Batesville Casket named IW Top 10 Plant 2007

It was officially announced today that our Vicksburg Plant located in Vicksburg, Mississippi was named one of Industry Weeks Top 10 Plants in North America for 2007. It is a nice honor for this hard working, dedicated team for their improvement efforts. You can read more about their lean journey at Batesville Casket IW Best Plants 2007.

For the Batesville Casket Company, this makes three of our five manufacturing plants recognized with this honor in the last four years. You can read about our Batesville Plant IW Top 10 Plant 2006 and our Manchester Plant IW Top 10 Plant 2004 at these Industry Week links. Don’t be surprised if our two remaining plants step up to the challenge, both are well run plants on the lean journey.

Although I am not a big fan of these types of awards because it can cause complacency on the improvement journey, it does reflect the improvements realized on the lean journey to date. One of my responsibilities as the Lean Sensei for Batesville Casket is to prevent this complacency from taking root. Continuous improvement is forever regardless of how many awards, achievements or remarkable improvements you accomplish.

In the words of Henry Ford, “Our own attitude is that we are charged with discovering the best way of doing everything, and that we must regard every process employed in manufacturing as purely experimental. If we reach a stage of production which seems remarkable as compared with what has gone before, than that is just a stage of production and nothing more. It is not and cannot be anything more than that. We know from changes that have already been brought about that far greater changes are to come, and that therefore we are not performing a single operation as well as it ought to be performed.”

With this said, I know from leading two kaizen teams last month in Vicksburg that we still have opportunities for improvement and that the Vicksburg Team is not satisfied with the status quo. Congratulations to the Batesville Casket Vicksburg Plant and to all the other winners.

Go Big Green and Red

Let’s hear it for the big green and red! A powerhouse team that is unbeatable.

No, this is not to cheer on a particular college or pro team. If I was yelling out team colors it would be green and gold for the Green Bay Packers. A dominate (and surprising) 10-1 record to date in the NFL season with a big game coming up against a worthy Dallas Cowboy team (also 10-1). It should prove to be a great game on Thursday night. Enough locker room talk and back to business.

No, this is not to celebrate the holiday season typically represented by the colors of green and red. Some could even argue that these colors represent the money (green) and debt (red) with the commercialization of Christmas and the hyped shopping season. Again, I digress.

No, it’s not to support a healthier lifestyle by eating more fruits and vegetables by colors (as in more greens and reds in our diet). Although this is a good message for the holiday season, we are faced with increased temptation of holiday snacking and desserts during the festive season.

What I am cheering for is the powerhouse team of green and red in our visual management system. How many times have you looked at a chart, graph or dashboard metric in typical black and white, needing a few minutes to determine the numbers to figure out the status? Sometimes it takes more than a few minutes. With the low cost of color printers, color markers and color tape, there is no reason not to use the power of green and red.

For example, the basic metrics of quality, cost, delivery and safety in most policy deployment charts could be highlighted in a green box (for good) or a red box (for needs improvement). Or you could use a dial gage indicator with green and red zones for the same effect. Take a look at your metric chart. Is it visual? Is it simple? Is it clear?

Another chart that I see typically in black and white is the work cell hour by hour chart. It is difficult to quickly determine the status on most hour by hour charts that use just a black marker. How about adding the power of green and red? Use the black marker for the target numbers and either green (made target) or red (missed target) for the actual numbers depending on the actual results. With the power of green and red, anyone one quickly see the production status.

Can you think of any other visual management areas that can be improved with the power of green and red? How about 5S audit sheets or project status charts?

So this holiday season, I wish everyone peace and joy. And remember to cheer for the Packers, reflect this holiday season on good will towards all man over gift giving, eat healthy with more fruits and vegetables and most importantly, may the power of green and red be with you.

One Kaizen Goal + Safety

A kaizen event should be focused on only one goal plus any safety improvements you can make to the process. Many times I have worked on kaizen events with multiple goals only to see the team lose focus in the middle of the event or the team splitting up to work on them individually.

This is not to say that multiple accomplishments can not be achieved during an event, only that a single focus is better to keep the efforts of the team on track. In my experience, a simple productivity goal works best for a kaizen event. This can be measured in time and/or distance.

It is not uncommon to see a WIP reduction goal on a kaizen event. Any WIP reduction should be a result of kaizen and not specified as a targeted goal to prevent teams from simply removing this inventory without process improvements. With actual process improvements, the need for excess WIP will be removed and the reduction will occur with better, sustainable results.

With one focused goal, many of the brainstorming activities will be improved by increasing the quantity of ideas on one topic area versus multiple ideas across a wide topic range. It forces that team to think deeper into ways to achieve a focused objective.

