Archive for Lean
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: How to implement Lean Thinking in a Business
Posted by: | CommentsTracey Richardson’s How to implement “Lean Thinking” in a Business is my third and final blog review for the John Hunter’s Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival. Tracey is a trainer, consultant and principal of Teaching Lean Inc. She has 22 years of Lean experience and worked at Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY as a team member, team leader and group leader in the Plastics Department from 1988-1998. She has over 460 hours training in Toyota Methodologies and Philosophy and currently is a trainer for Toyota, their affiliates in North America, and other companies upon request. Tracey experience in Toyota methodologies including: Lean Problem Solving, Quality Circles, Lean Manufacturing tools, Standardized Work, Job Instruction Training, Toyota Production System, Toyota Way Values, Culture Development, Visualization (Workplace Management Systems), Continuous Improvement (Kaizen), Meeting Facilitation/Teamwork, and Manufacturing Simulations. 
Tracey also was the 2010 recipient of the Business901 Podcast of the Year! The podcast discussed A3 problem Solving.
Tracey likes to discuss the culture before jumping into problem solving but she takes a look at culture from a different perspective than others. It just about comes across as an attitude (in a very polite way) and there is type of swagger about the whole thing. Why not? When you become #1 in the world such as Toyota did and you are #1 methodology in the world which Lean probably is, why not have that swagger to your discussion? It is not pompous, it is an attitude that what you are doing works! She doesn’t write enough in my opinion because of her commitments as a trainer but her blog is one you should follow, you do not want to miss a word she says. You can also find her answering questions on the Lean Enterprise’s A3 Dojo Website.
What does the word “Lean” mean to you or your Company?
As I travel around the U.S. working with various companies that make a variety of different products, I realize a common denominator throughout them. How do they define the word “lean”, as well as the word “culture”? What I have realized is very interesting!
When I first started consulting I felt it was all about the “tools”, and that’s what companies seem to want, so of course, that’s what they got. As I have matured as an instructor/consultant I, like many, I have led and learned at the same time. In my experience at Toyota, especially back when we were led by the Japanese and their questioning approach; we all as new leaders were being led but at the same time leading others, so it was bringing about the “respect for people” and developing the workforce as a team. I can’t ever recall in my time at Toyota (Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY – TMMK 1988-1998), that we ever labeled what we were doing in a specific word like “Lean”, nor did we really think about our daily actions as a “culture”. It was just in the atmosphere. It wasn’t until I left Toyota to teach others, that those words started to surface. Somehow we felt the need to give it a name, and as I’ve experience the last 13 years as a consultant, I feel that can have somewhat of a hindering effect…..
Pathway to creating a “Lean Culture”
As I travel around to various clients they are always asking me, “How do you implement or create a culture like Toyota has”? I tell them that’s a very loaded question :). There are so many aspects of creating that culture it’s hard to give a short answer or even “wave a magic wand” to say… “Here is what you should do!!”. I wish I was that good . How I see it, you really need to differentiate the People side of Lean versus the Tool side. The People side will always be the most difficult aspect of the discipline needed to create this thing called Culture. The tools are just what they are, mostly countermeasures to change some discrepancy in our process. For the tools to be successful, People must understand their involvement or the purpose behind the tools. As I have stated in previous blog posts you must explain from the company perspective the WHAT, HOW and the WHY of any change or expectation within a persons work….
Tracey’s website: http://teachingleaninc.com and email: tracey@teachingleaninc.com
Related Information:
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: Graham Hill at CustomerThink
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011: The 99 Percent Solution
LabWorks Opens in the Lean Marketing Lab
The importance of PDCA in Marketing
How a Jazz Quartet exhibits Pull
Posted by: | CommentsStefon Harris: There are no mistakes on the bandstand – What is a mistake? By talking through examples with his improvisational Jazz quartet, Stefon Harris walks us to a profound truth: many actions are perceived as mistakes only because we don’t react to them appropriately. More importantly, Stefon description of how pull works in the middle of a jam session is outstanding. It is a great lesson for teamwork and customer engagement and besides that the music is good!
Related Information:
It’s the Who, not the Why @simonsinek
This is Service Design Thinking: Basics – Tools – Cases
The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion
A Beginning Step to Co-Creation
Does your Value Proposition speak of the Customer Experience?
Six Sources of Influence in Change
Posted by: | CommentsFrom my blog post, The Difficulty of Mastery = The Difficulty of Lean, I started discussing the book, Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success . I found the work paralleling Lean in many of its approaches and put Lean practices in parenthesis. Their strategy is based on four simple steps:
- Identify Crucial Moments (Identify Value)
- Create Vital Behaviors (Map Value Stream)
- Engage All Six Sources of Influence (Create Flow – Enable Pull)
- Turn Bad Days into Good Data (Seek Perfection – PDCA)
I stopped short of discussing the six sources of influence and have included them here:
- Personal Motivation
- Personal Ability
- Social Motivation
- Social Ability
- Structural Motivation
- Structural Ability
I am going to use a different perspective on these influences looking at it from a perspective of an organization trying to change and using Lean and my own thoughts to orchestrate the change.
Organizational Motivation will never persist without the change being tied to the marketplace. Dan Jones recently wrote in the blogpost, How can Lean Survive that “The best chance for lean to survive a change in top management is if it is seen to be delivering significant results, not just point improvements in key processes but bottom-line results for the organization as a whole, which would be reversed if support for lean disappeared. I disagree with the statements that you just have to accept that it is going to work and not expect results. Results are the motivating factors.
Organizational Ability requires learning new skills if you are going to change. If change is difficult we will take the path of least resistance. Mastering a new set of tools is never easy and that is why Lean is so powerful. Lean is based on standards, knowing how the process should work because if it’s clear, then when we see a variation from the process we can react immediately. This allows us to choose one problem from the other and just solve them one by one. This is incredibly powerful because with lean systems we rely on increasing our competency, increasing our training without having to take people off line, without having to get to classrooms, but by building it into the way we work.
Social Motivation and Social Ability go hand in hand. Employees, Suppliers, and even Customers would rather you not change. They want to deal with the known. Even voters will vote for someone that they know and disagree with over the unknown. You have to re-define the norm for example through Value Stream Mapping or an A3. You have to get those around you on board with the new ideal or without you will fall victim to those old tired out ways that have become ineffective. Surround yourself with willing partners that will push you to this new ideal. This is sometimes where a consultant can play a role.
Structural Motivation can be difficult in organizations since external goals are difficult to recognize. We can see internal improvements sometimes immediately. But these internal improvements may not result in the needle being moved in the marketplace. An effective motivator may be the fear of loss. Can you tie lost market opportunities to your change efforts? Can you demonstrate even the smallest of wins? If you can, it will significantly increase the odds of success.
Structural Ability small changes in your environment have a surprising effect on your choices. This is where Lean plays such a huge role in change. Lean is not rigorous. It uses visualization and it’s a readymade tool set that reduces the resistance to change. What Lean does require though is rigorous use to be successful.
Lean is a change tool but it is not a cure all. Dr. Balle said in an interview with me, “Lean is not a revolution; it is find one problem and solve one problem.” I wish you the best on your journey of change!
Related Information:
Inspiring Innovation thru Standard Work
Value can no longer be defined as What a Customer will pay for!
The importance of PDCA in Marketing
Even Seinfeld used Standard Work
The Difficulty of Mastery = The Difficulty of Lean
Posted by: | CommentsDan Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
- Mastery is a mindset
- Mastery is a Pain
- Mastery is an Asymptote
He also states that flow is essential to mastery: “But flow doesn’t guarantee mastery—because the two concepts operate on different horizons of time. One happens in a moment; the other unfolds over months, years, sometimes decades. You and I each might reach flow tomorrow morning—but neither one of us will achieve mastery overnight.”
In Lean terminology, I can restate these same three laws this way:
- Lean is a culture
- Lean is grounded in Standard Work
- Lean is an Ideal
We also think of Lean in terms of creating flow. But just as flow does not guarantee mastery, flow does not allow us to become Lean. Flow happens along the way of becoming Lean. Many people think they are Lean companies once they have done 5S, Value Stream Mapping or held a few Kaizen Events. The truth is just like mastering anything, it does not happen overnight.
Why does it take so long? Why do so few achieve it? From Dan Pink again: “Mastery is a pain.” That is why it seldom is done. When implementing Lean, most people draw the wrong conclusion and assume it is Leadership. They blame leadership as being shortsighted. This view is not only wrong; it is dead wrong. 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?
From my blog post, If less than 1% of companies are successful with Lean, why are we doing it?, I stated: What does work is the same thing for both people and organizations. It is the scientific process of trial and error. You don’t get it right at first, you have to break habits, personal habits as an individual and company cultures as an organization. Successful companies do it a little bit at a time. In Lean, we call this scientific method PDCA. We plan, do it, check the results and adjust. It is a purposeful experimentation. 
In the book, Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success 
- Identify Crucial Moments (Identify Value)
- Create Vital Behaviors (Map Value Stream)
- Engage All Six Sources of Influence (Create Flow – Enable Pull)
- Turn Bad Days into Good Data (Seek Perfection – PDCA)
What people forget about Lean is that it is the change agent for an organization. In its simplest form, you first go and see the current state. Second, you visualize your process. You make your process steps visible. You visualize things in a way that reveals your problems, not in a way to hide problems. If you understand what standards are, how the process should work because it’s very clear, then whenever we see a variation from the process we react immediately. This allows you to choose one problem from the other and just solves them one by one. This is incredibly powerful, this vision we have with lean systems of increasing our competency, increasing our training without having to take people off line, without having to get to classrooms, but by building it into the way we work. It is this empowering aspect that is not easy. But it may be the only way an organization can master Lean.
Related Information:
Audio Collection of Dr. Balle on Kaizen
Continuous Improvement, The Toyota Way
Marketing with PDCA eBook released on Business901 Website
Lean is not a revolution, Lean is solve one thing and prove one thing!
