Turning 'Respect for People' Into Action

Move over Stooges! Make way Musketeers! ¡Adiós Amigos! Kevin, Mike and Joel are back for the latest edition of ‘Ask The KaiZone Coaches’. Each month, The KaiZone Coaches answer the most challenging and thought-provoking Lean and continuous improvement questions submitted by you, The KaiZone Community. While certainly not the most well-known (or best-looking) bunch, you will not find a more passionate, personable or practical group of Lean thinkers on the interwebs today.

Meet The KaiZone Coaches: Kevin and Mike

As this is the inaugural edition of Ask The KaiZone Coaches, let’s first take a moment to meet the authors.

Kevin Pavack is a results-focused operations leader and Lean expert with 23 years experience driving operational excellence for a wide variety of industry-leading manufacturing and operations organizations. He is an acknowledged thought leader in the Toyota Production System (TPS) with a broad experience implementing these principles throughout the supply chain. Kevin is a relationship-builder known for successfully demonstrating the value of Lean principles to staff at all organizational levels with a coaching, mentoring, and consensus-building approach. Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn.

Mike Grogan is a Lean Missionary, and since Feb 2013, has been coaching Lean at not-for-profit healthcare organizations in Tanzania. Mike is an Irish national and has coached and trained over 1,000 people around the world (USA, UK, Middle East and Africa) on the application of Lean thinking. Mike’s mission is to empower people and organizations to significantly improve their performance capability in order to achieve worthwhile purposes that advance society. In particular, Mike’s focus is on organizations based in Africa and South East Asia. Follow Mike on his personal website or connect with him on LinkedIn

This Month’s Question

Submitted by The KaiZone Community member James:

I hear a lot of talk in the Lean world about the concept of ‘Respect for People’. I like the idea, but I struggle trying to turn it into real, tangible actions. What are some things that can I do to incorporate ‘Respect for People’ into the way I manage my organization?”

Monozukuri = Hitozukuri by Kevin

Toyota has a saying (one of many): ‘monozukuri = hitozukuri’. Translated for those of us not so fluent in Japanese, it means: ‘making things = making people’. Why that is so important to Toyota? They believe that while people “make things”, such as vehicles, it’s important that people have a vested interest in what they make and how they do that. By empowering their members to make improvements, to stop the line, and to get involved in multiple different ways, it allows people to not just use their body, but, more importantly, to use their mind.

When their members are given opportunities to make things better, it allows them to grow into smarter, more efficient and happier team members. This, in turn, allows companies like Toyota to not only make the products how they want to (with the shortest lead-times, lowest costs and highest quality), but they continually get to do it better and better because people are continually improving, growing and expanding their knowledge and capabilities.

In addition, the 4P’s of the Toyota Production System consist of Philosophy, Process, Problem Solving, and, the most important one – People. People is the most important “P” because many of the methods of TPS aim to raise problems to the surface, creating challenging environments that force people to think and grow. Thinking, learning, growing, and being challenged are not always fun. Nor is Toyota’s environment always fun. But people and Toyota’s partners, including suppliers, inevitably grow and become better and more confident.

Without the people, they would have a Philosophy, Processes and Problem Solving that would never get done and the customers would never get the products they need and want.

Now that we have discussed why its important people are at the forefront of a truly successful lean system, let’s discuss what you can do to make that a reality.

First, give your people the ability to improve. Allow them to try and fail and try again….without fear of repercussion.
Allow them to “stop the line” when an issue or defect arises and work with them to problem solve it. This is a critical piece to allow monozukuri (making things) to equal hitozukuri (making people).
Give them opportunities to turn in suggestions for improvement, allow them to make those improvements and then reward them for those improvements. A simple suggestion system will often suffice. For every $ Toyota Kentucky puts into their suggesions system, they get $10 back. So it’s not only about developing the people, its about giving the company what they want, t0o (the shortest lead-time, the lowest cost, and the highest quality).
Give your people an opportunity after work to develop quality circles. Teams convene quality circles to address an issue they are having that just can’t be fixed by taking small, local actions via kaizen. It allows them to work as a team through a structured problem solving process in order to find and eliminate the root causes of their issues. It’s a great way to people involved and to allow them to develop themselves and others.
Finally, when we talk about the “P” which is Philosophy, part of that philosophy is having a strategy. Hoshin Kanri is used to make sure everyone is aligned in support of that strategy. Do this. This alone will help engage your organization and get your people working as a team. When we know where we are going, it always makes it easier to get there and it makes everyone feel like they are part of something great.

‘Respect for Humanity’ and the 6 Human Needs by Mike

First of all I want to start by rephrasing ‘respect for people’ to ‘respect for humanity’. I think this is a better phrase to grasp the intent behind the philosophy and practice.

