Lean Thinking

Lean Production Simplified -- 10 Year Anniversary!

2012-02-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Ten years ago I got a strange desire to write down all I'd learned about the Toyota Production System.

Not exactly sure why.

Partly to explain it to myself, partly because clients were asking for it, and partly because I just wanted to.

Anyhow, the result was Lean Production Simplified -- a Plain Language Guide to the World's Most Powerful Production System.

To my surprise, the book found an audience, won a Shingo Prize for Excellence, and is still going strong.

When I have a question, I still refer to the damned thing.

"That makes sense," I'll say to myself. "Why didn't I think of that?"

A few years back, my colleague Al Norval, and I, decided to make a series of webinars based on the book.

Our Lean Simplified Webinars have also, happily, found an audience and proved to be helpful.

Funny how things work out. (Where did the years go...?)

In any event, we'd like to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Lean Production Simplified with a series of special offers!

Look for them in the weeks & months to come!

Best regards,

Pascal

Going to Gemba with a Purpose

2012-02-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

By now most leaders understand the purpose of “Going to Gemba”. A great deal has been written about the famous words of Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho that have become a Lean mantra now:

Go See
Ask Why
Show Respect

Each of these three phrases has deep meaning.

Go See – one of the basic Lean Mental models. See for yourself, Grasp the Situation, seek to understand what is actually happening, look at things from both a technical and people point of view. The 4 M’s is a good framework for this. Consider the Manpower, the Machines, the Materials and the Methods as you observe the situation.

Ask Why – another one of the basic Lean Mental models. It revolves around Leader as a Teacher. Rather than tell people what to do, leaders ask questions to probe. This develops people’s thinking and develops their ability to problem solve for themselves in the future. Although this approach may take longer to resolve an issue in the short term, it pays big dividends in the long term as people’s capability to solve their own problems develops over time.

Show Respect - Key to the entire process and fundamental to Lean. It’s founded on one of the basic principles of Lean which is “Respect for Humanity”. Anytime, leaders go to Gemba and ask why, it needs to be done in a way that builds the capability of the team and empowers them to try things to learn for themselves. This is showing respect for their mental capabilities and their humanity and goes beyond just showing respect for them in the way we talk to each other in an interpersonal relationship.

Now we have a system of Going to Gemba but as with any system, this system needs a purpose. What’s the purpose of Going to Gemba? Obviously to understand the current condition, to develop the capability of team members and to kaizen the process. But do we just go to Gemba hoping to find problems and waste? I’d suggest a better way would be to define a specific process or capability you want to check and predetermine questions you want to ask about it. Start by identifying the critical processes in an area and develop a calendar on when you’ll go to Gemba with the purpose of checking that process. Over time many different processes can be checked and many different capabilities developed, all with a specific purpose.

If we don’t do these things we revert back to Management by Walking Around which I like to call Management by Milling Around. We feel good about it but it really doesn’t get us anywhere.

Cheers

Fred Taylor & the Illusion of Top-Down Control - Part II

2012-02-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Last time I wrote about Fred Taylor and his Faustian bargain.

Taylor separated planning from production.

Productivity soared, but at a terrible cost:

the alienation of front line team members, and
the illusion of top-down control

"We can manage from a distance, by the numbers."

"What can front line team members possibly teach us?"

These are common expressions of this way of thinking, which, sadly, permeates our professional and business schools.

This mental model is so deep that nobody even thinks to question it.

Bottom-up management, by contrast, was the dominant mental model during what Ken and Bill Hopper call "The Golden Age" -- roughly 1920 to 1970.

(The Puritan Gift is their fine account of this period)

I see the pernicious effects of this way of thinking in our consulting work.

Well-meaning, capable executives who, nonetheless, believe they can manage from a distance.

And who do NOT believe in enabling front line improvement by involving all team members.

A revered sensei once asked me, "How will you motivate your team, Pascal-san?"

Another time, I asked him, "Sensei, why is involvement so important?"

"If involvement is high," he replied, "injuries, defects, cost and lead time are low. But if involvement is low..."

Best,

Pascal

PS My new book, Reflections of a Business Nomad, is full of such stories & should be out in May -- (knock on wood!)

Fred Taylor & the Illusion of Top-Down Control - Part I

2012-02-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Been thinking a great deal about this.

Fred Taylor was the genius who, essentially, invented Industrial Engineering.

Taylor's innovations around time & motion studies, standardized work and scientific management helped to revolutionize manufacturing.

But by all accounts, he was a lousy manager.

(If you're interested, Kanigel's The Enigma of Efficiency is a fine biography)

So, he set out to revolutionize management too. His rationale appeared to be:

"If I'm a lousy manager, it must be because current management practice is all wrong!"

In Joe Juran's mind, Taylor's approach essentially separated planning from production -- a Faustian bargain if there ever was one!

Productivity soared, but at a terrible cost: the alienation of front line team members.

There was another unseen & equally terrible cost: the illusion of top-down control.

"We can manage from a distance, by the numbers."

The thing is, you can't. You have to go see; you have to get your hands dirty.

You have to understand your business in a visceral way.

Thereby, leaders have a chance at "grasping the situation" and developing strategies that make sense.

And more important, leaders thus have a chance at deploying the strategies so that everybody is involved.

A wise man once said, "Any damn fool can make a plan. It's the execution that screws you up!"

People are smarter, better trained & more capable than they've ever been.

Only a damn fool would fail to engage them.

Best regards,

Pascal

Lean Leadership Excuse #2

2012-02-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

As I work with leaders in organizations who are making the transformation from a traditional way of thinking to Lean Thinking, I hear many stories about lack of leadership commitment. That seems like a fuzzy problem so I ask people how to make it concrete and real. The answer I get is people want to see evidence of leaders at Gemba daily, leading and involved in problem solving.

When I talk to leaders about why they can’t do this, I get a string of excuses, the most common one being “I don’t have time”. After that , the excuse I hear the second most often is:

“It’s so hard”.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the first excuse – lack of time. If you want to refresh on that excuse, please see our blog dated January 12, 2012.

And yes, change is hard but as leaders we need to step up to the plate and lead the organization towards True North. But why is even a change for the better, so hard to implement? I’m not an expert in organizational design by any means but I observe that organizations have an inertia to them. Much like Sir Isaac Newton, the great English mathematician, physicist and astronomer described as the first of his three universal laws of motion – “A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force”. In organizations we tend to perpetuate those things we’ve learned and practiced over the years and it requires energy to overcome that inertia.

The role of leaders is to be the force, that source of energy, that changes the inertia of the organization.

In adults it takes a great deal of energy to replace what we’ve learned and done in the past with something new even if that something new is better than what we already know and do.

As a great sensei one told me “You have many years of unlearning to do”

What’s the remedy? Daily practice at Gemba

We have to practice over and over again. It takes repetition and with repetition we build the muscles of the organization so it gets a little stronger every day. The key is to make time to go to Gemba every day. Over time the repetition becomes a habit and the organizational culture begins to change. As leaders - what you do is what you get. This is the water ring model of change. Start in one area of the organization and the change spreads across the organization like ripples across a pond. But it needs to be reinforced continually to overcome to inertia of the organization.

Is it hard to transform a culture and implement Lean? Yes, but by going to Gemba every day and starting small, the culture will change faster than you think is possible.

Cheers

Lean Expert Certificate

2012-02-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

This is an eternal question – do you certify someone in Lean?

I understand the need people have for a certificate. They’ve worked hard on building their Lean knowledge and skillset and want some recognition for it. This is consistent with the culture of our entire education system where year after year people receive grades and at some interim points receive a certificate often in the form of a Diploma or Degree presented to them with full pomp and circumstance at a Graduation ceremony. So why not do the same thing with Lean?

There is certainly a technical component to Lean in the use of many of the tools be they TPM, SMED, Kanban, or Standard Work and people could certainly be certified in the use of these tools but what about the other, deeper side of Lean – the thinking that underpins the use of the tools. How do you certify people’s thinking? With the tools, people can memorize some facts and reproduce those facts at the appropriate time but often we find people using a tool in the wrong context. What was right for one situation isn’t right for another. People have developed knowledge of a tool but not the deep System of Profound Knowledge Deming talked about that enables them to use the right tool in the right context.

Is it possible to certify Lean Thinking?

I’m not sure how to do that and even if you could certify people’s thinking, a large part of Lean is the ongoing Pursuit of Perfection. The endless PDCA cycle of eliminating waste, creating more value for Customers, solving problems and learning. For people the Pursuit of Perfection often translates into Lifelong Learning, continuing to build their knowledge through practice and reflection. This ongoing process allows people to build profound knowledge.

What’s the answer?

I believe in Certificates of Participation as a means of satisfying peoples need for recognition particularly at the early learning stages. But as people continue to learn this need goes away and once it does, people become true masters.

Cheers

Leadership Lessons from General Colin Powell

2012-02-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

I was reading an article the other day on Leadeship Lessons written by General Colin Powell Chairman (retired), Joint Chiefs of Staff. In it he had a quote that I really liked:

“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership”

He went on to say that in his opinion, given this test, the majority of CEOs would fail. They would fail because they have built barriers to communcation preventing people from even asking for help and they have fostered a culture where problems are seen as failures or weakness and so are covered up.

This speaks directly to Lean Mental Model # 5 – Problems are Gold, buried teasure to be unearthed. But in all too many organizations, problems aren’t treated as gold, rather they are treated as things to be swept under the carpet and left alone. In these organizations the questions that are asked aren’t the Five Why’s rather they are the Five Who’s. People learn quickly to stop bringing problems to leaders. The funny thing is - the problems still exist.

I often ask people if they know of an organization in the world that doesn’t have any problems. This always raises a few chuckles. Of course every organization has problems, none are perfect. So if every organization in the world has problems, why is it that they don’t see problems as normal and as gold since they are an opportunity to get better? The answer lies with our leadership mental models. Leaders set the tone for the organization.

I agree with General Powell’s quote. As a leader, the day people stop bringing problems to you, is a failure of leadership.

For more information on Lean Leadership Mental Models, please see Lean Brain Boosters.

Cheers

Corporate Complacency and Arrogance

2012-02-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

I was reading the local newspaper last weekend and came across this article about the impending demise of Kodak. The article caught my interest since I used to work at Kodak. Although I no longer have any ties with the company, I do follow them and my heart goes out to them with the troubles they are in.

What really caught my attention was not just the story of Kodak but the underlying story of corporate hubris and what David Olive, the author calls “the corrosive effect of complacency”.

Here’s a link to the article: The Last Picture Show

Unlike today, Kodak in the past was a wildly successful company. But as we often see, success today is the forerunner of failure tomorrow. Why? Organizations come to believe their success is due to an inherent superiority they have and even worse, that this superiority will go on forever.

The ancient Greeks called this hubris, a word that means overconfident pride or arrogance. Hubris is often associated with a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities. This leads to complacency which is when the rot begins to set in. We become insulated and don’t react well to changes in the marketplace or to changes in technology. We continue to believe that what was successful in the past will be successful in the future and we begin a long decline.

The article also gives some great examples of organizations who have pulled themselves out of this decline and have re-invented themselves with IBM being a classic. What did it take? Strong Leadership with a vision of where the organization needed to go. We call this vision True North and along with Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri) to align and focus the organization, these organizations became leaders in their field again. That’s not to say it didn’t also take a lot of hard work.

The lessons from these stories can be summarized as:

Stay humble
Understand what drives customer value
Grasp the Current Condition
Reflect honestly
Stretch the organization to True North

All organizations have their ups and downs but following these lessons will allow for more ups than downs.

Cheers

No Plan Goes According To Plan

2012-01-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

January is always the time of year when organizations take the annual plans they have been developing and start to work on them. Or at least this is the time of year that organizations are supposed to begin working on their annual plans. In fact, to many organizations the annual strategic planning exercise is just that and once the plans are developed they are placed on a shelf where they gather dust until the perfunctory review at the end of the year. After the plans are made, the modus operandi is business as usual. This organization completes the Plan but never moves out into the Do part of the PDCA cycle.

Another thing I see is about this time of year is the plans are deemed to be in need of updating since something has changed and so the organization goes through an exercise of re-planning and will inevitably re-plan again later on in the year. This type of organization follows a Plan, Plan, Plan, Do cycle or a Plan, Do, Plan, Do, Plan, Do, cycle but again never gets into a PDCA cycle.

At least this is better than organizations that just Do, Do, Do with no Plan.

What we really want organizations to do is to complete the annual PDCA cycle which means that after we have completed the plan and get into the Do or implementation phase, we need to focus on the Check and Adjust process. In my experience this is the hardest part of the PDCA loop and the one that most organizations are the weakest at and therefore the process that needs the most strengthening.

The plan is a hypothesis:

If we do these things in this timeframe, we will get this result.

The Check process tests the hypothesis, both the execution of the plan (the process) as well as the results. If either is off target, the organization launches problem solving. But how are we to know we’re off the plan unless we have a rigorous Check process and a rapid response to the problems raised as part of the Adjust or Act process.

No plan goes according to plan, something unforeseen always happens, and because of that, good Lean organizations understand the need for a quick checking process so they can respond rapidly to being off plan and an marshal the resources needed to solve the problems and get back on plan.

January – the time to get the year off to a good start by getting into implementing the plan via the Do phase. But just as importantly, the time to set up a Check process that allows us to see when we’re off the plan so we can respond with problems solving and get back on plan.

Cheers

How Do We Change Our Thinking?

2012-01-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

We live in difficult times.

Organizations around the world can't seem to do what they're trying to do.

America, our management lodestar for most of the 20th century, is struggling with seemingly intractable economic & political difficulties.

Europe, if anything, is doing even worse.

In spite of everything, I believe things are going to be okay. America, Europe and the world will muddle through in 2012.

Over time, I believe we'll resume the path of continuous improvement in health, freedom & prosperity.

How do we accelerate this process?

I believe many of our current problems are the result of dysfunctional mental models.

Here are a few of the most debilitating:

Top down, instead of bottom-up

Leaders believe that they & they alone are qualified to identify & lead needed improvement efforts.
"What can we learn from front-line team members?"

Initiative-fever

"To improve, we need to launch a bunch of new Initiatives! Wait, we'll need an Initiative Tsar!"

We can manage all our 'Initiatives' from a distance, by the 'numbers'.

"We don't have to go see. We don't have to get our hands dirty. You know, we don't even have to know that much about our business."

The result?

Disengaged, pathetic team members

"Ok, just tell us what to do..."

Wasted potential

"The problems & countermeasures are clear. Why doesn't our leadership ask us?"

Absence of focus

"Okay everybody, here's our list of 147 focus projects for 2012!"

Virtually all my books address these themes, across a variety of industries.

How do we change our thinking?

An esteemed sensei posed this question a long time ago.

It remains our key to the kingdom.

In 2012, I'll dig deeper into these mental models & this question.

Cheers,

Pascal

Lean & Wakefulness

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.

Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.

Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.

Lean tools like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.

"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"

Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.

Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.

"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."

My books Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me and it's sequel, The Remedy, all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.

Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.

