The KaiZone

Improving the business of life

  • Home
  • The Lean Book Shop
  • Top 100+ Lean Blogs
  • Free Downloads
  • Meet the Author
  • Contact The KaiZone

Powered by Genesis

A Lesson in Humility, Part 1 with Daniel Jones, Matt Elson and Tracey Richardson

July 14, 2014 by Joel A. Gross 1 Comment

Friends of the KaiZoneIf I were to distill down my 31 years to a single word, it would be serendiptity. When I look back, I’ve come to realize that in the pursuits of  my life, I’ve very rarely been fulfilled by that which I’ve sought; it is the act of seeking, however, that has rewarded me in ways that are both completely unexpected and absolutely invaluable.

The piece that you are about to read is my epitome of serendipity.  On one level, the original intention of the post, I sought advice from who I believe to be the top Lean thinkers alive to share here in my little corner of the internet with you all.  Certainly, the responses that I received – actually, that I received any responses at all – more than exceeded even my most wishful expectations.  However, in true serendipitous fashion, in seeking and receiving wisdom from these three individuals, I was taught for more than I would have ever imagined.

To maintain integrity to the original intention of the piece, and out of the respect to the contributing authors, I have divided the piece into two parts.  In the first, Mr. Jones, Mr. Elson and Ms. Richardson provide us with their words of wisdom for the Lean journey.  In the second part, I will take you behind the scenes to look at how the piece came to be, and how its lessons both reinforce and transcend the concept of Lean thinking. [Read more…]

 

Share with Others:

  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Filed Under: Friends of The KaiZone, The KaiZone Community Tagged With: Daniel Jones, friends of the kaizone, Matt Elson, People Development, respect for people, Tracey Richardson

Collective Ignorance: On the Razor’s Edge

July 7, 2014 by Joel A. Gross Leave a Comment

Tweetable Tips from @TheKaiZone Logo - v3

Tweetable Tips from @TheKaiZone brings you quick-hit, high-impact lessons to improve your lean practice.  The learning is short, sweet – and best of all – sharable!  And if you find the tips to be useful, simply use the ‘”Click to Tweet” link within the post to share the learning with others!  

Famous ‘Razors’ in Human History

william-of-ockham1852:  Despite meeting his end more than 500 years prior, William of Ockham becomes the namesake for Occam’s Razor, the principle that guides us, in true K.I.S.S. fashion, to avoid complicating theories with additional assumptions when a simpler explanation will fit the observations.

 

Razor Ramon1992: Scott Hall, a.k.a. Razor Ramon, makes his professional wrestling debut.  In more than four years with the World Wrestling Federation, he wins 4 championships and shows the world what happens when you mess with the bad guy.

 

 

mach-3-blades-8

2003: Gillette debuts the M3 Power, the 432nd incarnation in the Mach 3 line of shaving products.  At a time when the shaving experience couldn’t get any less enjoyable, the M3 Power was the first razor to feature an annoying battery-powered hum and finger-numbing vibration.

 

OK, so outside of an occasional reference to Occam’s Razor, the ‘razors’ on this list have not had much of an impact within the Lean community.  Well, my friends, that’s all about to change.  Move over Occam.  There’s a new razor in town. [Read more…]

 

Share with Others:

  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Filed Under: The KaiZone Way, Tweetable Tips Tagged With: blame, hanlon's razor, just culture, occham's razor, respect for people

The KaiZone Friday Favorites for 5/30/2014

May 30, 2014 by Joel A. Gross Leave a Comment

The KaiZone Friday Favorites

In the KaiZone Friday Favorites, I present my top ten favorite articles from the last week (give or take a few days) in the world of Lean – 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!

10.  Top 5 TPS Lessons from Jedi Master Yoda by Matt Elson.  “Yoda was a Jedi Master for over 900 years, so he saw a few things, made some mistakes and had his failures.  The most important thing about Yoda was that he never gave up.  Ever.  Yoda was also constantly learning and reflecting.  It could be argued that true wisdom comes with experience, both positive and negative.”