As for safety improvements, I recommend a small target of 3 to 5 safety improvements per team. This helps emphasize the importance of safety in conjunction with kaizen and may prove challenging in some processes. We should always work at making our workplace safer at every possible opportunity including kaizen events.

Lean Sensei

As you may have noticed, my posting activity has slowed down a bit over the past couple of months. It was not my intent to limit my posts lately, just a result of completing work for a few clients and starting my new role as Lean Sensei for the Batesville Casket Company.

It is an honor to be worthy of such a title and with this honor, a deep sense of responsibility to help guide a lean journey. Even though I will be the corporate lean teacher, I will always remain a student.

My consulting company will continue to operate with the help of others however my involvement will be limited as I focus my full time efforts with Batesville. I will continue blogging about my experiences and lean lessons learned.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Anyone who describes the lean journey as a well defined, narrow, straight line path, filled with do’s and don’ts or absolute right’s and wrong’s, ending up with a completely waste free organization has not traveled very far down this road. In my opinion, the lean journey is more like two steps forward and one step back with plenty of winding curves, wrong turns, pot holes and other road hazards to make life interesting.

How many companies, including Toyota, can honestly say that their lean journey is smooth sailing and trouble free?

The lean journey is difficult, messy, and even uncertain at times. That is why we do not see many organizations as examples of long term lean success. Some just give up or rationalize that we are lean enough. Can anyone really be lean enough? For others, the risk in trying something new is just too high of a price so the status quo wins out as the safe bet. For many, there is simply no interest in the lean journey.

I must admit, part of the allure of the lean journey for me is the challenge. It’s not about the challenge to master the lean tools. It’s not even about the challenge to eliminate waste. For me, the challenge is helping create a learning culture that drives continuous improvement forever, even as we go two steps forward and one step back.

Think Milk

While teaching the concept of 5S and visual management with lean thinking, I have successful used a simple technique I call “Think Milk”.

Ask the participants to close their eyes for a moment, and then ask them to visualize themselves back in their homes. Ask them to see themselves standing at the entrance of their kitchen. Ask them to look at their refrigerator and began walking towards it. Have them reach out and open the refrigerator door. Then ask them to pick up their milk. Finally, ask them to now open their eyes.

At this point, open the discussion by asking a series of questions. First question, “Where was the milk found in their refrigerator?”. Ask several individuals, expecting to hear answers like the right hand door, or top shelf left hand side, etc. Make the point that although each person my have different locations, each of us has a designated spot for our milk. This is associated the 5S principle of “A place for everything, and everything in its place”.

Ask the group, “Do you put your milk in other locations, like a cabinet, a pantry or cupboard?” followed by “Why not?”or “What if you did?”. This opens up points like spoilage, not finding it when needed or purchasing more milk when not need, etc. This leads to the principle of standardization.

Ask the group, “Do they put milk into their refrigerator dirty, i.e. milk running down the sides, or maybe food particles on the sides, or even without the cap securely fastened on top?”. Of course not and discuss why. This point to the clean step of 5S.

The next question, “What type of milk container do you have?”. It is possible to have several answers however the most popular is the gallon jug. Ask the group, “What do you notice about the container that is useful?”. Here you want to get the group to identify several features including the ergonomic handle, the clear plastic to see the milk level, the expiration date, the label with the type of milk (skim, 1%, 2%) and the color code for the type of milk (pink, blue, red). These features improve the visual management of buying and using the milk.

Ask the group, “What happens if the milk is not consumed oldest date first?”. Expect to hear that it goes bad, gets lumpy, smells bad, etc. Then ask “What do you do with this milk?”. It is thrown out which follows that you want to use the FIFO principle to minimize wasted milk.

Then ask the group, “How many gallons of milk do they purchase and store at one time?”. Usually only a couple gallons at a time are bought depending on family size. Ask the group, “What if you bought 15 or 20 gallons at a time because it was on sale?”. This leads to the discussion points of holding excess inventory, buying a second refrigerator, excess consumption, risk of spoilage, etc. which you can relate to holding inventory in your workplace.

Wrap up the discussion by stating that milk is a simple example of lean principles we follow daily in each of our own lives. If you look close enough, all the 5S principles are present along with visual management. By thinking milk, it is easy to understand and teach some of the basic lean principles. Please try the “Think Milk” techniques next time you have a training session and have fun with it. It really can get the group thinking lean.

Evolution of Six Sigma

In the beginning, there were no colored belts and we focused only on the end customer, reducing warranty costs and getting it right the first time. It was named six sigma and it was good.

