disciplines (or those which are related)

b) holds the traditional belief of these disciplines that work standards exist to enable command and control management, in other words - hold people accountable (U.S. speak for disciplining them when they do something wrong or make a mistake.)

In other words, in order for lean to be successful, it must be part of how a person conducts themselves as a manager. Traditional manufacturing in terms of production/manufacturing/industrial engineering does not hold the concept of employee involvement in high regard. This is a fundamentally fatal flaw of traditional western management yet is a core philosophical point that underlies lean management, or TPS.

Is my assessment far off the mark?

Lean Kaizen Teian TWI Survey

A question was posed on a popular lean forum this past week: "why do we have trouble sustaining lean in the U.S.?" Without question, the answers are numerous and all over the board. My basic belief is that any inititative that we want to stick requires a change in habits. But we cannot expect people to change if we don't change our own habits first.

The Kaizen Teian system is probably the most long standing successful program to do that in the factory environment. This blog deals with this topic to a large degree since I feel that everyone should be involved with the change. TWI is the only program I know of that in the past 100 years can be compared to the Kaizen Teian system, and is arguably the precursor the japanese kaizen teian system itself. See my content site with public domain materials and my commentary and judge for yourself.

At any rate, I'm curious what do you think of the modern suggestion system, Kaizen Teian, and how it would work in the United States? See the poll on the front page of the TWI blog and be heard!

Job Methods New Materials Update - TWI Service Website

I'm doing my spring cleaning in the winter! A couple of days ago, I announced the Job Relations materials update. There is also some Job Instruction for Healthcare. Hospitals need as much standardization improvement today as they did during the days of Gilbreth, Mogensen and others recognizing the need for standardization and simplification of healthcare work.

Today, visit the Job Methods page for insight behind Toyota's secrets to Kaizen, TWI! Dig deeper into the development of Job Methods and Kaizen by exploring archival documents retrieved from the U.S. Archives.

Incentives and Human Behavior

After this phone conversation, I can only assume that the managers at the local paper must have been given a mandate: increase revenue in classified ads. Too bad they didn’t inform paying customers how they were going to do that. Consider the following true conversation:

Classified Ad Saleswoman: “O.k., so what do you want your ad to say?”

Customer: “1997 Volvo Sedan 4D, pw, pl, ps, air, CD, 35,400 miles. One owner, great condition. $5500 OBO. 555-5555 anytime”

Saleswoman: “O.k. that sounds good. Umm…do want to keep the ‘OBO’?”

Customer: “Uh yeah…(thinking)…why do you ask?”

Saleswoman: “Well we don’t abbreviate OBO anymore.”

Customer: “Well, o.k…just out of curiosity, why?”

Saleswoman: “Well….OBO could be misconstrued as meaning something else. We just don’t want anyone confused by what OBO means. So we are now asking our customers to spell out “or best offer.”

Customer: (thinking something fishy) “Hmm. O.k. I understand. Do we need to spell out other abbreviations, like cyl., auto, 4D, pb, pw, ps, CD, AM/FM or things like that?”

Saleswoman: “Oh no, everyone knows what those mean. It’s just OBO that causes confusion. Everyone knows that auto means “automatic transmission”.

Customer: “Oh, it doesn’t mean ‘automobile’? Are you sure there isn’t some other reason why we can’t use OBO?”

Saleswoman: (Laughs nervously) “Uh, well no. I mean, it’s just to make sure nobody is confused. It’s for our customers benefit.”

Customer: “Well, I’ll tell you what. It sounds like OBO can be confusing. How about I just save some money and keep it out. Sound good to you?”

Saleswoman: “Uh, are you sure? We can spell it out for you just to be safe?”

Customer: “No most people negotiate anyway. I’ll work it out with the buyer. Thanks anyway though”

Increasing revenue may be the goal, but the means to do that is not by coercing people to buy more words under false pretenses. This leads to distrust by your customer. An incentive must be put in place to get people to buy more words. In this case, people now have an incentive to NOT buy more words. This is why abbreviations were made in the first place. As cars acquired more features, i.e., standards of living increased, people needed to fully describe the vehicle they were selling. This of course became expensive for classified ad buyers, takes up precious commerical ad space on the paper and in general requires more print materials and space. Abbreviations are cost saving measures for both the printer and customer. To all of you managers out there, this is called progress through improvements.

A great book about incentives, progress and human behavior is Freedomnomics, a well written rebuttal of the book Freakonomics. To get “the other side of the story”, check it out.

Leadership is a Habit

I've been doing quite a bit of reflection on habits lately, after reading Charles Allen's book, Managing Minds, probably for two reasons, 1) my bad habit of procrastination regarding non-value-added tasks and 2) this nagging feeling that leadership is closely dependent on habit formation in some way or another.

On the social network, LinkedIn, I asked the question regarding habit formation, breaking habits, etc. and how that played into leadership and standard work. Many people responded to the question, in slightly different ways, but all agreed that old habits must be replaced by repeating a new one until it is the dominant habit.

In the workplace, I can't help but think this must be led by the supervisor or team leader of an area. After all, they are only one close enough to the process to see variation everyday, yet be able to sort of which habits must be broken first through standardization and then the systematic pursuit of perfection. All of this must be done in alignment with business needs, so if done correctly, the supervisor can develop his people while meeting business needs such as cost reduction, reduced scrap and improved delivery.

While browsing learning organization sites today, I ran across this "time capsule" site. In the sidebar was a quote by Aristotle that suggests that leaders must make a habit of leading.