Cheers,

Pascal

The Puritan Gift

2012-01-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Kenneth and William Hopper have done us a great service.

Their award-winning book, The Puritan Gift, offers a bracing diagnosis of what ails America.

The Hoppers argue that we've squandered the gift bequeathed on us by our Puritan forbears:

Commitment to creating a better society, indeed, a "shining city on the hill",
Putting the needs of the group ahead of individual needs,
A willingness, and pleasure in, getting our hands dirty,
Organizational genius, and
A respect for, and comfort with, technology

Since the end of WWII, management practice has been hijacked by the Cult of the (So-Called) Expert.

Business schools have flooded our organizations with MBA's who "should have a skull & crossbones tattooed across their foreheads."

The cult's mental models, they tell us, include:

"We can manage by the numbers, from a distance. We don't have to get our hands dirty."
Credentialism -- the more degrees, preferably business degrees, the better
"Every man, woman, thing for themselves!"
"The common good -- what's that?"
"Top-down control -- what can the front-line worker possibly teach us?"

Raw, passionate stuff!

The book has much to teach Lean thinkers. Their discussion of the meeting of East & West in post-war Japan is not to be missed.

Well done, Ken and Bill!

Best regards,

Pascal

Lean Enterprise Institute -- 15 Year Anniversary

2012-01-16T10:00:00.001-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

It's been my good fortune to be an LEI faculty member for a decade now.

Mama mia, time flies!

LEI folks have become my good friends, as well as, colleagues.

Their mission is to change the world -- and they mean it!

Please join me in wishing John Shook & team a Happy Anniversary!

Long may your run!

Best regards,

Pascal

PS LEI is running a corresponding promotion on my book Getting the Right Things Done.

You can get 15% off any number of copies of the book.

To get the price, please enter the discount code 15YEARS at checkout.

Promotion runs all next week -- Jan 16-20.

Lean Leadership Excuse #1

2012-01-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

As I deal with organizations in the midst of implementing Lean, I here many versions on a theme around lack of leadership commitment. When I ask what does leadership commitment look like, invariably the reply is “Leaders need to be visible at Gemba involved in the improvement work”.

So, I’ve asked many Leaders why is it they can’t spend more time at Gemba? I’m assuming they know what to do when they go to the Gemba which most of them do. That is, they would go to Gemba with the purpose of:

Go See
Ask Why?
Show Respect for Team Members

Most Leaders know what to do at Gemba and know that it’s an important thing for them to do but still don’t go. When I ask them why, I get the following response:

“I don’t have time”

Leaders don’t have time to go and seek to understand what is really happening, to see problems, to teach their people and to build the capability of the organization. So what do they have time for? E-mail, meetings, re-work and generating reports but they don’t have time for some of the most important work they need to do as leaders.

When I probe deeper and ask why, it usually comes down to leaders spending their time doing urgent work rather than important work.

Work can be broken down to four quadrants using a simple two by two matrix with Importance of the work on one side and Urgency on the other axis.

Leaders spend too much time on Urgent but Not Important work and not enough time on Non-Urgent but Important work. How do correct this? It starts by having the discipline to load up your calendar with Important but Not Urgent work first and then sticking to it and measuring it. You may not meet your calendar 100% of the time but by applying the PDCA cycle to it, the percentages will go up over time. The best part is it becomes a benevolent cycle since the more time leaders spend at Gemba teaching, the more problems are solved, the fewer urgent issues to deal with and the more time to spend at Gemba.

Key is to start by locking out a small amount of time every day and growing it from there. Take the challenge and block out 15 minutes a day to start and see how quickly that time makes a difference in your organization.

Cheers

Jidoka – The Forgotten Pillar

2012-01-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

As we look at the House of Lean, we tend to concentrate on the Foundation and JIT pillar. I’d like to write today about the other pillar – Jidoka for without it, our House of Lean would tilt and the roof would surely come crashing down.

Jidoka or autonomation as it is often translated to, really refers to “Built in Quality at the Source” or even more simply – Don’t pass defects on. Many people forget that high quality and Just In Time go hand in hand. There’s no sense reducing lead times just to move defects faster through the value stream.

I like to think of Jidoka as three things:

Don’t accept defects
Don’t make defects
Don’t pass defects on

The origins of Jidoka go back to the original Toyoda (correct spelling of the family name) family Weaving Loom business. Before they became famous for making automobiles, the family was in the business of making weaving looms that had a reputation for making cloth of very high quality levels.

In the late nineteenth century, people used to sit and watch the weaving machines make cloth waiting for any broken threads which would lead to defects in the cloth. When they saw a broken thread they would stop the machine, repair the thread and restart the machine. Imagine a job like this, watching a machine do the work and reacting only when there was a problem. What a waste.

Toyoda saw this and invented a method whereby the weaving loom would self-detect a break in the thread, stop and alert the operators. The operators could then repair the thread and restart the weaving loom. Now one person could operate many looms and the looms would produce only cloth of the highest quality.

This is where the term Jidoka came from. Autonomation – automation or machines but with a human touch. Ones that can self-detect errors, stop and alert the operator. Now machines can do what they do best which is detecting defects and humans can do what they do best which is problems solving.

By implementing Jidoka, we implement a system that prevents defects from being sent to the next person or operation in the value stream. Now we can begin to introduce JIT and cash in the benefits of reduced inventory and lead time.

Jidoka and JIT – we need both pillars to be working hand in hand to truly provide value to our Customers.

Cheers

Reflections on Developing our 2012 Strategy

2012-01-05T10:00:00.001-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

2012 is upon us - time to develop our improvement plans.

"Every day a little up!” an esteemed sensei taught me.

Doing so means focusing your energy of the critical few improvement areas.

What will we emphasize in 2012? What's holding us back?

What's the root cause of each obstacle? What are the countermeasures?

Strategy is all about emphasis.

Failure modes are daunting. Here are some:

Not understanding our current condition - hence, our remedies are ineffectual
Not understanding root causes & jumping to countermeasures
Not confirming cause & effect, before embarking on a difficult set of countermeasures
Trying to do too much - not focusing

In my experience, if we "go see", get our hands dirty, and grasp our current condition, we have a chance to answer the above questions honestly.

And thus, we'll have a chance to improve.

Strategy is a never-ending game. Perfect execution is unlikely and, in any event, not the point.

The point is to continually deepen our grasp of our business, deploy improvement strategies each year, learn from what happens - so we keep getting better.

Keeps us young, keeps us relevant.

We learn from where we've been, and look to where we're going.

Cheers,

Pascal

Year End

2012-01-02T10:00:00.001-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Dear readers & fellow bloggers,

We're obliged for your kind attention this year.

2011 was a difficult year for many of us.

As it comes to a close, perhaps I can pose some questions for each of us to reflect on:

What happened in 2011? What worked?

What didn't work? What have we learned?

Learning is hard; dogma is easy. (I speak from experience...)

It's helpful to remember & honour our core values:

Family, team, community,
The Cardinal Virtues: Temperance, Prudence, Justice & Courage,
Simple decency,

It's also important to remember that the future is bright.

In spite of everything, people around the world have more sustenance, time, energy, and freedom of thought & movement, than ever before.

In spite of everything...

Happy New Year and a safe and prosperous 2012 to you & yours.

Pascal

Year End Reflection

2011-12-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

As we approach year end, many organizations reflect back on the accomplishments of the year, especially what business results were achieved. While this is admirable, it can sometimes amount to rubber stamping. Everyone draws from their list of excuses and talks about how things are going to get better next year but no one gets to the root of the real problems that are dragging their business results down. We call this happy talk.

True reflection not only looks at the business results that we either did or didn’t achieve, it goes deeper and looks at the plans we made and asks the following questions:

Did we achieve the results we predicted in our plans?
Did we execute the plans on time?
Did the execution of the plans give us the predicted results?

The key is to continually go back and test the original hypothesis. That’s the hypothesis we set at the beginning of the year; that the execution of these plans will give us these results.

The beauty of a hypothesis is that it’s binary and the questions we ask around it are binary. Being Yes/ No is very powerful in cutting through “Happy Talk” and getting to the real problems that are holding us back. No grey areas, no “yes buts”, just the facts. It makes for a very powerful dialogue that enables teams to address the real problems the business is facing.

This dialogue truly does drive relentless continuous improvement.

Cheers

Sincere Mind

2011-12-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

I like this phrase. They seem like easy words to begin with but there is a depth to this phrase that goes on deeper and deeper. Isn’t that true of many Lean concepts? The more we know, the deeper the meaning.

Where does Sincere Mind start?

It goes back to one of the original Lean pillars that Toyota gave us of “Respect for Humanity”. This doesn’t just mean the workings of our interpersonal relationships with one another; rather it means giving people work that fully utilizes the talents both of their minds as well as their bodies.

Here’s the fundamental question:

Why should team members waste their energy, time and talent doing non-value added work?

Giving Team Members non-value added work doesn’t show respect for them and their capabilities. For example – I can’t count the number of times I’ve observed Team Members sitting idly by watching a machine do the work, waiting to either feed more materials into the machine or to get it started again should it stop. The people are there to serve the machine and not vice versa. What a waste. Don’t get me wrong, machines are needed for many tasks to eliminate the burden and strain of heavy, repetitive work and I’m not suggesting we eliminate these machines although many times they are candidates for Quick Changeover and small lot sizes. I am suggesting that we think carefully about the work and design the work differently to add in time for people to solve problems and work on waste elimination and driving more value to Customers.

Isn’t one of the highest forms of respect giving people work that challenges them to learn and to grow and makes full use of their capabilities as an individual. Under this definition, letting people solve problems is a high form of showing respect.

Another concept tied to this is Safety. Giving Team Members work that is unsafe doesn’t show respect for them. Safety not only means a workplace that is physically safe but one that is emotionally safe as well. One that is free of harassment and discrimination. Having people work in a safe environment shows respect for them as people. That’s why Safety is always number 1 and is the first thing we address in a Lean transformation.

So “Respect for Humanity” means not only giving people work that fully utilizes their capabilities but also means creating an environment where people can use their talents to their fullest ability.

By doing this we as Leaders show that we have a “Sincere Mind”

Cheers

Lean Laughs

2011-12-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

Lean & Business Results

2011-12-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

“We don’t do Lean for Business Results we do it to build capability”.

How many times have you heard that? I hear it a lot. And unfortunately the people who say it have got things twisted around a bit. Of course we implement Lean to achieve improved business results. It’s the way we achieve them that’s different.

The primary role of leaders is to achieve business results. If leaders don’t achieve business results, they won’t be leaders for very long. So we need to achieve results but we need to do it in a way that engages all our people in solving problems. For them to do that we need to build their capability. We need to build their capability to solve problems and we need to build their technical and social skills as well. The higher the capability of our people, the more problems they can solve. The more problems they solve, the better our business results. Therefore, the second role of leaders is to build the capability of the people in their organization.

Lastly, we need to achieve results and build capability in a way that’s consistent with the values of the organization. Showing respect for our people and challenging them to solve problems that stretch their capability. This way they are always growing and learning.

The problems our people work on need to drive improvement for the Customer, for the Employee and for the Organization.

When we look at business results, we’re not just looking at a narrow view of the organization financials; rather we need to take a broader view that encompasses all three areas.

Here’s an example of what I mean by business results:

Safety
Quality
Delivery
Cost
Morale

We need to engage people to solve problems and remove waste to drive improvement for the Customer, the Employee and the Organization. By doing this our business results get better.

So Lean is about business results and it’s about developing capability in people to solve problems to help achieve them.

Cheers

Kaizen Events vs Continuous Daily Improvement

2011-12-15T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

I’ve run across several organizations recently that seem mired in the belief that kaizen is all about weeklong events. Nothing could be further from the truth.

These organizations describe situations where they have a problem that isn’t big enough for a weeklong event so they are forced to add other items to it to make the problem larger enough just to use their kaizen process. Now give them credit, they are following their standard process but if we apply PDCA Thinking to this, we realize that if the standard is inadequate, we adjust the standard.

Problems come in all sizes and shapes. Some are large and messy and others are smaller and straight forward. In all these cases, the most important thing is to use a formal problems solving approach that embodies the Scientific Method. Why? Using the scientific method we set up experiments that are binary. They work or they don’t but in either case we learn from them and we learn from both our successes and our failures.

Because problems come in different shapes and sizes, kaizen needs to be able to handle both large problems as well as small ones.

What is kaizen?

There are many definitions that include “continuous improvement” and “change for the better” but I like to think of it as:

“an orderly, incremental, relentless process of continuous improvement” which was best captured in a quote:

“every day a little bit higher” by Taiichi Ohno.

Kaizen needs to embody the scientific method of problem solving which makes it an orderly, repeatable process. It also needs to be able to solve problems both large and small so we can use it for daily continuous improvement as well as for bigger problems both of which lead to incremental gains. Make no mistake; many small daily improvements often lead to larger gains than a few big ones because of the ability of small improvements to compound and to involve the people who do the work in actually improving the work as the problems occur.

In the end it’s all kaizen and we need both, kaizen events supported by daily kaizen. Together they give an organization the ability to have relentless continuous improvement.

Cheers

Alistair Norval

Customer Service in Telecommunications?

2011-12-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Health care horror stories come to late every day.

Infections, mis-medications, even wrong site surgeries are, tragically, common-place.

A health care leader recently said, "Hospitals are no place for a sick person!"

Does any other industry provided this level of customer service?

Here's a candidate - TELECOMMUNICATIONS.

My recent telco experience, trying to upgrade my cell phone, reflects business processes that might've been "designed" the Three Stooges.

I won't bore you with the sorry details. Suffice to say, it should have been an easy two to three step process, with a lead time of a day at most.

TARGET

Lead Time: 1 day

Number of process steps: 3

ACTUAL

Lead time: 10 days & counting

Number of process steps: 20 & counting

Most of the process steps are on the customer's end, of course...

We've all had similar experiences? What's the root cause - in telecommunications and health care?

In chapter 11 of The Remedy, the protagonist, faced with a near catastrophe to a family member, settles on the following root cause:

THE CUSTOMER IS NOT THE CUSTOMER

Health care organizations in the U.S. Canada perform the way they do because the patient is NOT the customer

Usually, the Payer is the customer, be they Medicare or a private insurance provider.

And the Payer's definition of Value, does not coincide with that of the Patient.

Similarly, my telecommunications carrier is one of Canada's biggest providers and until recently had a near monopoly.

They don't care about the customer because, as a monopoly, they didn't need to care.

Now that Canada has a measure of competition in the industry, one can expect their market share to fall.

(Sadly, seems the new industry entrants are, so far, as bad as the incumbent)

What's the lesson for people in the transformation business?

Socrates said, "Know thyself."

Know your customer too - and what they value.

Otherwise, you'll miss the mark badly, and might even generate the customer's disdain.

As for my telco providers - a pox upon their houses!

Pascal

Apple University, Yokoten and Leadership

2011-12-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Yokoten is a lovely Japanese word which means shared, experiential learning.

The late Steve Jobs set up Apple University to ensure yokoten after he was gone.