Over time, we added black belts and increased the use of advanced statistical tools. This called the six sigma way and it was better.

Soon we saw the need for more definition and including others to help the black belts in their quality quest so we added green belts. This made the black belts happy.

Eventually, the black belts grew numerous by order of the King. These black belts expanded their search for variation reduction to all corners of the kingdom including even processes in the Human Resources Department but still lacked direction. So we added Master Black Belts to lead them.

As we look across the kingdom today, we can now see yellow belts, gold belts, white belts, master black belts and even Grand Master Black Belts added to the royal order of belts. Everyone must have a colored belt to save the kingdom money regardless if it actually helps the end customer. And the only way to fix a problem is through a black belt project, green belt project or even a lime green project (in between a green belt level project and a yellow belt level project). I guess calling it a lime green project is better then calling it a pea green project.

But is this good? Maybe we should go back to the basics and focus on the customer, reduce warranty cost and getting it right the first time.

How Many People Did You Cut?

Believe it or not, at one of my recent kaizen events this past month, a plant production manager asked the team, “How many people did you cut?”. Our event focus was quality related in improving the process to make the product right the first time and we did not cut any associates from the process. If this was not bad enough, this production manager repeated the question two more times!

What kind of message do you think he was sending the team? How many company associates do you think want to volunteer for the next kaizen event? With his question, what do you think kaizen means to him?

Let’s make this crystal clear: Kaizen is not about cutting people!

As lean thinkers, we should focus on our growth strategy. With a growth strategy, we reassign people from kaizen to perform other tasks that add value to our customer. A better question to ask is “What value added tasks can we accomplish with labor available from kaizen?”

Picking a Kaizen Team

Over the past month, I have worked with four kaizen teams focused on shop floor improvements, quality issues and office processes. As always, despite our struggles, improvements are put into place at the end of the kaizen week long event. Everything seems normal however I noticed a recent trend that points us in the wrong direction on our lean journey.

The problem is the composition of the Kaizen Team. All of these teams were mainly comprised of management personnel with little representation from the shop floor level associates. One of the kaizen events was divided up into two teams made up of only 1 shop floor associate and 15 management representatives. This is a major mistake and is one of the factors contributing to failure on the lean journey.

When picking a kaizen team, the majority of the team members should be from the shop floor associate level. Depending on the circumstances, I would at least hold to a 50/50 ratio of shop floor associates to management level team members. This can present a challenge since we tend to easily free up management resources for kaizen events but want to keep the shop floor associates working in production. Don’t list all the reasons that you can’t have more participation from the shop floor associates and focus on how to get more shop associates involved. You can always find a way!

With the inclusion of more shop floor associates on the kaizen teams, we eliminate the problems of management only driven projects, increase buy-in and help employees improve their own work methods. More importantly, we follow the respect of people principle by developing all of our employees in the foundation of lean thinking.

Lean Lessons from the Dalai Lama

Yesterday, I traveled with my family to campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana to listen to His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama speaking to a sold out crowd in Assembly Hall. Regardless of your religious or political backgrounds, the Dalai Lama’s message of compassion, peace, enlightenment, and personal development is universal. Even though I am not Buddhist, I found his simple words of wisdom to be profound both on a personal and professional level.

My point is not to promote, debate or defend his viewpoint of the world rather I would like to point out several interesting lessons that relate to the lean journey found in the words of the Dalai Lama. The first lesson has to do with problem solving. As the Dalai Lama told the crowd, most of our problems in the world today are man made and our entire world is all connected to each other so all things effect each of us. Looking at the lean journey, I believe that this simple statement applies to our workplace. Most of the problems we face are created by ourselves. The 4 M’s of method, machine, material and manpower are chosen, controlled and maintained by us therefore the problems resulting from the combination of these elements are due to our decisions and behavior. Knowing and understanding this leads us to the power to change these situations to resolve our problems.

The Dalai Lama talked about the importance of gaining a deeper understanding to resolve our problems. Without achieving the holistic understanding first, we will struggle to resolve the problem. As we know from the Toyota problem solving approach, a key first step is gaining greater understanding of the situation and going to gemba to see for ourselves the reality of the situation. In my experience, we do not invest the time or energy in our workplaces to gain a deeper understanding. We tend to jump directly to putting in solutions and wonder why we still have not solved the problem.

At one point, the Dalai Lama told the group to concentrate first on your internal attitude and thinking. Our mind has control over our behavior and when our mind is not properly disciplined, we have problems. As I see this related to lean thinking and the behaviors needed to make it stick, we must discipline our minds first before we can act in a lean way. It brings the importance of lean thinking into a new perspective.