The Philosophy Perspective

For a manager “Respect for Humanity” starts with the realization of their impact on the people that they are responsible for. Does the manager fully comprehend how much of an impact they have on the current and future quality of life of that employee? Does the manager realize how precious is the responsibility they have been given? Does the manager fully realize the consequences that their actions and behaviors have of their employees and of the employee’s family? If the manager does not make this connection, then that is the first problem to solve. This is more than just saying, “I care about my employee,” it’s a deep realization that, “I know how my behaviors and actions will impact the quality of life of my employee, and I want to know how I can improve.”

The Practical Perspective

In practice, ‘respect for humanity’ is the manager being aware of the 6 Human Needs and how their behaviors and actions either add value or subtract value in relation to these needs. Below is a high-level description of these needs:

Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure
Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change, new stimuli
Significance: feeling unique, important, special or needed
Connection/Love: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something
Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding
Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others

Practical examples of “Respect for Humanity”

Scenario: Process variation is causing employee frustration (ex: increased stress).

Manager “How can we improve the reliability of this process so that the employee can have more certainty of what they can expect?” (human need for certainty)

Scenario: Process stability is causing employee frustration (ex: boredom)

Manager “How can we ensure a balanced rotation of tasks so that employees are kept engaged?” (human need for uncertainty / variety)

Scenario: We do not know if the employee knows how the work they do adds value to the organizational goals, vision and mission

Manager “Does our employees know how the work that they do adds value to the organizational goals, vision and mission? How are they receiving that feedback? Who is giving them the feedback? How frequently are they getting that feedback? How do we know they know?” (human need for significance)

Scenario: Some employees do not seem to get along with other team members

Manager “Do the team know each other? Do I know my team? Are we giving opportunities for team members to get to understand each other more? Am I really listening to my employees? Do they know that I care? (human need for connection/love)

Scenario: Employee is performing satisfactory but you feel they still have so much to offer

Manager “Has every employee got a development plan? Am I making the time to make their personal growth a priority? Am I really listening to the desire to grow? Am I asking them the right questions? Am I willing to let them go to another department or organization in the event that this will be in their best interest for their growth? (human need for growth)

Scenario: Employee unclear about what they want next in their career

Manager “Do I know my employees passions? Do I know why they are passionate about these things? Am I communicating on how the work they do contributes to the advancement of society? Am I willing to let them go to another department or organization in the event that this will contribute more to the advancement of society? (Human need for Contribution)

‘Holding Precious What it Means to be Human’ by Joel

As Mike alludes to above, when we say ‘respect for people’ there is a bit of meaning that is lost in translation from the original Japanese intention underlying the phrase. According to Jon Miller, the more accurate translation of the phrase is ‘respect for humanity‘ or as I prefer in long-form, ‘holding precious what it means to be human’. When stated in these terms, it begs the question, what precisely does it mean to be human?

To me, the answer to this question can be derived by looking at the alternatives to human effort in an organization. That being, work produced by computers, machines, robots, etc. Indeed, our electro-mechanical brethren have many capabilities in terms of speed, power, endurance and the like that we humans do not. However, what makes the human element irreplaceable and invaluable is our unlimited ability to learn, adapt and grow.

A mentor of mine once pointed out to me that humans are the only thing in an organization that gets better with time. Buildings degrade and require increasing amounts of maintenance; technology eventually renders computers and machines obsolete; capital depreciates. But humans, and humans alone, increase in value with time. That is what makes us human. Therefore, respecting humanity means placing the focus of the organization on the development of the value within its people.

While the development of people can mean many things, to me there is no greater sign of respect that an organization can demonstrate than granting authority at the individual level to own and improve one’s own work. In other words, organizations should seek to foster an environment in which the people that do the work are empowered to improve the work.

At a practical and tangible level, there are many, many things that we can do to accomplish this. Indeed, every single human-to-human interaction presents an opportunity to demonstrate respect. However, in order to keep it short, I’ll limit my input to what I see as being the top three priorities for an organization to show respect for humanity:

Create a forum by which individuals can highlight and actively pursue opportunities for improvement within their scope of work, and to ensure alignment to the broader objectives, vision and mission of the organization.
Through teaching, coaching and feedback, support all people in the practice of daily kaizen to develop the mindsets and skills required for effective problem solving.
As Dr. Deming emplored, drive out the fear. Celebrate, rather than punish, less-than-successful attempts at improvement. Encourage people to take calculated risks in their improvement efforts, and to see any potential failures as learning opportunities that contribute to the collective knowledge of the organization.

Although the original question sought specific, tangible actions, I will close by offering a brief word of caution. Respect for humanity is not a disconnected set of specific actions and behaviors; it is a fundamental, unifying belief that we must hold deep within ourselves to guide all of our actions and interactions. It is only when each and every one of us see respect for humanity as a part of who we are, and not simply as what we do, that we can achieve great things as an organization.

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