In the KaiZone Friday Favorites, I present my top ten favorite articles from the last two weeks in the world of Lean, continuous improvement and beyond.  With leading content from the world’s foremost improvement authors and future lean leaders, I do the research so you don’t have to!

Editor’s Notes

For this edition of TheKaiZone Friday Favorites, we’re traveling back in time to the year . . . 2014.  Consider this the final compilation of the Friday Favorites for 2014, as next week we will announce the winners of the 2014 Leany Awards for excellence in lean blogging.  Hey, better late than never, right?    

The Top 10 Lean Blog Posts for January 23rd, 2015

10.  You Can’t Kaizen Chaos by Danielle Blais.  “This simple story is a good reminder for all of us to ask ourselves if we even have enough stability of our processes to begin improving them. Are we operating in chaos or do we have a handle on what the work is, what the main problems are, whose responsibilities are whose, who can offer help/support if trouble arises, and how we work together as a team?”

9.  The Value of Not Knowing by Ron Pereira.  “Simply giving information can hinder the learning process and weaken the skills of the learner.  Learning how to learn is more important than the subject matter to be learned.  We certainly want the learner to be able to do the job.  We also want the learner to think of a way to improve the process.”

8.  Toyota Production System Video Series – Part Two: Problem Solving by Matt Elson.  

7.  Bringing Me Problems is OK, We’ll Find Solutions Together by Mark Graban.  “It’s a bit of a modern management cliché to say “Don’t bring problems! Bring me solutions!”  I think what that means is “Don’t just complain! Think about improving things!”  It’s good to think about improvement, but sometimes (if not often!) that improvement process starts by identifying problems.”

6.  One of My Least Favorite Questions by Jamie Flinchbaugh.  “I get a lot of questions – during my coaching and advisory visits, after delivering a speech, by email, by phone, and sometimes from conversations started in airports. I try to answer every last one of them, which could be a full time job all by itself. But there is one question that is one of the most common I receive yet a question I really dislike.  What company is really good at lean?”

5.  Are You Process or Results Oriented?  In a Lean Transformation, People Must Know the How if they are to Succeed by Malgorzata Jakubik & Robert Kagan.  “We have heard it for years: we need good processes to produce good results. Still, when it comes to actual strategies, there seems to be an insurmountable difficulty of switching the everyday focus from what and how much we need to achieve to how we should behave to achieve it.”

4.  People Aren’t Tools by Bill Waddell.  “People and culture are the heart of lean manufacturing. Tools come and go, technology changes and someone more clever than us will conjure up a better kanban formula. But a business driven by empowered, committed people at every level, all pursuing little fixes and little improvements every day is the enduring engine that enables lean companies to thrive and grow year after year after year.”

3.  A Holiday Miracle by Bruce Hamilton.  “As Goodyear’s Billy Taylor put it at our Northeast Lean Conference “if you make somebody visible you make them valuable.” This is culture change, one small miracle at a time. But managers have to “want to make it happen every day.”   It’s management’s part of “everybody everyday.”  My New Year’s challenge to every manager: Show your personal passion for continuous improvement every day. Make the miracle happen in your organization. Make your employees and yourself visible.”

2.  Ohno’s Problem-Solving Methods by Bob Emiliani.  “It s remarkable how most leaders are satisfied with the types of problems caused by batch-and-queue processing which reduce performance and threaten the long-term survival of the business, instead of preferring to live with the types of problems caused by flow which improve performance and strengthen the long-term survival of the business. But, to do that, leaders have to respect people and make it safe for people to understand problems and correct them by both trial and error and experiments.”

For this week’s Friday Favorite, we have what I hope will be the start of something very special from the Lean Post.  When executed properly, lean thinking has the potential to transform an organization and to truly superior business results.  But perhaps lean is most powerful when applied for the greater good.  It’s one thing to impact the bottom line; it’s a whole different level of impact, however, to positively affect a life in need.    In a future post here on TheKaiZone, I will be sharing my own experiences with lean skill-based volunteering.  In the meantime, please read the below post and consider how YOU can make a difference.