9.  Start Your Lean Diary Today by Jens Woinowkski.  “The Lean Diary: One word per day.  Weekly and monthly retrospectives.  That’s it.  #leandiary”

8.  The Trouble with Corporate Clichés by Pascal Dennis.  ““Ducks in a row” “Low-hanging fruit” “Let’s take this off-line” Why do these and other corporate clichés make us cringe so?  Well, they’re often used by lazy people to express stale, tired thinking.  If we haven’t thought about something deeply, why burden people with inanities?  If we can’t express an idea in a fresh way, why should anybody listen?”

7.  Back to Basics – Customer Value by Al Norval.  “I often come across organizations that are in the middle of a Lean transformation and when I ask why are they doing it – what’s the purpose? I get an answer of – to save money, to meet our financial obligations to the organization.  This answer always disappoints me since there is much more to Lean than that. In Lean we need to meet the needs of three publics; the Employee, the Customer and the Organization. If we’re doing Lean and not benefiting all three publics, then we’re not doing Lean properly.”

6.  Speed Leadership by Bob Emiliani.  “Right-sizing the brain and sticking to to the basics is seen by most executives (top image) as weak or unchallenging. But that is what the best Lean leaders do.  It results in what I call “Speed Leadership,” which means a greater intellectual acuity and a reduction or elimination of delays and rework that plague executives steeped in conventional management/  The patience and simplicity characteristic of the best Lean leaders trumps the impulsiveness and complexity characteristic of conventional leaders.”

5.  How Teaming Produces Execution-as-Learning by Amy C. Edmondson.  “ In the factory model of management, it was easy to monitor workers and measure their output. But work today increasingly requires the applications of specialized skills and knowledge. Workers are expected to identify issues, analyze problems, and create new solutions. This shift has changed the dynamic of the workplace and the relationship between those in charge and those doing the work. The most successful leaders in the future will be those who have the ability to develop the talents of others.”

4.  Success is Sweet When You Value Your Core by Joshua Rapoza.  “What does this teach us about listening to our customers? Your value is at your core. Don’t change what your customers value in your product, pay attention to what they value and then change everything else.”

3.  Respect for People (Shingo Edition) by Dan Markovitz.  “Blaming your workers is like spitting in the sky. It comes back down on your face. It’s your teaching that needs to be improved.”

2.  Be Careful What You Wish For – Part II by Bruce Hamilton.  “No oversight. No direct observation, in this case, by the persons who are charged with the corporation’s fiduciary responsibility – its board of directors.   The CEOs in the examples above are no different than the cashier in my 2010 post. They were following damaging directives from absentee leadership.   The difference in these cases however is that when CEOs receive nonsensical objectives the potential for damage to customers and employees is very much greater.”

And, in an excellent week for Lean and continuous improvement posts, this week’s Friday Favorite goes to . . .

1.  Learn the Thinking, Not Just the Doing, Why, How, Where, What, When by Tracey Richardson.  “A true sensei has the knowledge, but shouldn’t be above learning from others with less experience or “fresh eyes”.  I’m personally a sponge, I soak in all I can to learn how to be better the next day, that is a role of a sensei/trainer to me – Continuous Improvement, right?”

Do you have an article that you’d like to share with The KaiZone community?  Post it in the comments section below.  Have a great weekend, friends!

Also, don’t forget about The KaiZone Contest: Make Your Own Leanable Moment.

 

Share with Others:

  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Filed Under: Friday Favorites, The KaiZone Community Tagged With: cliches, customer value, Friday Favotires, lean diary, lean thinking, metrics, respect for people, small business, teaming

Resistance? Think Like Judoka

March 28, 2014 by Joel A. Gross 1 Comment

Judoka, Jidoka, resistance, Lean, kaizen, KaiZone

Originally published at The Lean Post

Cue the music. “That will never work, because…”

These words are the chorus line in the Battle Hymn of the Status Quo. Although the verse that follows varies across time and place, that chorus is universal. These six words echo throughout every shop floor, conference room, laboratory, and back office where change is afoot. It’s a rallying cry that unites the masses in resistance.

We in the Lean world, however, HATE this tune. Resistance in an organization can be a daunting foe to even the most highly skilled of Lean practitioners because of its ability to bring the change process to a screeching halt. However, we can convert resistance from a roadblock into a positive source of energy and engagement if we remember to think like the judoka.