Apple University is dedicated to developing & sharing the "Apple Way", the set of practices and values, Mr. Jobs left behind.

"Thanks, Steve" by Jonathon Mak Long,
19 year old student at Hong Kong's Polytechnic University School of Design.

Jobs was a great admirer of the "HP Way" developed by Dave Hewlett and Bill Packard.

In the last decade of his life, Jobs lamented the loss of Dave & Bill's brilliant, humane culture.

I have a number of HP friends and colleagues and am struck by how strongly Dave & Bill still influence HP Culture.

Sadly, given the organization's recent travails, that influence often entails, "Dave & Bill would never allow that to happen!"

In any event, wise leaders build "leadership pipelines" -- to ensure their organization adapt, survive & prospers for generation.

In difficult times, when it often seems we’re led by swine and psychos, let's honour leaders like Jobs, Hewlett, Packard et al.

Leadership is a game with endless innings. We've struck out badly the past decade, but we'll get to the plate again.

History suggests we'll learn and get better.

Indeed, I feel a growing sense of decency and service among the leaders I work with.

Hopefully, the reign of the toxic "expert" -- the disconnected brain who "manages by the numbers from a distance" -- is beginning to pass.

The recent indictments of high profile executives of such firms will surely help.

Imagine one of these bozos doing a cost-benefit-analysis on yokoten.

"It doesn't make sense for me to teach anybody anything."

Been thinking a great deal about leadership lately. In fact, I have a new book coming: Reflections of a Business Nomad.

More on that later.

Stay young, stay foolish.

Cheers,

Pascal

Yokoten, Meta-cognition and Leadership

2011-12-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

A lovely Japanese word, no?

It rolls off the tongue, and ends with a long, pleasing 'nnnn...'

What's it mean?

Here are some definitions:

Horizontal sharing, best practice sharing, lateral deployment, shared experiential learning...

I like the last one. Shared -- experiential -- learning.

Yokoten entails not just cognition (knowing), which tends to be shorter term, but also meta-cognition.

Meta-cognition entails 'knowing about knowing' and mean answering questions like:

How do I learn?

What do I know?

What do I not know very well?

Great leaders know themselves thereby, and can make conscious decisions.

(The Lean Business System is fundamentally about wakefulness.)

Leaders need to ask these questions of their organization:

How do we learn best?

What do we currently know, and not know, well?

Most important question for leaders:

How do I ensure that we'll continue to learn, after our current leaders retire or move on?

A tough one, to be sure.

The late, great Steve Jobs thought about it a great deal.

The result: Apple University.

More in my next blog.

Cheers,

Pascal

Images and A3 Thinking

2011-12-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Seems Getting the Right Things Done has been helpful in teaching A3 Thinking, the "story-telling" approach to strategy.

I'm gratified by all the good people who've told me, "That book really helped us – thanks!"

We're hard-wired to tell stories -- that's what our ancestors on the African savannah did at day's end around the fire.

(They didn't show PowerPoint...)

Like any good story, a good A3 pulls you in...

"And what happens next?" you wonder.

Where do images fit in?

Assignment

Here's an assignment for folks that have gained proficiency developing A3s.

Turn your A3 over – now draw a picture that tells the story.

Don't worry if you "can't draw" – stick figures, circles and arrows are all you need.

Now tell the story to your team through the image.

The better your understanding of the problem, the easier this'll be – and the clearer your image.

We've tried to illustrate Lean Thinking, Tools and Leadership with our Brain Booster pocket cards and apps.

Hope they're helpful.

Cheers,

Pascal

"No Bozos -- Ever"

2011-11-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

"No Bozos - Ever" Steve Jobs mantra!

An interesting expression of the Jim Collins principle, "Get the right people on this bus."

Hard to argue with the wisdom. Excellence entails prolonged focus by exceptional people on a noble goal.

Bozos distract teams from what's most important & ultimately degrade performance.

So, no bozos indeed.

But there are pitfalls.

What is a bozo? Do we have objective, fair criteria?

Or is our process a popularity contest?

Are we humane? Does everybody get a fair shot at proving themselves?

Do we have clear, simple standards for processes, hiring, performance, and strategy deployment?

If the answer to some of these questions is NO, then all bets are off.

I've found that people labeled as troublemakers (or "bozos") are simply bored or frustrated by the chaos all around them.

Give good people clear objectives, quick feedback, and the ability to improve their processes - and they flourish!

By contrast, "stars" that have risen in chaotic cultures often fall apart, when we clear the fog with standards, visual management and good processes.

I call this "splitting" and it's common in transformations.

So, let's heed the wisdom of Steve Jobs and Jim Collins with the caveats noted above.

Be fair and objective. Provide clear standards, quick feedback and clear direction.

Kaizen your recruitment process. Be clear on what you want in new team members & creative in how to check for those qualities.

Above all, be humane.

Everybody deserves a fair chance.

If you've hired people that don't fit - help them find a place where they do.

Cheers,

Pascal

Lean Laughs

2011-11-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

Gary Kasparov and the Breakfast of Champions

2011-11-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Pascal Dennis

Chess is arguably our greatest strategy game.

More books have been written about than for all other games combined.

Chess has infused our language: checkmate, stalemate, opening phase, end game, gambit...

Chess has such a strong hold on the human mind that chess champions are notoriously eccentric.

(Check out the recent, excellent documentary called Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World)

Gary Kasparov, the greatest chess player of them all, is the exception.

After retiring in 2005, he has devoted himself to exposing Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime, and to leading Russia's fledgling pro-democracy forces.

He is also successful entrepreneur and author, and is happily married.

So his recent book about chess and business strategy is especially important.

It's called How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves - from the Board to the Boardroom.
Kasparov's insights into excellence are especially interesting.

What makes a champion?

Frequent, frank - even ruthless - reflection and self-assessment, Kasparov tells us.

Indeed, if we think of elite performers across a range of endeavors - Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods (pre-implosion), Yoyo Ma, Yitzhak Perlman come to mind - we see the same pattern.

What's this got to do with you?

The Lean Business System is about elite performance.

It's best practitioners - Toyota, General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, United Technologies, Alcoa, Danaher and the like - ruthlessly self-assess, and adjust based on what they see.

Our improvement kata - tip of the hat to my pal, Mike Rother, is our driving force.

Here at Lean Pathways we've boiled the kata down - and call it Four-Step-Problem-Solving.

(There are others. I'm not into theology - pick a good one & get going...)

We supplement our kata with Brain Booster Pocket Cards and Apps.

But it's all about reflection and adjustment thereby - the Breakfast of Champions.

More about Kasparov in future blogs.

Sayonara ya'll.

Cheers,

Pascal

Back to Basics

2011-11-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

The dog days of summer have passed, fall is here, the air is crisp and winter is just around the corner. It’s one of my favorite times of year which means it’s football season. As I write this, training camps have broken and the regular season is well under way. It’s mid-season so every team is still in the race.

What do football and Lean have in common? Many things, the most important being how they pay attention to the basics. The basics of football are blocking and tackling. The basics of Lean are making problems visible and problem solving.

Football training camps that began several weeks ago, opened with the basics of blocking & tackling. Why do they start with the basics? In football, the teams have to block and tackle on every play. If they can’t get those right, there is no way they can get the more advanced plays right. The basics of blocking and tackling are a foundation for everything else. They need to be good at the foundational basics so they can build upon them. If not, it’s like building a house of cards and we all know teams like that.

The basics of Lean are found in the foundation of the House of Lean. Like football, Lean needs a solid foundation of Standard & Stable processes to build upon. Lean uses 5S and Visual Management to make waste and problems visible and a simple problem solving process to engage team members in solving problems. The outcome of problem solving often is standards and/ or standardized work by which the improvements are locked in. By solving problems and strengthening the underlying processes, we build a solid foundation upon which to move into JIT and Jidoka.

So, standards and standardized work lock in improvements. Sounds like football again where each play is standardized work and where more advanced options build upon the foundational standard plays.

For more on basics and Lean, see the Lean Manifesto at www.leansystems.org.

Lean Enterprise Workshops December 6 - 8 in Jacksonville, Florida

2011-11-15T20:42:00.001-05:00

Dear friends,

I've been privileged to work with the Lean Enterprise Institute for almost a decade now.

They're great people whose mission is to "change the world!" -- and they mean it.

Join me and other faculty members of the Lean Enterprise Institute as we present a series of workshops in Jacksonville, Florida on December 6-8 focused on developing leadership and problem-solving skills.

Along with workshops there is an opportunity to take a gemba walk at two local companies harnessing the power of lean thinking (Medtronic, Inc. and Bahri Dental) and to attend a Lunch & Learn session with LEI CEO John Shook.

To read more about the event and to register, visit lean.org

Hope to see you there.

Pascal

American Manufacturing Basics

2011-11-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

It’s hard to believe but in 1979, the US Manufacturing workforce peaked at 19.5 million jobs. Since then US Manufacturing jobs have declined by about 40% to 11.7 million jobs with much of the job loss occurring in the last decade. About half the job loss is due to jobs displaced by Chinese manufacturing and much of the rest due to improved labor productivity. Yet with productivity up substantially, the US is still the world’s manufacturing leader producing 19% of the world’s goods compared to China’s 15.6%.

This is quite a dilemma. Labor productivity must go up to enable US Manufacturers to compete with off shore manufacturers who often have lower labor rates. Yet as labor productivity goes up, we face having unused labor.

How do we deal with this in the Lean world? We want labor productivity yet this can often mean job losses as fewer people are required to maintain the same output.

Let’s go back to the basics of Lean and remember the principle of “Respect for Humanity”. This is very deep and can have multiple interpretations but in this case it means that improvements in labor productivity must never result in lay-offs or people being let go to “cash out the gains”. Instead Lean views the unused labor as unused capacity to produce more goods and produce more improvement. Rather than overproduce goods (one of the biggest causes of waste), people are used to drive out waste and solve problems resulting in stronger processes. This allows Manufacturing to work with Sales and Marketing to open new markets and launch new products, both of which drive up volume and use up the excess capacity that was generated.

Organizations that do this are on an upward spiral. The more improvement they get, the more people can be freed up to drive more improvement. At each loop, costs go down allowing volume to go up driving a need to use some people to produce the additional goods.

Sometimes this is short term pain for long term gain as it takes time to develop new markets and launch new products but isn’t that just another opportunity to apply Lean?

This all becomes possible if we view Lean as a growth strategy, rather than a cost reduction strategy and we stay true to the basic principles of Lean including “Respect for Humanity”.

For more on this and other Lean principles see the Lean Manifesto at www.leansystems.org.

Cheers

Alistair Norval

Humor in Adult Learning

2011-11-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

By Al Norval

We in the Lean community have a unique challenge. We need to be both students as well as teachers at the same time. While we are rapidly learning and applying many new things, we have an obligation to teach others in our work groups or organizations what we have learned. Part of this is the concept of Yokoten, the rapid sharing of information laterally throughout the organization. This requires a mature Lean organization with systems and structures developed to ensure this happens. More on the topic of Yokoten in a later blog.

For today, I wanted to talk about teaching and adult learning. Adults learn differently from children. Kids are sponges for information. Adults on the other hand are full up or overloaded with information. In order to learn, adults have to replace what they have previously learned. To make matters more complicated, adult retention of things they have learned can be as low as around 10%.

In summary, adults are tougher to teach and retain less of what we teach them. This makes it tough for us in the Lean community to fulfill our role as a teacher.

What are some possible countermeasures to this?

The first countermeasure is “Learn by Do”. The act of applying the learning drives it deeper and makes it real. But what is it about “Doing” that drives higher learning and retention? Because people are involved in “Doing”, their brains create more neural connections with the activity than with just passive listening to a talk about the subject. The more active the participation, the more neural connections are formed and the higher the learning and retention. That’s why just listening to lectures has low learning while Learn by Doing has a much higher retention rate of the learning.

But how to drive the learning even higher?

The first is to teach others. We learn by teaching. After all, you’ve got to know a subject before you can teach it. Nothing tests your knowledge of a subject as much as trying to teach others.

Lastly, adults learn best when the learning environment is light and has some humor. Again we can see how humor creates more neural connections by triggering emotions and so enhances the learning experience.

How to add humor to the learning environment – through the use of images. Not all of us are comedians so we need props. Images with a light, humorous touch provide that and help create a learning environment that is conducive to adults both learning and retaining what has been taught.

Putting this all together, a process of a little training using light images, followed by doing, followed by rapid feedback creates rapid learning cycles that drive home the key learning points in adults. Practicing these ourselves enables us in the Lean community to fulfill our mission as being both students and teachers.

For more information on the use of Lean images to add some humor into your training, visit the Lean Pathways Shop.

Social Media & the Lean Business System -- Risks & Opportunities

2011-11-07T10:00:00.001-05:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Been thinking a lot about this lately.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, as well as, the abundance of cell phone apps -- what do they mean for Lean thinkers?

Seems to me social media represent a powerful new learning channel -- provided we keep the fundamentals in mind.

Yokoten -- means shared, lateral, experiential learning.

We learn by doing -- not by browsing.

If we spend too much time at our screens -- we sacrifice depth.

Depth of understanding requires action followed by reflection -- away from your screen.

Use the screen to supplement your knowledge.

Then turn the damned thing off and get to the gemba, where you must practice, practice, practice.

Social media are marvelous, helpful and oh so seductive. Used properly, they're a boon.

But they're no substitute for experience, for the school of hard knocks, of growth & learning.

Regards,

Pascal

Curing What Ails Our Hospitals

2011-11-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

I read this article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine and have to admit it was the catchy title that caught my interest. "Curing What Ails Our Hospitals” went on to talk about a new design for hospitals that dealt with three problems that afflict most current hospitals. That is:

Infections
Energy Efficiency
High Cost

The article stated that infections were the leading cause of death in US hospitals.

In a play on words, the article quoted Norman Cousins saying that “A hospital is no place for a person who was seriously ill”.

I think that one line summarizes the state of Healthcare in North America.

Rather than just stating the obvious, the authors did offer several countermeasures. I’ve summarized the approach this way – improving the quality of patient care by reducing hospital induced infections will result in lower a length of stay for many patients. A shorter length of stay translates into savings and improved patient (Customer) satisfaction. Combine that with energy efficient buildings and a focus on prevention using team based care and the costs of healthcare can be brought back into line. Makes sense to me – I’d be interested in your opinions.

Their ideas for team based care included small neighbourhood hospitals which sounded a lot like SMED and small lot size needed for flow. Flow occurs in the absence of waste and I could visualize many waste reduction ideas in their design. Having the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others involved in patient care work as a team eliminates many forms of waste and more importantly allows the team to problem solve quickly and efficiently.

It all comes back to the basics of Lean:

Eliminate waste
Focus on the Customer
Engage team members in problem solving

By doing this, costs will take care of themselves.

Lean Laughs

2011-10-31T10:00:00.001-04:00

Why Lean in Sales?

2011-10-27T10:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Why indeed? Isn’t Lean a factory thing?

Well, no…

Lean is a business system comprising the entire enterprise.