1.  Public Service: Lean’s Next Frontier?  by John O’Donnell & Lex Schroeder.  “We believe the Lean for social good movement goes far beyond reporting improvement metrics, reductions in processing steps, or reducing the time it takes to get a license. Lean is a way to improve the lives of individuals and communities, whether that’s preserving and creating quality jobs; bringing together children in need of a loving home with couples who are able to provide one; providing food services to struggling, proud families with dignity; helping startups and social enterprises build sustainable businesses that treat people well; or improving education processes so more time is spent developing and coaching future generations.”

Have a good weekend, friends!

In the KaiZone Friday Favorites, I present my top ten favorite articles from the last two weeks in the world of Lean, continuous improvement and beyond.  With leading content from the world’s foremost improvement authors and future lean leaders, I do the research so you don’t have to!

The Top 10 Lean Blog Posts for December 5th, 2014

10.  Quality Isn’t Fluff by Tim McMahon.  “According to a study covered in a recent Harvard Business Review article, companies with highly developed quality cultures spend, on average, $350 million less annually fixing mistakes than companies with poorly developed ones. . . Although figures will vary according to industry and company, the report’s authors, suggested a broad rule of thumb: For every 5,000 employees, moving from the bottom to the top quintile would save a company $67 million annually.”

9.  Dead See Scrolls by Bruce Hamilton.  “The focus shifted in the early ’90s from Total Employee Involvement to Some Employee Involvement: Blitz Kaizen teams and black belts and subject matter experts and value stream leaders, none of which existed in the pre-Lean era. Maybe the Total part was just too hard or too foreign, so we retreated to our caste system of thinkers and doers and glommed onto the technical part of TPS. Technical problems, after all, are always so much easier to solve than people problems.”

8.  Strong Coaches are there to Develop Internal Leaders and Coaches by Jeff Liker.  ” When there are strong coaches their role should be to develop internal lean leaders and coaches. The people who resonate with strong teachers and develop the right skills are not always those with the strongest academic credentials. We have seen in many cases a skilled trades specialist, an hourly team member, a supervisor who get the passion for lean and have all the right personal attributes to be strong change agents.”

7.  Organizational Renovation by James Little.  “Organizational transformation is more like a home renovation. Everything’s disrupted for a while. It’s a mess. Bits of the structure are unusable. But we put up with it, because we know we’re going to get a better place to live. When we talk to people at work about “organizational transformation” or “agile transformation,” most people – including us – don’t know what we’re talking about. It’s too big, too vague, too unseen, too magical. Let’s talk about renovation. Everyone’s seen at least one – and lived through it. It’s something real, familiar, manageable, and within our grasp.”

6.  Toyota Production System Video Series – Part One: Standardized Work by Matt Elson.

5.  What is the Role of a Sensei in a Lean Organization?  by Michael Ballé & Dan Jones.  “Contrarily to archetypical images the sensei is neither a guru nor a mystical master, but as literally translated from the Japanese, “a person born before”, someone with the experience and the grey hair required to support leaders in their drive to find leaner solutions to their work challenges and how to involve and engage their employees in this voyage of discovery. So what is the role of a sensei? It is to make sure that leader’s and employee’s learning curves develop hand in hand: they learn, you learn.”

4.  Role of Ethnography and Qualitative Research in Problem Solving by Pete Abila.  “Whenever the research is about a process, an interaction between people, or an interaction between people and something in their environment, we know we can learn valuable things by observation that can’t be learned by talking.  Sometimes the way to communicate is by keeping quiet and letting people show you the answer.”

3.  Skateboarding and a Path to Discovery by Steve Kane.  “One of greatest hurdles leaders face is leading people beyond disbelief to discovery. A big part of a leader’s job is to teach, coach, mentor and inspire. I’m not so sure people need to be told how to improve so much as they need to discover what improvement is possible.”

2.  GTS⁶ + E³ = DNA (Break the Code for Standardization, Sustainability, and Kaizen) by Tracey Richardson.  “Does this GTS⁶ + E³ = DNA equation for lean leadership solve every problem for your organization?  No.  But it does describe at a high level of all actions leaders must take if they want to support a long-term, sustainable culture of problem solving.  A culture where people feel empowered to make a difference for their organization and have a stake in the company’s overall success.  Job security = problems solved.”

For this edition’s Friday Favorite from the Lean Post, Brent Wahba reminds us that the journey to lean is deeply personal . . . 

