Many organizations start practicing the tools of Lean and fail to understand that it is the people side that makes Lean effective. I have seen where organizations will develop the skill set of Value Stream Mapping, A3 Problem Solving or even Hoshin Planning. But spend little time developing a Lean attitude around the most basic concepts of Visual Management, Overlapping Responsibilities or Individual Kaizen. As a result, they simply do not act like a Lean Company. They are a collection of their tools not a collection driven by culture. The mistakes that you were trying to correct by instilling Lean continue to happen. Teamwork is non-existent and individual silos remain.
The Lean Concept of Respect for People was the topic of a podcast with David Veech (@leansights). After reading the transcription of the podcast, I realized how much we talked about individuals and how they perform within teams. David has some great points. This transcription is well worth the time to read.
Jim Benson, author of a Personal Kanban
A system that is not malleable, is brittle. A process which cannot adapt to context, is waste. One size does not fit all.
Terry Barnhart, a former podcast guest of mine, Applying the OODA Loop to Lean expanded that thought….
Have you heard about anti-fragility? Taleb’s account is brilliant, it is like the package that says “Anti-fragile: Please handle poorly, it will improve the contents”. This means a flexible system, but one that builds additional flexibility as brittleness is found. It means an adaptable system that gets more adaptable in adapting to emergent issues. It means a size that adjusts by itself.
As a result I found this video with Nassim Taleb,the author of The Black Swan
From Amazon on The Black Swan book page:
Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat, when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation. Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, “all swans are white” had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.
Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it’s practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, “History does not crawl, it jumps.” Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls “Mediocristan,” while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of “Extremistan.
There is also brilliant conversation between Daniel Kahnemann and Nassim Taleb discussing biases, the illusion of patterns, the perception of risk and denial at the Digital, Life, Design Conference in Munich. It is on the bentatlas.com website: Risk and Denial, Daniel Kahnemann and Nassim Taleb in Munich.
I think this is very interesting on how this all applies to the future of business.
A system that is not malleable, is brittle. A process which cannot adapt to context, is waste. One size does not fit all. – A Quote from Jim Benson, co-author of a Personal Kanban
Leader Standard Work is the foundation required for flexibility. It does not hinder the development. It provides the foundation to adapt.