The Toyota Business System, for example, addresses the three critical “loops”:

Design
Make
Sell

Guess which one is considered most important? Sell – because it’s closest to the customer.

Sales are about information. What features does the customer want? At what price point? What promotions does he respond to? How does she want to receive her products or service?

How was our last promotion perceived? And so on...

Production (Operations), usually our most valuable & expensive asset, runs on information. We only make what our information tells us to make.

If our information is wonky, our most valuable asset is unlikely to operate in its sweet spot. Result: overproduction, inventory and all the associated ills.

So how do we introduce Lean in Sales?

Here are some questions to get you started:

What is value in Sales? (Who are our internal & external customers and what do they need from us?)
What is waste?
What are some core mental models in our Sales department?
What are our current processes for delivering this value?
How aligned are they to delivering the value our customers expect?
How do we improve them?

Lean is harder outside the factory – because our product & processes are typically invisible.

If you make scrap in a factory, everyone can see it. “Hey, we made a whole pile of junk yesterday…”

In business processes, by contrast, you can’t see the scrap. A good forecast & a bad forecast look identical…

On the plus side, sales folks are usually smart & creative. If you introduce the fundamentals with finesse, they run with them.

For more, check out The Remedy – Bringing Lean Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization, and our Lean Leadership Brain Booster suite.

That’s all for now.

Pascal

Aikido and Lean

2011-10-24T12:39:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Aikido is the Japanese martial art developed by Morehei Ueshiba -- one the greatest Japanese senseis.

I studied aikido for fifteen years -- hard practice 3 or 4 times a week, as well as, summer camps in New England and beyond.

My aikido training has never left me. When I joined Toyota I felt instantly at home.

"I get it, this is a dojo..."

Now, years later, I'm still practicing the techniques our aikido senseis taught us.

Go slow, stop and fix, repeat...

(I pause here and respectfully bow to the late, lamented

• Kanai-sensei of Boston Aikikai, and

• Kawahara-sensei of British Columbia Aikikai)

Turns out this is the best way to learn -- (see Dan Coyne's The Talent Code for more).

I'll say it again: Go slow, stop and fix, repeat...

So easy to say...

Do we have the guts & discipline to do?

Cheers,

Pascal

Success is the Enemy of Future Success

2011-10-20T10:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

Ideal condition, and
Target condition.

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars?

True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal

East Meets West in the Toyota Production System

2011-10-17T10:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Fall is a good time to reflect on fundamental questions.

What's so special about TPS?

Okay, it has a very good track record in manufacturing and has spread into health care, construction, finance and other sectors.

But over the centuries, have there been other successful management innovations?

What's the big deal?

I believe TPS is unique because it represents a magnificent blending of cultures.

The American occupation of Japan after WWII brought the best of East and West together.

American muscle, optimism and engineering prowess met Japan's (and hence, China's) social, psychological and spiritual inventiveness.

The result -- TPS -- represents an entirely new way of managing.

When ideas "mate" interesting things happen.

Scientific Management, as espoused by Taylor, Ford, Deming and others, enriched -- and was enriched -- by Eastern systems of thinking and feeling.

What other management system combines the rationality of time and motion studies, with the humanity and humor of continuous incremental improvement?

Every day a little up...

What other system is as comfortable with Zen-like paradox?

Lead as if you have no power?

Stop production so it never has to stop...

And what other system embraces the impossibility of perfection, while insisting we must work toward it every day?

TPS is a splendid marriage of East and West, of rationality and intuition, of Left & Right brain.

We're lucky to have it.

So here's an overdue tip of the hat to all those half-forgotten dreamers, engineers and managers who first intuited TPS in the 1940's and 50's.

Arigato gozaimashita!

Cheers,

Pascal

The Paradox of Standards

2011-10-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

The Toyota Business system is full of paradox -- one of the many things that make it unique.

Standards are one its most paradoxical elements.

Standardized work (STW), for example, the best way we currently know to do a given task.

Our Lean Brain Booster pocket cards and apps teach that we need "simple, visual standards for all important things."

I was taught that STW comprises:

Work content,
Sequence
Timing, and
Expected outcome

Pretty strict, no?

You'd think, therefore, that STW would be restricting...

But STW frees you up -- for learning and improvement!

My wife, Pamela, teaches kindergarten. Her class includes a number of youngsters with special needs (autism, learning disabilities etc)

Children have difficulty with basic activities like tying their shoe laces, washing their hands, and going to the bathroom.

The latter, in particular, is rife with anxiety for many kids.

So, Pamela developed simple, visual standards for each of these activities.

Result: no accidents, anxiety or humiliation.

Effect: kids have more energy for learning. I'm very happy to report that Pamela's kids are thriving.

Lesson: Standards set you free.

Cheers,

Pascal

Visual Management - Drawing Helps Us Learn

2011-10-10T14:33:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

I've been a scribbler for many years.

My journals are full of doodles, drawings, chicken scratch.

Now I know why -- it helps me learn.

Check out Science, August 26, 2011, Volume 233.

Ainsworth et al, in a paper called "Drawing to Learn Science" describe what happens when you draw.

Check out their Youtube video too.

Wonderful, no?

Wish I'd learned science this way...

Makes me think of Darwin, Leeuwenhoek and other greats.

Drawing things out in their notebooks, the messiness of the pages mirroring the messiness of learning & discovery...

So...get drawing ya'll!

Cheers,

Pascal

In Memory of Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T20:21:00.000-04:00

They say Steve Jobs died the other day.

I don't have to believe it, if I don't want to.

Pascal

Visual Management -- Reverse Magic

2011-10-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Visual management infuses every element of the Lean Business System.

In a sense, we're doing "reverse magic".

David Copperfield makes elephants disappear.

We need to make the (information) elephant -- appear!

"Now you DON'T see it -- now you DO!"

Presto!

Many obstacles in most organizations -- fear, need for power & control, lack of knowledge etc.

But we can't move forward without it -- especially once you move outside the factory.

My book The Remedy is about applying this reverse magic in Sales, Marketing, Design, Engineering, Retail...

Cheers,

Pascal

Alpha and Omega

2011-10-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

One of the great ironies of our time is the performance gap between Health Care and the so-called Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry.

As anybody who has spent time in the "Waiting Room" will attest. Value-Added time is microscopically small in the former.

By contrast, the good people in the QSR industry are getting better every day -- by applying the Toyota Business System.

Indeed, Business Week has had a series of articles highlighting their achievements.

I grew up in a restaurant, so my heart goes out to people who make the best of slim profit margins, long hours of often difficult work.

Well done, QSR and please continue!

It's easy to make fun, but the best QSR organizations provide excellent value and reliable service, while respecting the customer.

Can Health Care say the same?

Cheers

Pascal

Lean Laughs

2011-09-29T10:08:00.000-04:00

Why Images?

2011-09-26T10:12:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

As you may know, we've worked hard to illustrate Lean Thinking, Tools & Leadership with doodles.

We've developed three corresponding suites of Brain Booster Pocket Cards, as well as an App (& more to come).

We're lucky to have a gifted artist in Dianne Caton.

But even the humblest drawings (like mine) can be interesting.

My latest book, The Remedy, is full of my scribbles, which Di transformed charmingly.

Images go directly to the limbic brain -- the timeless world of direct experience, memory & intuition -- where learning happens.

The rational or Left brain is helpful in processing and applying learning.

But we learn largely in our limbic brain.

Our limbic brain likes stories, images, drama, emotion...

Disengaged students don't learn. Accident victims, who tragically have suffered damage here, also struggle to learn.

So...in our own modest way, we're trying to connect with the seat of learning.

Humor also helps. It's a grim world -- the "Light Touch" has always been my ideal.

People learn best when they're laughing.

Cheers,

Pascal

The Value of Images

2011-09-19T10:18:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

What is the value of an image?

We’ve all heard the old adage – “A picture is worth a thousand words” but what is the realvalue that’s implied by this phrase? We all know that value is driven bythe customer so what value do customers see in images?

Let’s start at the beginning - who is the customer of the image? It’s the person who isreceiving the information the image is conveying.

What do the customers want? To receive the information in the least waste way; this meansunderstanding it at a glance and to be able to retain the information.

Let’s look at an example situation. We have new hires into the organization and are trying tobring them up to speed quickly and safely without compromising quality. Theyare the customers of our training process. We use a TWI based process where wehave an experienced trainer and standardized work.

Would our customers, the trainees, see value in images so they can tie what theirinstructor has shown them to the critical elements of the work? Ofcourse! Images reduce training time and take away much of the confusions thatoccur when using only words even when we show people as well as talk themthrough the steps.

Would our customers, the trainees, see value in being able to use images to pokeyoke their standard work after the training? Again the answer is Yes. Simpleimages trigger recall of key learning points.

What is it that makes images so powerful in learning a new concept? Images are much deeper,richer and convey more information. Our brain reacts differently toimages. Images cause an emotional connection to be formed in our brains so weform more neural connections with images than with words only. This means wehave a greater rate of retention with images and a faster recall of thelearning point.

My observation from working with many different organizations is that most trainingconsists of slide after slide of PowerPoint? Why? Because it fits into computersystems better. In reality, our minds work so much faster than the words appearon the screen that we become bored and don’t retain the key teaching points. Ibelieve that images are undervalued in training and we in the Lean communityshould be striving to change this as part of our work.

For more information on the use of Lean images in training, see Lean Pathways Images.

Reflections on 9-11

2011-09-12T13:01:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

A decade ago we watched in horror as fanatics murdered innocent people.

What did they hope to achieve?

An immediate goal, evidently (which marks them as pathetic), was carnal delight in the afterlife.

A broader goal appears to have been the destruction of pluralism -- the free interplay of people, ideas, goods and services.

Commerce, if you will, between cultures, religions, ages, genders, with only minimal, common-sense restrictions.

The fanatics sought to isolate & "purify". (We've heard that story before, no?)

In the Lean Business System, this commerce is called yokoten -- direct, experiential sharing and learning.

Commerce/Yokoten is perhaps our species most distinguishing trait.

Does any other species exchange and build off one another's ideas?

Does any other species record and share its learning across generations?

In our magical age, we are able in a matter of moments, to download the collected wisdom of the ages.

My Kindle library includes free downloads of Epictetus, Seneca, Avicenna, Maimonides, Rumi, Gracian, Confucius and other sages.

Another of humanity's distinguishing traits is compassion -- the desire to help others in need.

A decade ago, we saw compassion in abundance, did we not?

Are not yokoten and compassion linked?

When we share, learn, break bread with one another, do we not also learn compassion?

Not along ago, the Chinese and Japanese were perceived to be the implacable enemies of America and the west.

After decades of mutual sharing and learning, former adversaries have become friends, colleagues and partners.

We have gotten to know each other & realize we're not that different, so why not be friends?

Yokoten (and compassion) which will continue to grow as we become more interconnected.

And that's why, after a gut-wrenching decade, I believe we are going to be okay.

Best,

Pascal

How Do You Motivate People to Keep Asking Why?

2011-09-08T15:52:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

What's the most common attribute of great organizations?

Problem solving...

Whether problems of design, marketing, manufacturing or distribution -- great companies are full of problem solvers.

Toyota's famous Five Why technique has been widely adopted now -- but results vary widely.

Some cultures get it -- others, not so much.

Here are a few thoughts as to why...
To get to root cause, you have to keep asking why. You have to care...

People have to feel, "This is my machine, department, factory, company." and "Getting to root cause benefits me."

So how do leaders create this sense of ownership, loyalty and esprit de corps?

Focus on Safety first -- everything else (Quality, Delivery, Cost...) follows.

Safety is our window on the process, as well as, as concrete message to team members:

“You’re our most valuable asset. We’re going to keep you safe, we’re not going to lay you off except in the direst of circumstances and as a last resort, and we’re going to teach you stuff that’ll make you even more valuable to us.”

Who wouldn’t want to work at a place like that?

Pascal
P.S. We've launched our Lean Leadership Brain Boosters -- to help lock in the fundamentals. Would love to get your feedback on them.

The Purpose of True North

2011-09-05T21:30:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

Many companies as they implement Lean and go through a Lean transformation, develop a continuous improvement system modelled after the “Toyota Production System”. These come in all kinds of names and formats ranging from …Production System to … Business System and all manner of variations in between. Often these are just a collection of tools and other stuff and really don’t make up a true system.

If we zoom out and look at the definition of a system, we see that a system can be defined as:

“an inter-related set of parts with a clearly defined outcome”

So the parts of a system are all connected to one another and have to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. Standardized Work needs to have 5S and Visual Controls in place for it to work. Without them, we could never get repeatable cycles of work. We would be endlessly searching for things. Even with them, there are many interruptions and disruptions to the standard cycles of work which we need to turn into problems and launch problem solving.

So we can see how the parts of a system are related to one another but what about the purpose? A system must have a clearly defined purpose. True North gives us that purpose.

True North defines the outcomes of the system and where we want the system to take us in the future. In essence it pulls us into the future.

True North defines the Philosophical and Strategy Objectives of the organization. It is comprised of two parts:

- Hard Goals that speak to the head and define the hard business targets

- Broadbrush Hoshins that speak to the heart and define direction, purpose and values

Together these are deployed through the organization to align and focus the organization. An analogy I like to use is one of river. The river flows to the ocean which is True North. The broadbrush Hoshins define the banks of the river. The river can take many paths to get to the ocean but we want it to remain inside it’s banks. Along the way it encounters rapids which are problems which must be resolved for the journey to the ocean to continue but all the time the river continues to flow to the ocean.

For more on True North and Lean Leadership, please see Lean Leadership Brain Boosters at http://leansystems.org/cart.php?page=pocket_cards

Lean & Green

2011-09-01T15:23:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

A topic that doesn’t get as much time as it deserves is the relationship between Lean and Green.

We know that Lean is based on Team Members driving the elimination of waste to provide our Customers with more value. Toyota has summarized these in three key principles:

Continuous Improvement
Elimination of Waste
Respect for Humanity

Green has become the symbolic color of environment protection and social justice. It was chosen for its association with nature, health and growth.

But how are they related?

One of the key tenets of Lean is “do more with Less”
– less human effort, less time and less resources so we’re able to turn our inputs into outputs faster with less waste.

Normally we think of this as the waste of production materials but let’s look deeper and see what other wastes we can uncover. This means less waste in:

The water & energy used to produce the materials
The effort, equipment & energy required to move the materials
The man-power, materials and energy needed to build equipment that over-produces to customer demand
The energy required to heat & cool buildings built to house these over-sized pieces of equipment
Information systems needed to track the materials and transactions
The effort needed to maintain all this extra stuff

The list is almost endless. The truth is our current cost systems don’t track these types of wastes very well, if at all, so they form part of a large, barely visible mountain of waste. The Remedy to this is to begin to see waste with a new set of eyes and that begins with developing a new set of Mental Models to guide us. The Lean Thinking Brain Booster pocket cards are a great starting point for anyone beginning this journey and for people who need a quick refresher.

Elimination of Waste – great for customers, Team Members, Shareholders and good for the environment.