1.  What Should Lean Mean to Us? by Brent Wahba.  “I am not sure that “What’s Lean?” really matters as much as this forward-looking question: “What Should Lean Mean To Us?” A problem is just the gap between where you are now and where you need to be. If you are working on the problem of how to begin your situational Lean journey, what is the gap between your current mental model of Lean and what Lean needs to be to deliver success in your specific circumstances?”

Editor’s Notes

If you’ve been following along with The KaiZone over the last two months, you may have noticed a slight decline in the number of new articles that I have been posting. While I’d love to say that I was simply experimenting with a “less is more” content strategy, that would, alas, be a lie.  It’s time to come clean with you all.  The truth is, I’ve simply found it difficult to carve out writing time lately . . . and I couldn’t be happier about it!  How so?  I’ve done a thorough root cause analysis and can trace back my decline in productivity to the discovery that next spring – GOD willing – we will be welcoming our 4th little one to the world!

As we prepare to move our soon-to-be family of six out of our “starter home”, new content may be slow at times, but I can promise you one thing:  there will be no shortage of Leanable Moments to write about!  With 4 children under the age of 5, we’re going to need it!

Thanks to all in The KaiZone Community for your support during this busy and exciting time!

Have a good weekend, friends!

In the KaiZone Friday Favorites, I present my top ten favorite articles from the last two weeks in the world of Lean, continuous improvement and beyond.  With leading content from the world’s foremost improvement authors and future lean leaders, I do the research so you don’t have to!

Editor’s Note

I have teamed up with a few of my fellow students of TPS from True North Thinking in observance of Movember.  All month, we will be demonstrating our commitment to changing the face of men’s health by sporting some sweet ‘staches.

This year, I am participating in memory of my late grandfather and to make a difference for my son.  One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their life time.  My grandfather was one of the unlucky ones.  I don’t want my own son to face the same fate, and so I am doing my part.

How can you help?  If you enjoy TheKaiZone and would like to support the cause, please consider making a small donation to the Movember campaign by visiting my Movember page.  As an added bonus, if the readers of TheKaiZone can help push my total over $100, I will change my profile picture at TheKaiZone.com to show off my newly formed facial feature for the rest of the month.

Remember, no amount is too small.  Your contributions are MUCH appreciated.

The Top 10 Lean Blog Posts for November 7th, 2014

10.  Do As I Say, Not As I Do by Erin Urban.  “We must be self-aware. This is more challenging than it sounds. If we are to be the change we wish to see and model the behavior we teach, we must be cognizant that we are not sending the wrong message by our actions. We may define ourselves by our intentions, but others define us by our actions. The change agent being resistant to change is ironic, but it’s a serious thing as it can be detrimental in the long-term. For me, this brings to mind the words of Andy Andrews: ‘While it is true that most people never see or understand the difference they make, or sometimes only imagine their actions having a tiny effect, every single action a person takes has far-reaching consequences.'”

9.  How to Get Out of the Habit of Telling by Katie Anderson.  “I’m continually trying to develop as a coach – to be better at asking my clients questions to develop their thinking and capability, not just telling them what I (in the role of “expert”) think might be useful. I try to lead with open-ended questions of pure, humble inquiry (as defined by Edgar Schein) – questions to which I don’t have the answer. For example, “How are you thinking about this issue today?” or another “How/Why/What?” question that is relevant to the discussion at hand. I encourage them to be just as intentional about developing their own team members through coaching.”

8.  A3: An Antidote to the Drama Triangle by Bill Kirkwood.  “Recently, I observed an A3 training session comprised of front line managers from several ambulatory clinics. The participants were asked to break into small groups and identify an issue they were having in preparation for practicing A3 problem solving.  As each group shared their issue it became apparent that the entire group had an “issue” with the IT department. . . By the end of the sharing the entire group was sufficiently worked up.  The simple exercise of identifying an issue applicable to A3 problem solving had become a considerable gripe session.  What had just happened?  The group unknowingly chose to entire the Drama Triangle, a phenomenon identified by Stephen Karpman.  The Drama Triangle is a place where individuals and/or groups choose to relinquish their ability to solve a problem by blaming someone else for their “misfortune.”

