Kaizen is Always Individual
By · CommentsLast spring, Dr Balle the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute and I had a conversation on Kaizen which resulted in an 8-week series of videos and a podcast. This is a 34 page transcription of the discussion. I think you will find it entertaining and will provide a different way of viewing continuous improvement and Kaizen.
An excerpt from the transcription:
Joe: Michael, when you talk about Kaizen, you talk about Kaizen on an individual basis. Can you explain that?
Michael Balle: Absolutely. Kaizen is always individual. There’s a difference in perspective, and we’re very biased by our Taylorist pasts. Our understanding we usually have is that performance is the result of processes. We all buy that, and its fine. Our thinking is that if you hit each of these processes with an improvement project, and people call it Kaizen but it’s not, then the results should be improved performance.
Evidence over the past 20 years has shown that this is not the case. What you do have is quick hits. You can have some savings, or you have some low?hanging fruit, but you don’t have the improvement we’re looking for.
The other way of looking at this is that any process is just a collection of individuals. If each individual is better at their job, then collectively they will come up with a process that performs better and delivers in performance. I think this is the key to understanding. Kaizen is an individual activity to make you better at your job. This is something we see with Lean students.
After studying Lean for a while, you ask them the question, “Do you feel you’re mastering Lean better?” and they say, “Well, no. The system, it seems still as mysterious and deep and hard to master.” You ask them the second question, “Are you better at your jobs? Do you feel you’re better at your jobs?” They say, “No debate, Absolutely, yes.” They’re confident that they’re a lot better at their jobs. This is what Kaizen is about.
Kaizen is about improving you, Joe. By doing Kaizen, you will improve how you see your job and how you perform at your job. This will make you stop making some classic mistakes, for this will also make you discover innovative ways of doing your job.
As we all pull together with a deeper understanding of our jobs, we create processes that our competitors can never touch. In order to hold those better processes, each of us has to be better at our jobs.
Dr. Balle went on to say:
Really, the essence of Kaizen is building people an understanding, a vision, of the waste their technical choices imposes on the work chain. It is an individual thing as it is their technical choices and it is a collective thing as it’s not the waste they impose on themselves but the waste they impose on their suppliers, the waste they impose on their internal customers.
This conversation was one of the reasons I delayed publishing the Lean Engagement Team and more specifically the chapter on the iCustomer and iTeam. It did not change my thinking of teamwork and individual responsibility but it did re-frame the way I viewed and described those two subjects. The book is available as a PDF download on the Business901.com website or on Amazon:
Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [Ring-bound]
Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [CD-ROM]
The Kaizen Series
Dr. Balle Friday Video Series
Audio Collection of Dr. Balle on Kaizen
Ankit Patel, principal partner with The Lean Way Consulting firm while doing some work with the Cleveland Clinic, discovered Appreciative Inquiry and saw an opportunity to blend it with his work in Continuous Improvement. I found the work fascinating and this is the subject of this Business901 podcast. An excerpt of the podcast can be found on this blogpost, Connecting Continuous Improvement and Appreciative Inquiry. 
Ankit told me before the podcast, “The basic concept is use AI as the starting point. It’s the starting point to a strategic initiative and then go into the traditional tools once there is a “pull” from staff on what they want to become. It’s a great way to do strategy and other process improvements. Basically the best way I’ve seen to introduce changes via an AI methodology and then go into the specifics, strategy, process improvement, etc.”
Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Download Here or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.
More about Ankit Patel: Ankit was a Lean consultant for Dell Inc. overseeing Dell’s Manufacturing and Re-Manufacturing production processes in Lebanon, TN. He has helped guide the multi- billion dollar plant in strategic planning, coaching executives at the plant, facilitating Kaizen events, and training Lean leaders at all levels of the organization. Ankit combines a unique approach of positive psychology, culture improvements, strategy, and process improvement to get companies results. His latest venture is in bringing Appreciative Inquiry to the field of continuous improvement.
Related Information
Lean Engagement Team Book Released
Appreciative Inquiry and Organizational Change
My Engagement Strategy – Appreciative Inquiry
Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative
Is Lean still on the Wagon or is it Ready to Fly?