Creativity & Innovation

2011-08-29T21:24:00.000-04:00

By Al, Norval,

In a previous blog I wrote the problem of organizations pushing products out to customers rather than having customer problems pull products from Designers. As a countermeasure to this, Lean Innovation needs to:

Develop a deep understanding of Customer problems through direct observation of the customer experience
Eliminate waste from our Product Design processes
Carry multiple alternative deeper into the design process to allow time to explore alternatives

Doing this allows the creation of an environment that fosters creativity and innovative solutions to customer problems can come alive.

But how do we become creative all of a sudden? Many times I’ve heard it said, you can’t schedule an invention.

We start by “thinking like a twelve year old”. Why think like a twelve year old? We invoke our twelve year old mindset since it was one of curiosity that wasn’t encumbered by the structured learning process adults go through. An unfortunate by-product of this learning process is that adults stop asking why and how. To think like a twelve year old, we must unlearn many of things we learned becoming adults.

To help us with this new way of thinking we look for seven alternatives for any problem we are faced with. Why seven alternatives? Developing a couple of alternatives is easy but developing seven is difficult. This causes us to stretch and begin to think out of the box. To further assist us in our creative thinking we look for inspiration from nature. Natural designs are elegant in their simplicity. Understanding this and applying them to our problem leads to creative alternatives we would never have come up with before.

Developing seven alternatives is one thing but we must then quickly turn them into working prototypes. Not fancy and costly prototypes but quick and crude physical mock-ups. We need to make the intangible concepts into something people can look at, touch, feel and even listen to and smell. We activate all of our senses to help us learn more about the prototype. We call this type of learning “Trystorming”. It’s brainstorming with a practical, physical application that accelerates the learning process which becomes a platform for even more creative ideas. We use the learning from several prototypes to refine our designs and converge on an optimal solution.

All the while we’re practicing PDCA and with rapid experimentation and feedback.

Can we schedule inventions? – No, but we can certainly accelerate the process of designing creative value added solutions for our Customer problems.

Paying more than list price.

Target Conditions vs Random Acts of Improvement.

What can we do vs what do we need to do.

Lean and the Excellence Authors

2011-08-25T12:11:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Over the past two decades the "Excellence" authors, Jim Collins, Peter Senge et al have produced a series of helpful books (Good to Great, The Fifth Discipline and others).

How do these relate to the Lean movement?

The Excellence authors basically got it right in my view. Their work is congruent with Lean -- (I continue to refer to them.)

But the "Excellence" books are (necessarily) academic.

The Lean movement has brought these ideas into the messy world of practice -- a great and continuing contribution.

Imagine a messy changeover kaizen in an Indiana stamping plant. The team stands glaring at you with their arms crossed.

Can we cut changeover time in half? Can we teach these jokers how to sustain & make further improvements?

(Will they kill us?)

Our revered and scary gemba -- where the proverbial rubber hits the road...

That's why I write business novels.

Hopefully, The Remedy, and its prequel, Andy & Me, in some small way give people a sense of what transformation looks and feels like.

Waste in Hospitals – Healthcare

2011-08-22T12:18:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

I had an interesting case recently to observe firsthand the waste in some typical Healthcare processes.

My son enjoys playing rugby and plays on the school varsity team. I have to admit, it’s a sport I don’t understand as I never played it as I grew up. To me it’s players bashing each other back and forth trying to score a “touch” all with no pads and little stoppage in the action. In any case, the boys love it and that’s the main thing.

Like any parent, I went to the games to support the home team. At the last game of the season my son broke his thumb making a tackle. So, we iced it up and off we went to the local hospital’s Emergency Department. As we arrived I called my wife and said we’d be back home in about five hours. Surely, it can’t take that long to X-ray his thumb and set it in a cast. We’ll see I said.

As we entered the waiting area I noticed a short line up in front of the triage nurse. After a short wait it was our turn to answer the questions and fill out the forms after which we took our places in the appropriately named waiting room. Without getting into all the details, I’ll highlight the Value Added steps:
- Thumb examined by Emergency Department (ED) physician.

- Thumb X-rayed by ED technician

- X-rays read by physician

- Broken thumb set in a cast

Needless to say, there were many other steps in the process all of which were waste. Some were necessary steps and the waste was necessary such as the initial filling out of forms, answering questions and even having the thumb re X-rayed in the cast to ensure the bone had set properly. Others such as waiting for the X-ray to be taken and read, waiting for the physician to examine the thumb and answering the same questions several times were pure waste.

As I pondered this during one of our many waiting steps, I realized the key to improvement in Healthcare is no different than any other process. We need to divide the process steps into Value adding, necessary waste and pure waste. We then need to engage our team members in:

- Reducing the necessary waste, and

- Eliminating the pure waste

The overall measure of how much improvement we are making is through examining the Lead time of the process. As we eliminate waste, the Lead time of the process will go down.

How much Lead time did it take for my son’s broken thumb to set in a cast? Five hours...

How much of that time was value added? One hour...

Therefore the waste in the process was about four hours. Fertile ground for making improvements indeed.

Mobile Apps and Lean

2011-08-19T08:01:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

Like many of you, I’m having to learn a new vocabulary and a new way of managing in this world that seems to be spinning faster and faster every passing day. Years ago, I learned e-mail, then it was texting & IM and now it’s smart phones and apps. It’s interesting to note that every new thing that comes along claims to be able to make our lives more efficient which I translate to mean more waste free. While there is some truth in this, the efficiency gains (waste reductions) are overcome by the amount of information coming at us in an ever increasing torrent.

Some of this information is truly helpful. I have to admit, I like the Sports app which allows me as a long suffering hockey fan to look up the scores for my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. Unfortunately, I don’t usually like the score but that’s another story. As a customer, I find value in the way & speed this information is made available to me and so there is value in this app. Likewise for the weather app I use. As I travel many days of the year, I find value in being able to look up the weather in a number of different cities and being able to see it quickly and up to date. Like the hockey scores, I don’t always like what I see.

These apps are great because they do provide value to me the Customer. The information is up to date and provided to me on demand in a way that is visual and so easy to understand. I can quickly get an update and so react appropriately.

In the Lean world, we face the same situation. When we are at Gemba or working with a team, how do we get a quick update on Lean basis? How do we know how to react? How do we know how and what to teach to our teams?

Many times we are away from our workstations and come across a problem or a moment when we could teach teams Lean Mental Models and the basic way of thinking. Unfortunately, we are away from our normal material and need to rely on our memory. We need quick access to the information but don’t have it at our fingertips. The opportunity passes.

Now we can use the same app technology on smart phones. I’d like to introduce the Lean Mental Models app for BB & iPhone. It’s twelve Lean Mental Models contrasted against the Conventional Mental Models that we can use when we are away from our workplaces but still need quick access to the Lean Mental Models.

Like the other Sports and Weather apps, I’m sure you will find value in this app.

Available at: http://itunes.apple.com/app/lean-thinking-brain-boosters/id450984003?mt=8

Blackberry App: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/20774?lang=en

What are Mental Models?

2011-08-15T11:49:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

I hear this question all the time and thought it would be a good time to write about it.

Simply put, Mental models are our assumptions about how the world works based on experience, upbringing & temperament. They are the lenses or filters we use in our glasses when we “see” the world but often they distort reality. For example – I’m sitting in a café with a friend, drinking a cappuccino and chatting. We stop and look at the crowd. We perceive different things even though we both saw the same faces in the crowd. Everyone sees the world differently since we all have a different set of lenses. These mental models help to shape our behaviour.

What does this mean in the Lean transformation of an organization?

When we go to Gemba we know we’re supposed to:

- Go See

- Ask Why

- Show Respect

But how can we “Go see” if we’re still using the old conventional mental models. We need to “See” at Gemba using the Lean Mental Models which will cause us to view things differently from before and enable us to truly see the depth of waste we have in our processes. Our role as Leaders is then to teach others to “see” in the same way and to problem solve to eliminate waste and improve value for our Customers. As we adopt the Lean Mental Models, our behaviour changes and become more consistent with Lean Thinking.

In a Lean transformation, we need to learn and master the Lean Mental Models and use them to “see” the organization differently.

There are twelve Lean Mental Models of which I‘m highlighting six below:

- Leader as a Teacher

- Go see for yourself

- Standards for all important things

- Don’t ship junk

- Problems are gold – treasure them

- Everyone solves problems using simple methods

I challenge you to compare these to the conventional way of thinking in an organization. Are problems treated as gold? Do Leaders act as teachers? Are defects passed on through the organization in the hope they will be caught in final inspection? Do only experts solve problems while everyone else sits around and watches?

Think about where your organization is in its Lean journey. How well has the organization learned the new Lean Mental Models?

Like any new skill, we can’t master the use of the Lean Mental Models overnight just as we can’t break any habit we’ve grown up with overnight. To master the Lean Mental Models, we need to practice using them. We need to hold each other accountable when we don’t follow them. We need to teach them to the rest of the organization. Over time, with practice our skill level improves.

To accelerate learning, practicing and mastering the use of the Lean Mental Models, we’ve developed the Lean Mental Model app for Blackberry and iPhone's which contrasts twelve Conventional and Lean Mental Models. These use the same popular images as the Lean Brain Booster pocket card series.

Please see http://itunes.apple.com/app/lean-thinking-brain-boosters/id450984003?mt=8 for more details.

Blackberry App: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/20774?lang=en.

Customer Focussed Innovation

2011-08-11T11:13:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

Ever notice how many companies push products out to customers rather than first understanding what Customers really find value adding and then designing products to fill that need?

Why is it that organizations do that?

It starts with not taking time to understand the Customer and their needs. Every product design is a countermeasure to a Customer problem. Before we can design the product we need to have a deep understanding of their problems. Not just the things that people will tell you in focus group feedback sessions but the deep, unspoken, unarticulated needs they have, many of which they don’t even realize they have. To do this we need to study our Customers, live in their world, experience their problems through their eyes. This allows us to truly Grasp the Situation and start the problem solving process following the PDCA cycle. It allows us to define the problem in the Customers terms. Only then will we have the insight to design products and services that will provide value to our customers.

But knowing this, why is it that many companies still don’t do it?
As I’ve reflected on this, I’ve come up with a few reasons. It takes time and resources to study our Customers both of which are in short supply when designers are pushed into meeting shorter launch time lines and shrinking budgets. It’s often easier to assume we know what’s best for the Customer. This is a type of Hubris or Big Company Disease both of which we’ve written about in previous blogs.

Another reason is we get attached to one particular concept and keep pushing it through to launch even though feedback and data say we shouldn’t. By the time we realize the product is flawed it’s too late since we have nothing else. Again Hubris and arrogance lead to poor product acceptance in the marketplace.

Interestingly enough, the root cause in both cases is a product innovation process that is full of waste.

True Lean Innovation is about taking the waste out of the Design process and carrying several alternatives deep into the process to allow designers time to explore alternatives until the last possible moment. This way we can launch products that deliver more value to customers. Having a process like this allows creativity to flourish since we are not forced to pick the one best idea very early on in the process.

In another blog, we’ll talk more about how to foster creativity as part of our design process and how to look at many alternatives and slowly converge on a solution. But none of this is possible without first and foremost taking the time to truly understand what drives the value proposition for your Customers.

Safety -- Our Window on the Process

2011-08-07T16:10:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Why do leading organizations like Alcoa, Dupont, Toyota and others put safety first?

Aren't private organizations about maximizing shareholder value?

Isn't profitability number one? Without it, after all, you're soon out of business, no?

The great Paul O'Neill, former CEO of Alcoa and Secretary-Treasurer coined the title of this blog.

If we can manage our processes such that nobody gets hurt -- quality, delivery, cost & profitability will surely follow.

Safe workplaces are invariable productive. They have standardized work, visual management, good ergonomics, flow and pull.

People understand their jobs, what can go wrong, how to avoid it -- and how to excel.

A health care colleague told me that industry CEOs believe they can delegate patient safety.

He also said that patient safety is not usually in the top 3 priorities of a typical health care CEO.

If so, I believe we have a root cause of the health care catastrophe.

Shingo Prize

2011-08-04T09:49:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

We hear so much about the Shingo Prize, I thought I would investigate it and share some of my findings with you.

The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence is awarded annually by the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University, to companies around the globe that "achieve world-class operational excellence status." It was established in 1988 and is named in honor of Shigeo Shingo and is recognized as the premier award for operational excellence in North America.

The prize has three categories:

- Business

- Public Sector

- Research

In the Business category, prizes are awarded to companies that achieve world-class manufacturing status. Shingo Prize (Gold), Silver, and Bronze prizes exist.

In the Public Sector category, prizes are given to the public sectors that achieve world-class manufacturing status. Shingo Prize (Gold), Silver, and Bronze prizes exist.

In the Research category, prizes are awarded recognizing research and writing regarding new knowledge and understanding of Lean and operational excellence.

It is given in four categories:

- Unpublished papers

- Published articles

- Books & monographs

- Applied publications / multimedia programs.

Who was Shigeo? Shingo that the Shingo Prize was named after?

Shigeo Shingo (新郷重夫, 1909 - 1990), born in Saga City, Japan, was an Industrial Engineer who distinguished himself as one of the world’s leading experts on manufacturing practices and the Toyota Production System. Although the myth prevails that he invented the Toyota Production System, in truth he was an external consultant who taught courses in Industrial Engineering at Toyota. He did document TPS and wrote one of the first books on TPS entitled “Study of the Toyota Production System”. He is recognized as being one of the world’s leading experts in improving manufacturing processes.

Shingo is best known for adding two prases to the Lean Glossary:

- SMED

o Single Minute Exchange of Dies

o Enabling small lot size production

- Poka Yoke

o Mistake-Poofing

o Building quality in at the source

The Shingo Prize was named after him in recogition of his lifelong accomplishments and devotion to assisting organizations achieve world-class status.

The Shingo Prizes are awarded at their annual conference with the next one being in Atlanta on May 7-10, 2012. Please join me in congratulating all the award winners with a special acknowledgement to Pascal Denis who will receive his 4th award in Research for his latest book “The Remedy”

See you in Atlanta

Cheers

The Remedy Wins the Shingo Prize

2011-08-01T22:59:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

The good people at Shingo Prize have seen fit to give The Remedy the nod.

They do important work & I'm humbled and deeply obliged for all their efforts.

It's an odd feeling. After finishing a book, I often forget I what I wrote.

(Maybe because the process is so intense & exhausting -- you need a break from the damned thing...)

"That's the other Pascal," I joke. "I'm his idiot brother."

Still, it's a footprint in time, a nod, a tip of the hat -- a sign that somebody finds your stuff helpful.

For that I am deeply grateful.

Pascal

P.S. BTW ya'll, be sure to attend next year's International Shingo Prize Conference, May 7 - 10 in Atlanta (http://www.shingoprize.com/).

I'll be there for sure!

Ford’s Mulally: It's OK not to be OK

2011-07-28T11:26:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

I saw this article in USA Today and thought it was such a great example of Leadership exhibiting the Mental Models, that I wanted to share it with you. Allan Mulally, Ford CEO, was talking about his experience at one of his first management meetings with the Executive Leadership team at Ford after he joined the company. Allan had enjoyed a successful career at Boeing and had recently joined Ford as CEO.