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

Aristotle

For supervisors on the shop floor, then, the habit of excellence must be done with each and every person, every day. It seems to me that this can best be done by using the J programs in a well thought out Kaizen Teian system. Last Friday on 11/16, Chuck Yorke delivered to the Vermont Manufacturer's Forum a talk regarding suggestion systems. Chuck implemented a daily continuous improvement program at Technicolor where employees offered and implemented over 20,000 ideas per year! The work done at Technicolor was so impressive that, in fact, SME created a video of the program, called The Human Side of Lean at Technicolor. This can only be done by getting people to think about their work and make suggestions until it becomes a habit. In fact, we discussed with the Chuck the value of using a program like TWI as the foundation for a solid suggestion program to which he agreed would only bolster a program such as the one at Technicolor. Chuck really helped me understand how to link how we engage people, similar to those taught to TWI supervisors, to the success of the suggestion program. Thanks Chuck!

New and improved TWI Blog!

As a new blogger, I'm constantly learning about how to run a blog. One of the things that I have learned very quickly is to keep things as simple as possible. The new look of the blog is meant to be simple, easy to read and navigate with a minimum of inconvenience as possible. Please post any comments and suggestions here for further improvement and enjoy!

TWI Job Relations could help GM and UAW

The first nationwide strike in thirty years is finally here. I'm surprised it wasn't sooner than this to be honest. See this NPR article for the full story. What caught my eye was the following excerpt:

"They are losing money every day the strike takes place. Very shortly it will paralyze their Canadian and Mexico operations," Shaiken said.

But the longer the union stays on the picket lines, the more it could encourage GM to ship more jobs abroad.

"They are globally integrated like they have never been before, so they have an option whether to invest here in the U.S. or invest in other places," said David Cole, an industry analyst. "They have basically said that if we have a contract that enables us to be competitive we will invest; if not we will disinvest in the U.S. and use our money where we think we can get a better return."

One has to ask if anyone at the UAW is minding the store, it sounds like GM is at least keeping an eye on their investment return, like any well run corporation should. If they were to simply evaluate the facts first, with a little forward thinking, we see a short and likely bitter demise to the UAW if this goes south on them:

"The 73,000 auto workers now on strike at General Motors now face the prospect of getting by on only $200 a week from the union. If a deal is not reached, the workers' health insurance will cease on Oct. 1."

This is acceptable to the workers? Is it not time to weigh the facts of a modern global economy against the ideals of an outdated management methods, on both sides of this bargaining table?

GM: change your management methods. Work with your employees towards improving your business with a promise of job security. In other words, help your people help themselves.

UAW: what benefits can you bring to the table in that you work with management, not against them? If growth of both organizations is the goal here, how is a combative relationship going to smooth out the process of getting there?

There was a testimonial letter in the TWI Archives about how an AFL-CIO representative negotiated the entire union contract and collective bargaining while sticking to the four step method of Job Relations.

Chasing Rabbits

Sometimes we do things we think are right, when in fact, we are really chasing a rabbit down an endless trail. Have you ever tried to catch a rabbit? It kind of brings out the kid in you. During our last family vacation in Orlando my sons were fascinated with the rabbits all over the resort property. Being boys and all, naturally, most of our time was spent trying to catch a rabbit and not waiting in endless lines at the theme parks. It was a lot of fun to watch at first, the rabbits rocketing through the bushes and darting in directions faster than the kids could comprehend. It’s a wonder nobody twisted an ankle. In the end though, the kids ended up with a good dose of frustration and dirty knees and elbows, since they don’t have the ability to change their direction ninety degrees at lightning speed. In short, the kids used up a lot of energy, had some fun doing it, but never came up with the prize. When it comes to leadership training we see much of the same thing.

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of buzz about empowerment and workforce training, with the idea that it is critical for a successful “lean transformation”. Many studies and surveys are available on the topic. What troubles me about all of the training that is occurring is that much of it is not related to the work we do. For example, a 2004 IW/MPI study found that “more than one in four plants in the U.S. have a majority of the workforce empowered”, with empowerment being “a cornerstone of North American H.R. best practices, ensuring employees’ ownership of day-to-day activities as well as the authority to improve their roles on a continuous basis and incrementally impact the bottom line.” My question is not about whether these people are truly “empowered” or not, but what skills did they learn in the training itself that they use on a daily basis that impacts the bottom line?

If you have been to “empowerment” seminars like I have, you have been likely told a couple of things:
1. You will have increased autonomy
2. You will be more fulfilled
3. You will be improving the business
4. You can make a difference

All of this is true, if you are taught the skills to do so and are supported everyday in practicing those skills. The problem with the myth of empowerment is that the training doesn’t show you how to be empowered; it just tells you that you need to start being empowered. The managers that still manage the old way don’t know how to be empowered, and certainly don’t know how to support empowered people. My guess is that those one in four companies have successfully completed some level of empowerment training, but have yet to see the results. In short, many companies chase empowerment down the rabbit trail, feel good while they are doing it, but come back a few years later empty handed.

If you study formal proposal systems such as Toyota’s Suggestion System, it embodies true empowerment, yet ironically, doesn’t advertise it as such. Study this system; you will find that by teaching people the three basic skills a leader needs: 1) how to teach, 2) how to improve methods and 3) how to lead people, supervisors and team leaders can achieve empowerment without being told to do so. Isn’t this what the empowerment proponents really wanted anyway? How do the survey respondents in the IW/MPI study quantify the success of empowerment training? Frankly, they don’t. They simply state that a certain number of people are trained. But with TWI, the success of your training is measured by the actual proposals generated through the Job Methods program. At Toyota, the JMT thinking is now taught through the kaizen/standard work training. The result, in a forty year period, Toyota’s employees generated 20 MILLION documented, well thought-out, implemented ideas. The fact that they can report this is amazing in itself, yet proof that management supports this form of empowerment by encouraging people to use the simple skills they have learned, not by just telling alone. That my friends, is how you catch a rabbit…oops, uh, twenty million rabbits.