No, it’s not a typo. In Lean world, most of us are familiar with the concept of jidoka (and if you’re not, please start your learning journey here. Most of us, however, have never before heard the word judoka, and you certainly cannot find it in the Lean Lexicon.

So, what is judoka, you ask? The question is not what, but who. A judoka is a practitioner of the martial art – and Olympic sport – of judo. The origins of judo can be traced to a man named Jigoro Kano who founded the first judo school and dojo in Tokyo, Japan in 1882. Mr. Kano named his art judo, meaning “The Gentle Way” based on his philosophy of exerting maximum effectiveness through minimal effort in both sport and in life. Put into practice, this philosophy sets judo apart from other martial arts and makes the discipline uniquely effective in encountering resistance from an opponent.

Rather than meeting an attack with opposing force, the judoka uses the opponent’s own momentum against them to gain the advantage. For example, if a judoka senses a push from an opponent, he/she does not push back; the judoka will pull with the opponent to take the adversary off-balance. With the opponent’s momentum now captured, he/she can apply a myriad of techniques to generate favorable leverage with minimal exertion of his or her own effort. This is the result. The techniques used in judo, which employ this strategy of non-resistance, are particularly effective against larger and more powerful opposition. Physical disadvantages are not of major concern because they use the size and power of their opponent as their own. The more resistance that the opponent is able to generate, the greater the potential advantage.

So, next time you are faced with resistance to change, put the techniques of the judoka to work for you by doing the following:

  • Identify the Initial Signs of Resistance.  Be prepared to react at the first signs of resistance. If given sufficient time to fester, a small pocket of negative perception can spread rapidly throughout an organization. Moreover, resistance is difficult to identify, especially in the beginning phases of the change process, because the vast majority of resistance is not expressed openly. Shigeo Shingo estimated that as much as “95% of objection is cautionary.” Become familiar with the leading indicators of resistance and ensure that there are open lines of communication in which the targets of the change feel safe to voice their fears and opinions
  • Avoid Pushing Back.  Our struggles in driving change originate from the way we tend to think about resistance, which is evident in the language we use. We fight resistance. We do battle against the resistance. It’s a force that we must overcome, surmount, mitigate, defeat and/or conquer in order to ensure that the change process marches on. In other words, we attempt to match the force of resistance by mustering an equal and opposite force of our own. The problem with fighting against resistance in an organization is that we severely underestimate the opponent. Resistance to change stems from a natural and powerful psychological response that spreads rapidly through individuals within an organization. As Lean practitioners attempting to fight resistance, our approach is simply not effective against a bigger and stronger opponent. Rather than push back against the resistance, seek to pull energy from the collective and powerful fears, passions and emotions of those resisting.
  • Capture the Momentum of the Opposition.  Engage the most vocal and outspoken targets of the change to participate directly in the change process. How? Instead of reacting to, “that will never work, because . . . “, ask that the statement be reframed in the form of, “that would only work if . . .” This subtle change produces an entirely different dialogue around the proposed change. The former phrasing is destructive with a verse that attempts to derail the change process. The latter,is highly constructive because it encourages team members to identify the critical few problems that need to be solved to make the proposed idea work. Even better, the person resisting is usually also the first one to highlight problems, so he/she can be engaged in the problem solving process and recruited to help develop the solutions.

I see so many parallels between the worlds of Lean and judo. In practice, both disciplines have developed effective strategies that deliver maximum impact (or value) through minimum effort (or cost). But could it be that the reason for the widespread success of each is the same greater purpose that both seek to fulfill? In Lean circles, we preach “respect for people” in all things, while Jigoro Kano founded judo under the belief that “all things connected with it should be directed to its ultimate object, the benefit of humanity”. Perhaps regardless of our struggles, resistance or otherwise, if we can remember to act out of respect for and with benefit to humanity, we will find success.

 

Share with Others:

  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Filed Under: The KaiZone Way, The Lean Learning Journey Tagged With: change management, jidoka, kaizen, reframing, resistance, respect for people, Shigeo Shingo

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2

Follow me on

  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Post Categories

Search TheKaiZone:

From @TheKaiZone

Tweets by @TheKaiZone