Quoting Allan from the USA Today article,

“In one of the Thursday management meetings, where managers are supposed to show color-coded charts, red for serious problems, yellow for lesser issues, green for all OK, "all the charts were green and I know — we're going to lose $17 billion. I stopped the meeting and I said, 'Is there anything that isn't going well? We're losing $17 billion.'”

Imagine that, Ford was losing $17 Billion and not one Executive raised a problem – everything was OK in my area – it must be the other guys.

The culture at Ford at the time was one where you didn’t surface problems. The underlying Mental Model was problems are to be hidden in closets or swept up under the carpet. Don’t admit you had problems. Mulally realized that it was perfectly natural for organizations to have problems and that the only way to get better was to surface the problems and engage people to work on resolving them.

He went on to say "The next week here comes Mark (Fields, now president of Ford's North and South America operations) and his charts are all red. Everybody else's were green. I started to clap, and I said 'That's great.'

As a Leader, Mulally was exhibiting the Mental Model of “Problems are Gold”. It’s OK to surface problems – everyone has them. He understood the way to improvement was to surface problems and get to root cause. Only then could countermeasures be put in place which strengthened their systems so the problems didn’t surface again and again.

Problems are Gold is a Lean Mental Model which is the opposite of the Traditional Mental Model of hiding problems so they can’t be seen.

Leadership is about changing Mental Models which enable our behaviors to change. As senior leaders change their behavior the rest of the organization watches and begins to change their behavior as well. The changes rapidly spread throughout the organization.

It’s OK not to be OK.

See the attached link for the complete article.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2011-07-26-mulally-bad-news_n.htm

For more on Mental Models, please see our Lean Brain Booster pocket cards.

Cheers

Lean Laughs

2011-07-25T12:15:00.000-04:00

Root Cause of Health Care Crisis?

2011-07-21T10:46:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Health Care is a disaster North & South of the border.

Neither Americans, nor Canadians can look on their situation with any satisfaction.

Costs are exploding -- and crowding out other critical expenditures like education, R & D and infrastructure.

Health care outcomes are disappointing. Miracles occur within the silos, catastrophe across them.

What's the root cause of this sorry state of affairs?

Why can't smart, skilled and caring medical professionals do what they're trying to do?

Deming taught us that the problem is in the system -- and he's right again.

Mis-medication, wrong site surgery, infection and other nosocomial calamities occur despite the heroics of nurses, doctors, pharmacists and the many other specialists who keep hospitals going. Indeed, things would likely be much worse but for their heroics.

So what's the root cause of our health care crisis?

Tom Papas, the protagonist of the business novel, The Remedy, tries to answer this question in chapter 13.

He is in rough shape -- he might be losing his father to a mis-medication.

Tom's conclusion: the customer is not the customer.

Only patients, he concludes, can arbitrate the millions of daily decisions that comprise the provision of medical care.

Yet the patient is not the customer in these transactions.

As evidence he reflects on how difficult it has been for his family to get Safety, Quality or Cost information from hospitals.

"And why should they give me info?" he laments. "I'm not the customer."

I've gotten a lot of mail about this chapter!

So what do ya'll think? Is Tom right, or is he not thinking clearly because of his desperate situation?

Are there other root causes that are more important? Any other thoughts or insights?

I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Best regards,
Pascal

Why Brain Booster Pocket Cards?

2011-07-18T10:35:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Over the past few years we've spend a great deal of energy on Brain Booster Pocket Cards.

What are we trying to do?

In the spirit of visual management we're trying to crystallize the fundamentals of the Lean Business System.

Less is more -- the cardinal proverb.

We want our three suites -- Lean Thinking, Lean Tools & Lean Leadership -- to complement classic Lean text books.

The Toyota Way, Lean Production Simplified, Managing to Learn, Andy & Me... these are all fine resources -- by they're largely words.

We want to express their essence in pictures.

My personal mission is to translate the profound system of knowledge I was lucky enough to learn at Toyota.

I want to make it available to people all over the world.

So our images will be available in a variety of media: pocket cards, posters, iPhone apps etc.

Next -- how do you use them?

Watch our blog for updates...

Visual Management in New Product Development

2011-07-14T10:28:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Lean thinking is moving out of the factory -- downstream into sales, logistics and order fulfillment, and upstream into finance, marketing and New Product Development (NPD).

We're often asked, how do you apply the fundamentals in these areas?

For example, how might you apply visual management in NPD?

A good first step is to decide, What do we need to know to run our business?

Here are typical answers:

a) What's the project loading at each point (P0, P1, P2) in our development pipeline?

b) What are min/max levels and our status at each point?

c) What are the biggest obstacles in each project?

d) Do we have countermeasure plans? What's their status?

e) What are broader system issues? Do we have countermeasure plans? Status?

Now we're ready to engage our teams in developing visual tools that will make the invisible, visible.

In our consulting work we've used funnels, race tracks, football fields, as well as, team boards and the like.

Visual management is also invaluable in NPD physical plants (e.g. Test Labs), and is similar to what you might find in a factory.

For example:

a) What's this week's work?

b) Are we ahead or behind?

c) What are our biggest obstacles? Countermeasure plans & status?

d) How versatile are our people?

e) What's the loading on our machines? Constraints?

The key, again, is to make the invisible, visible.

For more on Lean thinking outside the factory, please check out The Remedy.

Cheers,

Pascal

Why Lean Outside the Factory?

2011-07-11T19:45:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

I wrote a book about it --The Remedy.

Why did I bother?

Because Lean is about reducing waste & variation -- and most of it is outside the factory.

Factories, and Operations in general, have continued to improve the past few decades.

Though there is still much opportunity, in many industries they are no longer the bottleneck.

When you buy a new car, for example, most of the lead time is outside the factory.

(Autos usually spend a couple of days in the factory, whereas total lead times are typically several months.)

Sales, Marketing, Design, Engineering and so on are the "undiscovered country".

How do we support the good people in these areas?

Here are a few questions to get us started.

For each zone, ask:

1) What is waste?

2) What is value?

3) What are some core mental models?

If we can build on these to define our Purpose clearly, we'll can start to pull in powerful Lean tools to help us achieve that Purpose.

(For more on how to do this, interested readers are referred to the book Getting the Right Things Done)

Best regards,

Pascal

BE CAREFUL WHEN GOING TO GEMBA

2011-07-07T10:17:00.000-04:00

I read a recent blog by Mark Graban in his Lean Blog http://www.leanblog.org/ that I found intriguing and wanted to pass it on to you.

The basic theme is – there is more to “Go to Gemba” than just showing up. We hear a lot about the need to “Go To Gemba” but if we just go and hang around then we go back to management by walking around and that’s not what we want. Rather we want to “Go to Gemba” with a purpose. We need to have a clear understanding of what we are trying to do. If not, we face the problems Mark Graban describes in a recent blog:

Lean Thinkers might wonder “what is bad about going to the Gemba?” Well, going to the Gemba could be a bad idea and could make things worse if leaders exhibit the wrong kind of behaviours. This old urban legend helps articulate that in a cheeky way:

Thanks to the site Snopes.com, a site that debunks (or verifies) urban legends and myths, here is one version of a classic factory story:
[Braude, 1965]

The proprietor of a shop was once passing during the packing room and noticed a boy lounging towards a field and whistling cheerfully. Thinking of all his cash being wasted on this sort of exertions, the corporation requested gruffly, “How much do you get a week?” “Ten dollars,” the boy spoke back. “Here’s your pay for the week,” stated the person. “Now get out!” On his as far back as the administrative center, the shop proprietor bumped into the foreman and requested him, “When did we hire that boy, and who is responsible for hiring him?” “We never hired him,” the foreman stated. “He was just delivering a package from another firm.”

The story is a silly one, but it illustrates one possible failure mode involved with going to the Gemba – jumping to conclusions and making on-the-spot top-down decisions out of anger. The words of Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho, “Go see, ask why, show respect” are now famous as basic lean principles.

Thanks to Mark for this story which is a great example of “Go to Gemba” with no clear purpose where we only do the first of the three parts of “Go to Gemba” which is “Go See”. What we should be doing is all three parts so that we “Go See” but more importantly “Ask Why” based on what we have observed so that we fully understand what is actually happening and finally do so with the intent of building the capability of our teams and in doing so “Show Respect” for them. Asking questions is a Socratic way of building Team Member capability by getting them to think deeply about the situation and allows Leadership to introduce and reinforce problem solving based on their observations.

So the purpose of “Go to Gemba” is to develop a deep understanding of what is happening and to use that understanding to deepen Team Members understanding and so the Team Members ability to use that understanding to solve problems. Ultimately, we develop many problem solvers in the organization. Without this clear purpose, Leadership can turn “Go to Gemba” into a very different experience from its initial intent.

Cheers,
Al Norval

THE POWER OF IMAGES

2011-07-04T10:42:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s remarkable how true this is. Pictures and images have the power to convey more than the words they represent. They have the power to move us and invoke a connection to our deeper emotions – humour, laughter, sadness even rage and fear. They are able to connect to our emotional core.

Certain images become locked in over time – they become endless. How many of you can recall The Mona Lisa’s smile, Neil Armstrong standing on the moon, Winston Churchill’s portrait and the horrible image of the burning of the World Trade Center. All represent more than a picture or a painting.

Images are more than just photographs. Corporate branding for example, where the iconic images of great brands such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, MacDonald’s and Mercedes all have the power to invoke memories, feelings and thoughts about the products. I’m sure each of you had the brand image dash quickly through your mind’s eye at the mention of these brands.

But what has this got to do with Lean?

Let’s go back to basics. Lean is about engaging our Team Members to solve problems and remove waste every day to create more value for our Customers. To do that we need to not only solve problems but to share the learning rapidly across the organization. By doing this we become a learning organization with the capability of our Team Members getting higher and higher over time. The higher capability people have, the more problems they can solve and so enter a benevolent cycle of learning and problem solving.

The key to sustaining this is the ability of both the organization and individual Team Members to remember what they learned and what was shared in problem solving. Memory is the ability to store, retain, and recall information. But in today’s world of information overload, how do we improve the ability of our Team Members to store, retain and recall information?

Simple answer – we use images.

Images are stored in our brains as Visual Memory. That’s the part of our memory that preserves some of the characteristics of our senses pertaining to the visual experience. We are able to place into memory, visual information which represents thoughts and ideas. The neural connections are stronger if we have an emotional sense tied to the image. That emotional connection is why we can remember images to a far greater degree than we can remember mere facts or words and sentences. As we tie these images into a learning experience that is cheerful, light and engaging, the thoughts and ideas get quickly locked into memory resulting in a higher capability of our Team Members to solve problems.

In summary, we can achieve better recall of key learning points and problem solving if we use simple, elegant images with a touch of humour that ties the message to our soul.

For more on Images and Lean, please see Lean Brain Boosters at http://www.leansystems.org/

Leadership and a Lean Transformation

2011-06-30T00:50:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

As I work with various organizations on their Lean transformation, it amazes me how many organizations start out believing that Lean is all about implementing a set of tools. They believe that if we only implement these tools, then we’ll be Lean. Often times, I see this develop into implementation lists and audits which check to see how well the tools have been implemented. Sometimes companies carry this one step forward to sending out “Corporate Auditors” with the goal of having a standard set of people to calibrate the audits so the audit scores are valid.

What these organizations miss is that only 10% of Lean is about the tools. The remaining 90% is about people and culture. It’s about engaging people at all levels of the organization to solve problems so that every day we get a little bit better and drive more value to our Customers.

What does this have to do with Leaders?

Tools can be managed but people need Leadership if they are going to change their behaviours and truly start to change the culture.

Leaders need to exhibit these new behaviours. This follows the old adage “What you do is what you get.” What Leaders do is amplified many times over in the organization. Small changes in Leadership behaviour can have an enormous impact on changes in Team Member behaviour in the Value Stream.

But how do Leaders know how to behave in a Lean world?

Their behaviour needs to be based on Lean Leadership Thinking which is based on Lean Mental Models. There are six primary Lean Mental Models:

- Leader as a Sensei

- Go to Gemba to see for yourself

- Problems are gold, make them visible

- Don’t pass junk down the Value Stream

- Simple, visual standards for all important things

- Everyone solves problems using simple methods

As Leaders begin to change their behaviours based on these Mental Models, the rest of the organization picks up on it and more and more people become engaged in solving problems to root cause rather developing work arounds. Business results start to accelerate and Lean becomes locked into the culture of the organization.

For more on Lean Leadership and Lean Mental Models, please see Lean Thinking and Lean Leadership Brain Boosters at www.leansystems.org

Lean Laughs

2011-06-27T09:55:00.000-04:00

Root Cause of Health Care Crisis?

2011-06-20T11:16:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Health Care is a disaster North & South of the border.

Neither Americans, nor Canadians can look on their situation with any satisfaction.

Costs are exploding -- and crowding out other critical expenditures like education, R & D and infrastructure.
Health care outcomes are disappointing. Miracles occur within the silos, catastrophe across them.

What's the root cause of this sorry state of affairs?

Why can't smart, skilled and caring medical professionals do what they're trying to do?

Deming taught us that the problem is in the system -- and he's right again.

Mis-medication, wrong site surgery, infection and other nosocomial calamities occur despite the heroics of nurses, doctors, pharmacists and the many other specialists who keep hospitals going. Indeed, things would likely be much worse but for their heroics.

So what's the root cause of our health care crisis?

Tom Papas, the protagonist of the business novel, The Remedy, tries to answer this question in chapter 13.

He is in rough shape -- he might be losing his father to a mis-medication.

Tom's conclusion: the customer is not the customer.

Only patients, he concludes, can arbitrate the millions of daily decisions that comprise the provision of medical care.

Yet the patient is not the customer in these transactions.

As evidence he reflects on how difficult it has been for his family to get Safety, Quality or Cost information from hospitals.

"And why should they give me info?" he laments. "I'm not the customer."

I've gotten a lot of mail about this chapter!

So what do ya'll think? Is Tom right, or is he not thinking clearly because of his desperate situation?

Are there other root causes that are more important? Any other thoughts or insights?

I'd be pleased to hear from you.

Cheerfulness & Kaizen Spirit

2011-06-16T15:59:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

In an earlier post on kaizen spirit has generated fine comments.

I'd like to expound on the related concept: cheerfulness.

I'm not referring to the Pollyanna variety -- shallow, rootless, Ill-informed by life...

I mean the real deal: deeply rooted cheerfulness, fully informed of life's ups and downs -- and showing a sunny smile to life regardless.

Cheerfulness is a statement:

"Yes, life is tough. There are plenty of reasons to be depressed. But here I am -- in spite of everything."

In spite of everything -- I'd suggest this humble phrase summarizes the spirit of kaizen.

We ain't got much money, we're in an old plant, in a mature industry -- but we're making things a little better every day...

I see that same spirit now in Japan; have no doubt they'll meet their troubles with resolve -- and cheerfulness.

