In my review of Toyota Kata by Mike Rother, I suggested that the staff-level practitioners who are embedded in almost every company that is “implementing lean” could put those practices to work immediately, even if it was not an ideal “top down” teaching process. This week I gave that a try. I was coaching a [...]
Over the decades, I have observed that it is quite common for organizational leaders to try to use the word “opportunity” when talking about a problem. I can understand the desire to do this – we typically think of “problems” as something to do with people. But I find the emphamistic language… problematic. [...]
I would like to thank everybody for a really engaging dialog in the previous two posts about 5S audits. Now I would like to dig in and look at what an “audit” is actually finding, and how we are responding to those issues. Our hypothetical production area is getting an audit. The checklist says things [...]
Robert Cenek offers up a succinct “check” for the level of a leader’s commitment to a change initiative on his blog. The element that resonates with my own experience is the first on on his list: Intellectual curiosity. I cannot say enough how much core difference there is between a leadership team who says they [...]
Another great insight from “Toyota Kata” by Mike Rother. We often think great problem solving means solving the problem, that is applying countermeasures, and we may even propose and apply several countermeasures in the hope that one of them will stop the problem. In contrast, in Toyota’s way of thinking, if the solution is not [...]
The idea of a continuous improvement culture, a problem solving culture, a kaizen culture, has been with us for decades. Ultimately it is what everyone says they want to create. Yet creating that culture remains elusive for all but a few. I have noticed that, generally, when people describe the culture they are trying to [...]
A great key point comes out on page 124 of Toyota Kata by Mike Rother. …a Toyota person once told me to focus on the biggest problem. However, when I tried to do this I noticed a negative effect: We got lost in hunting for and discussing what was the biggest problem. When we tried [...]
This article, carried by Yahoo News from the Wall Street Journal succinctly says something that usually goes unsaid. It goes unsaid for the same reason that “ Only Nixon could go to China” – only someone who is heavily invested in the performance review system can dare to criticize it. This, in itself, is an indictment [...]
There is an interesting thread developing on the NWLEAN discussion group. Kris Hallan, a regular reader here, asked a great question about the contributions of the industrial engineering pioneers to what, today, we regard as “lean production.” This, in turn, sparked some debate about whether Taylor, the Glibreths, and others were actually following lean methods; [...]
Grassroots Innovation: The 3rd Way. Greg captures a concept in 183 words that entire books have utterly failed to explain. When we are trying to solve a problem, there are always people involved. And people have positions, feelings, and are always emotionally tied to this-or-that outcome. It is critically important to find “The 3rd Way” [...]