7.  Lean Lite versus. Lean Deep: Interview with Michel Baudin by Pete Abilla.  “There are plenty of reasons not use an explicit reference to Toyota when applying the Toyota Production System (TPS) in other organizations. . . But what is a good name? Consultants tried several. “JIT” was used in the early 80s, but it is does not encompass the whole of TPS. . . In 1989, John Krafcik came up with “Lean.” As it caught on, however, it was gradually drained of its TPS content and replaced with VSMs and “Kaizen events,” while implementers continued to believe that it was fundamentally TPS, with improvements. . . The most popular “Chinese” dish in the US is General Tso’s chicken, which is unknown in China. It is reasonably harmless for cuisine, but the problem with Lean is these watered-down and distorted implementations failed to deliver the expected improvements.

6.  No More Management by Tradeoffs by Bill Waddell.  “In a nutshell, traditional accounting presents management with tradeoffs: Which will it be? A or B? You can have high cost or poor quality; you can have lots of inventory or long customer lead times; pay people well or have high profits … pick one or the other but you can’t have both.  Lean thinking is really just a rejection of accounting trade off thinking. We want both – and we know how to have both.”

5.  Kaizen: Throat Scopes and Applesauce by Mark Graban.  “A common theme across the departments we visited was that managers rarely say no to ideas. Saying no discourages people. Possible improvements are proven out (or disproven) through testing and practice (following the PDSA cycle of Plan, Do, Study, Adjust). Managers do occasionally say “no” if an idea would violate regulations or other guidelines. But, they then work together to find a different idea that would solve their problem.”

4.  Three Challenges for Lean Management:  The Role of Creativity, The Removal of Silos, and a Better Understanding of the Voice of Customer by Daniel Jones.  “I am impressed by the progress lean has made over the past couple of decades: not only has it taught us what respect for people means and given us the tools to improve our processes; it has also helped us to understand what the role of leadership should be in a company that aspires to change. . . But there is much more to do, and lots of questions that remain unanswered.  With this in mind, I would like to discuss three pressing challenges that the lean community must address:”

3.  NVLLIVS IN VERBA by Bruce Hamilton.  “In many cases, we have led the horse to water but he is still thirsting for the truth. The idea of direct observation continues to be foreign to many managers who feel that division of labor dictates they get their information second hand, massaged, summarized and homogenized. Change leaders would do well to remind managers of the motto of the Royal Society, the seat of modern science and philosophy: “Nullius in verba” – a Latin expression meaning “take nobody’s word for it.” This gold standard of objectivity encouraged scientific thinkers not to let status quo politics and prevailing beliefs affect their thinking. If we are truly seeking a culture change to our organizations we need to encourage the same thinking from our leaders.”

2.  Cars, CT Scans and Cashiers: The Failure of Lean by Matt Elson.  “Over and over again, we see the over-reliance on tools and events not only as ways to teach, but to “accelerate” making improvements. Both are highly doubtful.  People don’t learn things from listening to a speaker or reading a reference book or watching a PowerPoint presentation. And things are certainly not improved in these theoretical environments. At the very best, participants should expect to walk out with more questions than before!  Why? These kinds of discreet events, books, tools are easily “saleable” by the lean consulting industry. 5S event? No problem! Value Stream Mapping event? Yup, do that too. Lean certification? Absolutely…what belt colour would you like?”

Please do take the time to read this week’s Friday Favorites in its entirety.  We should realize that we are all leaders of the Lean movement, and we all play a very important part in maintaining integrity to the core values of “real lean”.  I urge everyone involved in the practice of lean or TPS to commit to the policy statement outlined in the following article . . . or better yet, create one of your own to set the lean efforts of your organization on a foundation of ‘Respect for People’.  We can do better!

1.  Leading without Respect by Bob Emiliani.  “Whatever has been done by leaders of the Lean movement to denounce Fake Lean has not been nearly enough. There is a long, long history of managers laying off workers as a result of continuous improvement. This is not a secret. It is the normal outcome. Over the last 25 years, Fake Lean has likely displaced a million or so workers in the United States, and more globally. That’s not the reward employees expect for their hard work.  The inability of  the leading figures in the Lean community to powerfully support this fundamental improvement over conventional management, from the very start, is pitiful.”

Have a good weekend, friends!