I remember an old, esteemed aikido sensei (in my martial arts days).

"You must have a big heart, Pascal-san."

Then he cupped his hands on his chest -- an expanding heart.

(See chapter 13 of Andy & Me )

I've never forgotten the lesson.

The Biggest Weakness is Contemporary Business Culture?

2011-06-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

Last time I talked about Big Heart.

In my view, the biggest weakness in contemporary business culture is just that -- an absence of heart.

McKinsey-Gupta scandal exemplifies it -- "achievatrons" at the trough, gorging themselves at the expense of the public.

I wouldn't go as far Barry Ritholtz. But I'd agree with CNBC -- it could be bigger than Madoff.

If Gupta did tip off his hedge fund manager friend, it was something darker than greed. Was it sociopathic narcissism?

Did Gupta, like Madoff, believe he was somehow above the law, immune to the rules that govern the rest of us?

By contrast, the sensei who taught me about big heart spent hours with me and my chums -- at no cost.

He had dedicated his life to teaching Aikido -- the "way of harmony of the spirit".

And Big Heart was its foundation.

For more, please feel free to read chapter 13 of Andy & Me, or its sequel, The Remedy.

Jacky Fisher -- Transforming the Royal Navy

2011-06-10T11:24:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Just finished Dreadnought, Robert Massie's splendid account of the years leading up to World War 1.

My favourite character is Admiral John (Jackie) Fisher who transformed the Royal Navy -- just in time.

Fisher was a Lean thinker, far ahead of his time. His obsession was improving the speed and accuracy of Royal Navy operations -- in advance of the German High Fleet's challenge.

He used Lean thinking with intuitive flair. Go see was a favourite technique, as was standardized work.

He famously took a chair and table into the yard where some operation was to be carried out and declared his intention to stay there until the operation was completed.

The dreadnought, Royal Sovereign, was built in two years rather than three. Changing a barbette gun on a ship was reduced from two days to two hours. His example obliged all shipyards, both navy and private, to reduce waste, making savings in cost and allowing new designs to enter service more rapidly.

He once observed, "When you are told a thing is impossible, then is the time to fight like the devil."

He was also effective politically. Winston Churchill, First Sea Lord, was an important (on again/off again) ally.

Had Jackie Fisher been less diligent, would the Royal Navy have checkmated the German High Fleet (confining them to their Baltic ports)?

Transformation is a tough business. At best you partially succeed. But that can be the difference between poverty & prosperity -- or death and life.

For my image of what transformation looks & feels like, there's The Remedy...

Strategy Deployment & the D-Day Invasion

2011-06-06T17:11:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis,

On June 6, 1944 a vast allied army landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the liberation of Europe.

General Eisenhower commanded the attacking force -- five beaches and five attacking armies.

General Irwen Rommel, the Desert Fox, commanded the defenders -- (with little support & much interference from Berlin)

D-Day was a triumph of strategy deployment against long odds. It was the biggest amphibious assault ever planned and the failure modes were daunting.

What if the preceding naval bombardment failed to disable the Nazi guns?

What is the sea was rougher, the waves higher, the tide stronger than expected?

What if the cloud cover lifted and the moon lit up the attackers?

What if, what if, what if -- the strategist's eternal question.

How did Eisenhower and his staff deal with these uncertainties? Did they dictate the tactics of each army at each beach?

"Thou shalt..."

For example, did they dictate minute assault details, in advance, to the Canadian Army on Juno beach or the American 1st Army at Omaha beach?

Of course not -- it would be absurd to do so. Only the army in the field can adjust to the conditions on the battlefield -- they see them best.

In my experience, "Command & control" in military circles does not mean "tightly control/limit/inhibit" -- as it does in civilian circles. It simply means Check & Adjust your plan.

Eisenhower provided overall objectives to each army and suggested tactics -- knowing that these would be adjusted in the field of battle.

Rommel, by contrast, was hindered by interference from Hitler and his inner circle -- people remote from the battlefield, who had rarely, if ever, visited Normandy.

What's the lesson for those of us who develop and deploy business strategies?

Follow the recipe laid out in The Remedy and Getting the Right Things Done:

1. Develop the plan

2. Deploy the plan

3. Monitor the plan

4. Improve the system

Deploy the plan does not mean controlling every tactical element. It means providing guidance and support for those in the battlefield.

It means teaching them how to translate overall objectives into meaningful tactics -- and giving them the freedom to do so.

Don't worry -- you're not giving up control. You'll have plenty of chances for input in the Check & Adjust phases.

Think of strategy as a river. Leaders define objectives (getting to the sea) and the banks of the river.

Then they let the water go.

Check out The Remedy or Getting the Right Things Done for more.

Last & most important

Let's honour our D-Day veterans, who put their lives on the line to make a better world.

Thanks for all you did for us.

What is a Team?

2011-06-02T22:19:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

In my view, a team is an organized group of people with a clearly defined goal.

"Organized" means team members have clearly defined & interconnected roles -- which in turn, depends on shared purpose.

In the absence of latter, our discourse inevitably devolves into random opinions, factoids and, often, recrimination.

"If only those bozos in... would do their jobs!"

Shared purpose shifts our thinking. "Just how are we going to achieve that objective?"

(Or that "target condition" -- tip of the hat to Mike Rother)

What sort of objectives are most compelling & effective?

Objectives that are just beyond the capability of the team.

(I've found that it's better to err on the side of too aggressive objectives, than the other way)

These compel collaboration. "We hang together -- or separately."

Teamwork, therefore, entails interdependency.

Lean factories are organized such that team members in adjacent work zones can help one another and communicate freely.

Work thus becomes a relay race -- if need be, the faster runner can help the slower runner in the baton transfer zone.

(It triggers problem solving too. "Why is the team member always behind? Is it our layout, ergonomics, part fit...?)

Lean offices should be laid out this way too.

I've seen finance, insurance, order fulfillment teams achieve remarkable performance levels thereby.

I've described some of the more visible aspects of teamwork.

The invisible is as important.

Teams are connected by values -- shared standards of behaviour.

John Wooden's "sets of three" are good examples:

Don't lie. Don't cheat. Don't steal.
Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't make excuses.

Tough standards! (For me at least...)

But when a group of people is aligned around values, life becomes more predictable & they can relax.

That's another element of teamwork -- security.

Best regards,
Pascal

Lean Laughs

2011-05-30T12:43:00.000-04:00

Failure Modes in Lean Implementation

2011-05-27T12:46:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

I wrote an earlier blog about failure modes in Lean Implementation in which I described two of the most common failure modes. Both dealt with Leadership.

The first was leaders not recognizing Lean as a cultural change within the organization and the second one was Leaders not changing themselves and delegating Lean Implementation to others.

The two are related in that Lean culture is about discovering problems, solving problems and sharing the learning across the organization. Being a cultural change there is a need for Senior Leaders to lead the way by modelling the new behaviours and making it OK for the rest of the organization to change. The culture change then cascades outwards from examples set by the Leadership team.

So what are some of the changes in their behaviours that Leaders need to make?

They need to let the Lean Mental Models guide their behaviour and change their existing routines. Here’s a few to get started:

- Leader as a Teacher

- Go to Gemba

- Make problems visible

By Going to Gemba and seeing for yourself, Leaders put themselves in a position to act as Leader as a Teacher. Be seeing problems and treating them as gold – to be treasured, they set the tone for the organization. People quickly pick up on these new behaviours and the culture begins to change. See a problem, solve a problem; share the learning becomes the mantra of the organization. Improvement occurs at a faster and faster pace. Everyone jumps on board.

Think of the possibilities.

Sadly, this doesn’t occur as often as it should. Leaders do what they have always done. Improvement occurs, changes are made but sustaining is an issue and soon we’re back to the way things always were.

The choice seems obvious. Why is it so difficult?

Go To Gemba

2011-05-23T20:22:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

It’s a simple phrase but one that gives so much trouble to people. Go to Gemba – where the real value added work is done.

It reflects a Mental Model of “Go See for Yourself”. Instead many people find it easier to sit at their desk and let their computer tell them what’s going on. More than that, they find it easier to send e-mails rather than talking to people and asking questions. We know that much of human communication comes from non-verbal cues. The look on the person’s face, the tone they are using, their hand and head gestures, all play a part in good two way communication. Most of that is lost in the world of e-mails or IM messages. Don’t get me wrong, they have a role to play but nothing beats Going to Gemba and seeing for yourself.

Going to Gemba doesn’t mean going to look around and spend some time on idle chit chat with Team Members. Rather it means going with a purpose and this purpose has three elements:

Go See

Ask Why?

Show Respect

Go See – and seek to understand. See with your own eyes. They won’t lie to you or hide things from you. What you see will be closer to the truth than what you hear or read.

Ask Why? – demonstrate Leader as a Teacher. Get to the root cause of problems. Challenge Team Members and develop their Lean thinking.

Show Respect - always be hard on the process and easy on the people. Only then will people open up, stop being defensive and truly find some creative countermeasures to problems.

A big failure of Leadership is the lack of Going to Gemba. By not Going to Gemba and asking why, Leaders really don't know and understand what is actually happening. They don’t see problems and they don’t teach others to see problems.

Makes it difficult to lead and coach your team and to drive the improvement throughout the organization needed to reach our business targets.

Waste in Service Organizations

2011-05-19T11:17:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

Have you ever had people say this to you? I’ve had numerous people say to it me.

“I can see how Lean applies in a manufacturing organization but does it really apply outside of manufacturing? I’m in service, we don’t make things, we’re different”

Providing a service is somewhat different than making a product but from a Lean perspective, all the principles still hold true. It all starts with the Customer and how we provide value to our customers. The key is understanding what Customers truly value and what drives the Value Proposition.

Take a simple shopping experience to a large department store. We could define value narrowly as simply as the consumer purchasing a product (so they must have found value) but what if we expand the definition to encompass the entire service experience the consumer had while in the store. How many of us would pay for the experience of standing in line waiting at a check-out line, or the experience of searching through stacks of articles for the correct one, or the experience of looking for a store clerk to answer questions we have only to have none around or to be told “his isn’t my area”?

Let’s take it one step further. How many of us would pay for the experience of waiting in line to return a purchase, or the ultimate – how many of us would pay for the experience of being placed on hold to wait for a Customer Service agent or endless telephone tree options just to talk to a live person who can answer our inquiry.

When we map the entire customer experience through the customers eyes, we can see the rich opportunity we have as waste is buried everywhere.

In these simple examples, we see waiting, over-processing, correction, inventory (queues), motion, and knowledge wastes.

Why do organizations do this? Typically, because they are looking at short term profits not at providing superior value to customers which will ultimately provide long term profits. Ironic isn’t it? By adding short term costs, we can ensure long term profits if we can provide superior value to our Customers.

Try this. Look at the service you provide and map the process, not from the suppliers point of view but from the customers point of view. I’m sure you’ll find many opportunities for improvement.

Innovation

2011-05-15T20:36:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

“None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration” – Thomas Alva Edison

Fabulous quote from one of the greatest inventors of all time. Edison was very familiar with the scientific method and how it is embodied within the PDCA cycle. It starts with a deep understanding of the Customer, their unmet needs and the problems they are having. From this he was able to define the problem and form a hypothesis after which he would run a series of experiments. The key was the Check/ Adjust of each experiment against his hypothesis. The power of a hypothesis is in its binary nature which allows the scientist either confirm the hypothesis or rule out that experiment. In either case, Edison knew the power of knowledge gained from each experiment. In that way he didn’t see experiments as a failure as he learned something new from each one. What he learned allowed him to constantly refine his designs until he had one that met his hypothesis.

For the electric light bulb this involved over a thousand experiments until he finally came up with a carbon filament that would pass the test of time.

Perspiration indeed!

For us within the Lean community the same holds true. Rapid experimentation against the problems we are trying to resolve, leads to faster learning and ultimately better countermeasures.

Can we all learn from Thomas Edison – observe, set a hypothesis, experiment, check, learn, make adjustments, repeat.

Sounds simple, all it takes is a little hard work.

Strategy Deployment and Chess

2011-05-09T13:13:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

What's the difference between Strategy Deployment and other planning & execution systems?

I get this question all the time.

SD is akin to playing chess. The left side of your strategy A3 summarizes your grasp of the current "chess position".

"I'm attacking on the King side, my opponent on the Queen side. My pawn structure is weak, but I have dangerous bishops, but his King is well protected. In order to checkmate him, I need to..."

As in chess, sports -- or life, grasping the situation requires both your rational mind & your gut feel.

Chess grandmasters do a lot of analysis -- but they also look at their opponent's face & body language, and take in the atmosphere in the tournament hall...

The right side of your paper summarizes your plan based on that deep intuitive understanding.

"I need to slow down his Queen side attack by....and shore up my weak pawns by doing....Then I can break through on the King side by..."

How do we gain that deep understanding? By going to see, running experiments and reflecting deeply on results, by PDCA in other words.

Otherwise, strategy devolves into "wood-pushing" -- same old dull moves & results.

The challenge and joy of Strategy Deployment is in:

1) Clearing the fog so you can see the chessboard,

2) Keeping it clear (with visual management and other techniques) so that you can assess the effect of your moves,

3) Maintaining focus despite a strategy's long cycle time (1 year plus),

4) Learning from what happens -- and sharing that learning, and

5) Locking in the process so it becomes "no big deal"

Not easy, but if it were, Strategy Deployment wouldn't be a killer app...

How Do Adults Learn?

2011-05-05T14:26:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

Adults learn very differently from children.

Children are sponges. Every day is a new adventure in which new things are learned. Somewhere along the way this all changes and we mature and become adults.

Adults on the other hand, only learn what they feel they need to learn. Adult learning is very practical. If I can’t see how this will help me now, then the true understanding and retention rate of the learning will be very low. I’m sure we can all remember the blah, blah, blah of college professors droning on about some mundane topic that was soon forgotten after the final exam was written.

So, what does this mean?

Adult learning focuses on solving problems. More concretely, realistic problems that people have right now.

When teams have problems, leaders have an opportunity to teach and use the problem to raise the capability of their Team Members. This is the power and magic behind kaizen.

We solve problems and learn in the very process of doing so. This is also the basis of Mental model #1 – Leader as a Teacher. Not to teach like a college professor but to teach Socratically by asking question to build the teams capability and guide the Team through the problem solving process.

Empowering Team Members

2011-05-02T11:28:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

Many organizations talk about Empowering people.

In truth they may ask for people’s opinion or input on ideas but that speaks more to involving people not to truly empowering them. To empower people means we will allow and encourage them to solve problems for themselves. This means Leaders don’t undermine Team Members or second guess the countermeasures the team has come up with. Rather it says Leaders must coach and mentor their teams developing the teams capability along the way.

Sounds simple. But what happens when the problems the team face exceeds their capabilities? Team Members become anxious and learning stops. The easy and expedient answer is to give the problem to someone else. While this may lead to quick resolution of the problem, it does little to build the capability of the organization for the long term.

What happens when the opposite occurs – when the problems the team faces are less than their capabilities? Team Members become bored and give up. Again no learning occurs within the organization.

The key is to give teams problems that are a good match for their capabilities. When this occurs Team Members excel. The key for Leaders is to give teams and team members problems which stretch their capabilities without exceeding them. Adults respond to this challenge and work becomes interesting and learning occurs. Over time the capability of Team Members and in fact the organization as a whole goes up.
With more capability, more problems can be addressed leading to a cycle of continuous improvement.

This entire process requires finesse on the part of Leadership – giving people problems that are not too hard and not too simple. Finesse enabled by Mental Model #2 – Go to Gemba to see and understand for yourself.

Yokoten

2011-04-28T11:37:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

In the Lean world we hear all kinds of Japanese words. Indeed, it seems like a badge of honour to know obscure Japanese words that baffle your fellow teammates. I’d like to highlight one that isn’t mainstream but is critically important – Yokoten.

Yokoten is a process for sharing learning laterally across an organization. It entails copying and improving on kaizen ideas that work. You can think of yokoten as "horizontal deployment" or "sideways expansion". The corresponding image is one of ideas unfolding across an organization. Yokoten is horizontal and peer-to-peer, with the expectation that people go see for themselves and learn how another area did kaizen and then improve on those kaizen ideas in the application to their local problems.

It's not a vertical, top-down requirement to "copy exactly". Nor is it a “best practices” or “benchmarking” approach nor is it as some organizations refer to a “lift and shift” model. Rather, it is a process where people are encouraged to go see for themselves, and return to their own area to add their own wisdom and ideas to the knowledge they gained.

Simply put, Yokoten equals copy and improve. The role of the senior managers is to make people aware of the existence of these good kaizen examples so that they can go see for themselves, gain the knowledge and improve upon it further. Simply telling subordinates to copy it may be kaizen of a sort but it would not serve the second important aspect of the Toyota Production System, the respect for and development of people.

An effective Yokoten process is a critical step to building capability within the organization and becoming a true learning organization. It truly is one of the capabilities of outstanding organizations.

Lean Laughs

2011-04-26T13:24:00.000-04:00

How Do We Learn?

2011-04-21T09:45:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Used to be, we believed talent was god-given. Mozart, Einstein, Wayne Gretzky and other brilliant talents were born, not made.

Turns out we were wrong. Talent is acquired by practicing in a certain way. The latest psycho-neural research teaches us that we learn through:

Deep practice -- slow, repetitive "stop & fix"

Turns out Aristotle was right 2300 years ago! We learn virtue by repetition.
Moreover, we learn best by stopping to fix problems that arise. (Sound familiar?)

2. Ignition -- signals in our environment telling us,
"You can do this! Nothing is impossible!"
Ignition is about connecting with purpose -- then becoming super-charged by a supportive environment

3. Sensei/mentorship

A good sensei is one who has mastered the "coaching kata" through diligent practice and reflection over many years.

Here are some good books:

If I may be self-serving, you might also find my latest book, The Remedy, worthwhile.

Here are a few of the implications:

We can turbo-charge learning -- there's a recipe to talent
Hiding problems makes learning impossible
Culture is indeed, as Lou Gerstner intuited, everything...
Organizations without senseis will get out-learned -- and ultimately, out-earned.

I'll let you noodle on others...

The Work of Leaders

2011-04-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Had a eureka moment the other day: The leader's job is to ensure that all their people are working on the right things.

Rather bland, but true, no?

Respect for humanity means I won't waste my team's time asking them to do stupid or wasteful things.

Here's an extreme example to illustrate the point:

One of the most vicious punishments meted out in the awful Soviet gulags was this:

Spend all day digging out a large hole. Then spend the next day filling it back in.

Prisoners would go mad with the meaninglessness of it.

But consider how it parallels so much corporate work.

I've seen good, smart people doing much the same work -- at the whim of some executive, or to satisfy some absurd corporate rule.

"Dig out that hole! Now fill it back in!"

After a while people really do get twitchy. To paraphrase Winston Smith at the end of Animal Farm,
"Two plus two really does equal five..."

So those of us that are lucky enough to be leaders have to accept this heavy responsibility.

Use my people's time wisely.

They're not cannon fodder.

P.S. Check out Getting the Right Things Done for help on how to do this!

Lean Outside the Factory -- Reverse Magic!

2011-04-14T11:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Denis

Last Fall, I had the pleasure of taking my teenage daughters, Katie & Eleanor, to Las Vegas.

We'd hoped to see the great magician, David Copperfield, who I'd seen make tigers, elephants and the like disappear. On TV I saw David make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Sadly, he was out of town & we had to settle for Cher...

Anyhow, somehow I made the following connection. (Must have been the desert air...)

Lean's next frontier is the office -- sales, marketing, engineering, design, planning & scheduling, finance and so on.

Deploying the "profound system of knowledge" here requires us to perform reverse magic.

David Copperfield makes visible things, invisible.

We have to do the opposite & make the invisible, visible.

Office work, is what Peter Drucker called "knowledge" work - most of it is hidden in the box knows as a computer.

Our job is to take it out that box and put it up on the wall, where everyone can see it.

Otherwise, waste multiplies exponentially, and our office processes become our constraint.

Here's a challenge for you:

a) review total lead time for your top three value streams,

b) where is most of the delay -- in operations (factory, hospital ward, laboratory etc) or outside operations?

If you're like many organizations, most of the delay in outside operations.

Yet where do we spend most of our improvement work?

So...let's work our magic and make the invisible, visible. Then our Lean activities can really take flight.

That's what The Remedy -- Taking Lean Out of the Factory to Transform Your Organization, is all about.

Lean at the Imperial Grill -- and at Starbucks

2011-04-11T09:29:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Had a good time in Dallas at the LEI Transformation Summit. I gave a presentation on Big Company Disease (and The Remedy), which people seemed to enjoy.

I much enjoyed the Starbuck team's presentation on their Lean transformation work. Took me back to my dad's restaurant, The Imperial Grill, where I grew up & which figures in all my books.

You can't succeed in a family-owned restaurant -- or a Starbucks if you don't apply Lean fundamentals.

Waste & value, visual management, standardized work, 5 S, close connection to the customers, simple replenishment pull and so on are simply common sense. At the Imperial Grill I experienced each form of waste viscerally. Motion waste, for example, means sore feet.

The best waiters and waitresses effortlessly serve multiple tables with minimal motion.

They always add value whenever they move -- by greeting a customer, clearing a table, or closing out a tab.

Waiting waste means unhappy customers who don’t come back. Conveyance waste means unnecessary trips to the farmers market to get our meat and produce. Correction or scrap waste means making the wrong thing, or overcooking something, and having to throw it out. Over-processing means too many steps in a process, so you fall behind -- a killer during the breakfast and lunch rush. Inventory waste means carrying more raw materials than you need, which means either throwing stuff out when it goes bad, or buying a bigger fridge. Knowledge waste means wasting your time doing the above when you could be improving the business.

My senseis taught me that overproduction is the worst form of waste -- because it entails every other kind of waste. At the Imperial Grill, making more than we could sell meant was unthinkable, a sure way of going out of business. My parents understood value and waste in their guts, and had a deep connection with their customers. As a result, the Imperial Grill thrived against tough competition from national restaurant chains.

My folks are retired now and the Imperial Grill has given way to luxury condominiums. But it lives on in The Remedy and other books!

Power of Simple Images

2011-04-04T15:32:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval

Complexity is over-rated!

It’s easy to be complicated but it’s difficult to be simple. Elegance is simple, yet it is not easily achieved.

One of Lean’s most powerful principles is to make things visual. People often do this yet fail to think about what message they are trying to convey. The result is overly complex visuals which fail to meet their purpose. Confusion reigns. Instead, what we really want is to be able to understand the current condition at a glance. Then we can tell if we on target or off target so we can launch problem solving.

The same holds true in our communications. We’ve often heard that a picture is worth a thousand words but what if that picture is so complicated we can’t understand it. A thousand words may not be enough to explain it. In today’s age of powerful graphics available on every laptop, we often see fancy slides that look like a Las Vegas light show. We call this Powerpoint Junk. The image is so complex the message is lost.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy. “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, as the room erupted in laughter.

The Mental Model of simple visual images for all important things can dispel the fog of Big Company Disease and allow us to focus on the real problems.

Cheers

Supporting the Value Stream

2011-04-01T13:42:00.000-04:00

By Al Norval,

Where is value created?

In the value streams where people change or transform the functionality of materials or services into things which our customers are willing to pay for. It isn’t created in the staff groups that live in Corporate headquarters. Yet, the question often comes up – who is there to serve who?

Wouldn’t it make sense for staff groups to work on problems that eliminate waste from the value streams. This allows our people to spend more time creating value for our customers. Alas, often this isn’t the case. Instead we see staff groups acting like petty bureaucrats making and enforcing policies that take people away from doing value added work in the value streams and spending their time on things they weren’t trained for or filling in reports to managers in faraway places who would never dream of going to Gemba. Why? It’s easier to ask someone to fill in a report for me.

A recent example that comes to mind is a large multi-national company that downsized it’s HR dept. Now all inquiries about benefits, job postings, and in fact any HR policy were to be handled by the Team Leaders and the Shift Supervisors. Without the depth of training and experience to handle the issues that come up, these folks now spend large portions of their day chasing around searching for answers to questions raised by Team Members. The rate of improvement has slowed down but they did reduce costs in HR.

Wouldn’t it make sense to do things the other way around. To focus on eliminating everything that takes away from front line people doing value creating work for our customers. Isn’t this the real role of support staff – to support the value stream and the people in it.

Lean Laughs

2011-03-28T10:36:00.000-04:00

What is Kaizen Spirit?

2011-03-24T10:49:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Change is hard. Sustaining change, even harder.

We need an indomitable spirit -- which my senseis called "kaizen spirit"

Kaizen spirit comprises three things:

1. Cheerfulness -- the conviction that, no matter how tough things are today, tomorrow will be better.

In spite of everything, we'll keep improving and solve our most difficult problems.

2. Go see -- the desire to experience life first hand, to get out of the office and into the Gemba.

The willingness to work with front-line team members with humility and openness.

3. Get your hands dirty -- we roll up our sleeves and try stuff with our colleagues.

We practice our core techniques: problem solving, and pull in Lean tools as required.

We run experiments to prove cause and effect. Then we lock in countermeasures with standardized work & visual management -- and share what we've learned.

Here's an assignment for ya'll: Draw a picture of kaizen spirit.

Have fun. And don't worry if you're "not an artist".

Arrows, boxes and stick figures work just fine.

Hubris -- What's the Countermeasure?

2011-03-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

Hubris is the ancient Greek word for arrogance, excessive pride or self-confidence. Hubris is arguably the most dangerous enemy of great companies.

What's the countermeasure?

Humility -- the extreme awareness of limits, of standards, of all that we are not.

Visual management, 5 S, standardized work and all the other elements of the Lean business system are designed to keep us humble.

Our old Toyota plant in Cambridge Ontario won many awards. "How could they give us an award?" we'd wonder. "We're so screwed up..."

We need great companies -- they show us what's possible. And great companies need humility -- for the same reason."

What is Hubris?

2011-03-17T12:03:00.000-04:00

By Pascal Dennis

"The US Department of Transportation has completely cleared Toyota of any safety issues beyond those identified and dealt with before the safety crisis. Yet Toyota has recognized internal difficulties in both growing too fast and not listening to customers enough. What should we learn from the whole episode?"

An iconic company, synonymous with safety and quality, has been brought low by plaintiff lawyers and an opportunistic government.

My sense is Toyota's reputation will recover quicker than expected, whereas the government's has suffered yet another heavy blow.

Harpers February 2011 issue has an interesting piece entitled "A Super Bowl Spot for Uncle Sam -- Can Madison Avenue Make Us Love Our Government?"

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/02/0083294.

Short answer: not if they keep doing this sort of thing...

In any event, I believe there are valuable lessons here.

Hubris -- excessive pride or self-confidence, arrogance -- is a dangerous enemy.

"He who the gods would destroy, they first hold high" Euripides tells us. Has Toyota displayed signs of hubris the past decade? Did hubris contribute to the breakdown in communication with regulators and in public relations, that Steven talks about?"

Toyota's business system, as I understand it, is designed to make problems visible -- problems in the Design, Make and Sell "loops" -- so that skilled problem solvers can:

a) get to root cause and fix it, and

b) share the learning gained thereby.

If so, somewhere the system indeed broke down.

My chums at the company's North American plants have often worried that "we're becoming just another North American car company." They lament the increasing use of the "iron fist" of the North American management style.

Where there's smoke, there's fire -- or at least a flickering ember or two.

I don't want to be misunderstood. I've no doubt Toyota will get to root cause & share the learning gained. I'm confident Toyota will regain its lustre and become a paragon again. But Toyota, and all great companies need eternal vigilance against their eternal antagonist.

Japanese Disaster

2011-03-14T14:33:00.000-04:00

Our hearts and thoughts go out to the Japanese people in their time of need after the terrible disaster they experienced in first the earthquake and then the tsunami. The images of that powerful wave of sea water rushing in and sweeping up everything in its path were overwhelming. The awesome destructive force of the tsunami was incomprehensible.

The Lean movement owes much of its roots to Toyota and to the Japanese people. Lean and Japan have always had a special bond.

As we were taught, Lean is based on a few key principles:

- Respect for Humanity

- Elimination of Waste

- Continuous Improvement

We urge you to join us and Lean Pathways in respecting our Lean roots by supporting the disaster relief effort in Japan by donating to the Red Cross Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief fund. You can access it through the attached link: http://www.redcross.org/ by going to the link on the Lean Systems home page.

Thanks for your support

Al & Pascal

Why is laughter important in business?

2011-03-10T11:00:00.000-05:00

Because it makes things small and personal -- and thereby helps to dispel Big Company Disease.

Big companies take themselves seriously. Laughter punctures the balloon and drenches things in the light of sanity.

For organizations big & small, I'd say "embrace your inner smallness".

I give a talk called "Everything I Learned I Learned in a Greek Restaurant"

People seem to like it.

Greek restaurants are the epitome of small, fast and funny.

Small and fast always beats big and slow.

That's it.

Pascal

What is Courage? How does it relate to True North?

2011-03-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

The ancients defined Four Cardinal Virtues:

Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Courage.

Courage -- the capacity to overcome fear -- is the most admired.

In the book Getting the Right Things Done, I defined True North, our strategic and philosophical purpose, as follows:

"Something for the head, something for the heart..."

How does courage relate to True North?
Breakthrough -- transcendent, enduring achievement -- requires all the Cardinal Virtues, and courage most of all.

Courage, like True North, entails head and heart.

Courage without the head is simply foolhardiness.

Courage means you understand the risks, and do it anyway.

Is courage a virtue under any circumstance? I'd say not.

(Is a courageous terrorist admirable?)

Courage is admirable when exercised in the service of others -- of a greater good, of True North.

In summary, achieving True North requires all the cardinal virtues and none more than courage.

In fact, all the virtues depend on courage.

Best regards,

Pascal