By · CommentsRecently, I have been involved in a LinkedIn Thread, When Lean fails, most people draw the wrong conclusion and assume it is Leadership. They blame leadership as being shortsighted. I think this view is not only wrong but it is dead wrong. I based this question on a recent blog post, The Difficulty of Mastery = The Difficulty of Lean and this except below:
Our primary problem is not leadership but a long standing culture that is engrained within our organizations. It’s the way we do things. But worse it is also the way others help us do things. The outside forces that surround us to include vendors, customers and for that matter our entire supply chain simply supports the way we have always done things. So, not only do we have to create change internally but externally as well. It is not only a pain but it has to be someone else’s pain. Or does it?
The predominant response has been that I am flat out wrong. Leadership is always ultimately responsible. I encourage you to participate. There are a boat-load of great comments. In addition, a few of mine are sprinkled in. My first reply in this conversation:
Ultimately we can always blame leadership because they are the “leaders.” I am not saying Leadership does not take responsibility, I think most of them do. You listed a long list of deficiencies, how does someone become a leader with that amount of incompetence?
If what you say is true, would we have to agree that Lean must be top down driven? Leaders can mandate a cultural change or in milder terms lead one? My point is that a leader (Superman only comes around occasionally) alone may not be able to effectively accomplish a culture change. The organization alone may not be able to do it. External forces such as suppliers and customers must also be willing (you may have to shed yourself of a couple of each).
I think it is to easy to just say leadership. Does leadership influence everything? Will they be the ones to be help responsible? I agree, no arguments. However, I think the focus of leadership alone being help responsible is outdated. If we encourage collaboration and empower the workforce – there has to be shared responsibility to make it all work.
I challenge these thoughts because I feel for Lean to grow it has to move away from the assumption that it is always Leadership’s fault. I think we are moving towards a more collaborative organizational structure and with that more shared responsibilities.
In that structure, there are influencers based on Internal, External and Methodologies that will be dependent on Individual and Team responsibilities for success. This is the prescription for transformation or change. I believe Lean is the methodology of choice but stop short of accepting the status quo that has been challenged throughout this thread.
For Lean to proliferate it cannot just rely on Leadership and willpower to hold the course. Do you need it, yes. But we also use to travel from coast to coast in a covered wagon and arrive with a whole new group of people. Now we do it in 4 hours and complain about waiting 5 minutes for luggage (Forget which comedian said this).
My point is that if we are moving to a more collaborative work-style and co-producing and co-creating products with customer, should responsibility be redefined? Should this atmosphere create a shorter cycle of transformation? Should our value stream be only an internal process? Will customers ever leave us co-create with them without accountability driven down to our lowest level of engagement?
I believe Lean is positioned to do this but see this future clouded by thoughts of only Leadership is responsible and that Lean is a journey that takes time. The world is becoming more collaborative and doing things in real time. Should Lean not be mimicking that experience? A better question might be, is Lean still on the wagon or is it ready to fly?
Related Information:
Six Sources of Influence in Change
Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success .
Does Lean need to move beyond Deming?
Why won’t Lean commit to the Demand Chain the way it committed to the Supply chain?
Appreciative Inquiry and Organizational Change
By · CommentsWhat is Appreciative Inquiry is a hi-def training video that includes the 5 principles, 4-D Cycle, positive core, Summit Process, and story of how Appreciative inquiry began. It’s presented by Jackie Kelm at www.AppreciativeEngagement.com.
The methodologies of Lean, Service Design and Design Thinking co-exist with appreciative inquiry very well. Especially, when we are looking at things from a more strategic and organizational level. The above video and the article below when viewed from an existing framework of Lean, Service Design and Design Thinking opens a sea of opportunity. I consider the cultural change and mental models that must occur in a transformation. Why not take a positive approach?
We are all familiar with the many attributes of positive thinking but seldom are they practiced as part of organizational development. In an article by David Cooperrider he discusses the framework called the IPOD (Innovation-inspired Positive Organization Development). The theory of change underlying IPOD is articulated, including the three stages in creating strengths-based organizational innovation: 1) the elevation-and-extension of strengths, 2) the broaden and-building of capacity, and 3) the establishment of the new-and-eclipsing of the old.
Read the entire article here: Positive Organization Development: Innovation-inspired Change in an Economy and Ecology of Strengths
Related Information:
Getting Resistance to Appreciative Inquiry?
Lean Engagement Team Book Released
Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving
