You may remember David Shaked of Almond-Insight from a previous Business901 Podcast, Strength–Based Lean and Six Sigma. David just finished his book, Strength-Based Lean Six Sigma: Building Positive and Engaging Business Improvement and will be my guest next week on the podcast.
David is a Master Black Belt formerly with a large global corporation (Johnson & Johnson) and has specific experience in transactional processes such as sales, marketing, finance, order fulfillment, customer services, distribution, demand forecasting.
An excerpt from the podcast:
Joe: Often engagements in Lean and Six Sigma are driven by Kaizen Events. In the book you specify a way to create a Kaizen Event from a Strength-Based Approach. Could you discuss that and what’s the difference between a typical Kaizen Event and a Strength-Based Kaizen Event. I thought that was a great part in the book.
David: Thank you. Strength-Based Kaizen Event does follow very much the structure you would follow in a Classic Kaizen Event. I introduce an Appreciative Inquiry interview about the process we want to improve. So upfront people interview each other using Appreciative Inquiry questions on the best cases they had when they performed that process or when they’ve seen the outcomes of the process. The purpose of that is to start as I said the very first questions we ask are most important, so to start the conversation right away from a Strength Approach finding out what works really well with this process. We are told to do the Kaizen Events to focus on understanding the process as it is rather than as it should be. We can actually learn from the process as it is when it is working, and that’s the biggest difference.
Then you can take any of the tools that you would use and use them again from a Strength-Based Approach, so many times I do a value stream map and I would do it again from a Strength-Based point of view. Mapping the process as it is, as it is when it’s working and understanding what’s working, what is producing value. I use tools like the Seven Signs of Value because if I want people to generate value, to increase value; I need to teach them what gives value rather than what takes away the value.
A short video clip to provide a high level overview of what is Strength-based Lean Six Sigma.