More Lessons from Toyota Industrial Equipment

The Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing (TIEM) plant in Columbus, Indiana has more lessons for us as we continued our tour last Friday. Although you can never learn all that you want in just one day, a simple glimpse really, it was enough to spark my critical lean thinking into high gear.

One of the most striking things you see at this plant is what you don’t see. That is the almost complete absence of cardboard boxes and other dunnage typically found in manufacturing plants. All the parts are delivered to this plant in reusable/returnable containers. The same goes even for parts shipped in from Japan. It was interesting to see that the sides of the returnable containers from Japan were dual colored to visually display two difference orientations. The first orientation lets the totes stack, one atop the other. The second orientation allows the same totes to nest within each other to provide better density on the return trip.

Seeing this return container design makes the engineer in me imagine all kinds of possibilities that I may have not though possible before. It also makes me wonder if we should aggressively pursue the use of returnable containers, even to China. Everybody tells us it is too expensive and not logistically practical so we just ignore the possibility. Does anybody use returnable containers with their China suppliers?

The leaders of this plant are extremely proud, and rightly so, of their contribution to conservation of resources and their stewardship of the environment by becoming a landfill free facility. With the universal use of returnable container and a strong recycling program, TIEM does not send any waste to landfills. How many of our plants can say the same?

Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing

I spend today, touring the Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing (TIEM), facility located in Columbus, Indiana. Although this facility has been open since 1990 and within an hour drive of my home, I never had the opportunity to take an inside look at their operation before now. Thank you Toyota for opening your doors so we can learn.

Some of you may wonder if this company is part of the Toyota Motor Company or just a company using the Toyota name in a licensing agreement. Although they don’t build cars, they actually are part of the Toyota organization and follow the Toyota Way.

A few facts first:
99% of all the Toyota lift trucks sold in North America are manufactured in Columbus, Indiana.
Over 800 employees work to produce almost 30,000 trucks per year.
Over 60 different models are produced of electric lifts, 3,000 – 12,000 lbs and internal combustion lifts 3,000 – 17,000 lbs.
The facility covers 880,000 sq ft on about 101 acres of land.
The operations within this facility include metal fabrication, welding, powder coating, assembly and distribution.
Three main lines assembly lines currently run at various Takt times from 4.5 minutes to 33 minutes, adjusted monthly.

Now the lean lessons:
Each area holds a morning meeting (called “Asaichi Meeting”) for about 8 minutes to discuss the day’s schedule, safety issues, quality concerns, improvement ideas, company news and take attendance.

Right after this meeting, all the Team Leaders gather together to help each other face the challenges of achieving the daily production requirements. This meeting goes for about 6-8 minutes with attendance being the primary topic. Depending on who’s missing, the team leaders quickly agree on shifting associates to fill the gaps. A skill matrix chart helps them determine which associates have the required skills to fill the needs.

The Team leaders will reconvene every two hours during the entire shift to make sure everybody stays on the same page throughout the day.

The area will meet as a group at the end of the shift to review issues of the day. This meeting was called the “Yuichi Meeting” or pm meeting.

The meetings were conducted in front of the respective area’s measurement boards, called “Team Leader Control Boards” listing all the metrics like attendance, 5S, Kaizen newspapers, Defect lists, etc. The kaizen newspaper lists problems, the temporary countermeasure, the permanent countermeasure, who identified it, the planned date of completion and the actual date of completion. They also use the PDCA circle to visually show the four phases (investigation, find root cause, implement countermeasure, and standardize).

Each line has a master andon board that displays the daily production target, the actual number of units produced, lights for each workstation, the anticipated overtime for that day and a running time of any line stoppages. The workstation lights are yellow and red. When the yellow light flashes, it is a signal for needing help within a Takt Time. The red light signifies the line is stopped. In addition to the flashing lights, music is played. The line I observed played “It’s a small world” which I listened to several times today.

A cool idea was the formation of a kaizen group. This kaizen group consisted of 10 shop floor associates on a 6 month rotational assignment, all on a voluntary basis, to focus solely on helping implement kaizen ideas. They build carts, make labels, work on fixtures or work aids, etc. Really, they do whatever they can to get these ideas implemented.

Where do the kaizen ideas come from? They come from all the associates who are asked to come up with 3 ideas per associate per month (Think quick and easy kaizen). While Toyota encourages associates to implement their own improvement ideas, sometimes they need help. That’s where this kaizen group steps in.

There were more lessons that I will share in follow up posts but this will give you enough to think about for now.

This facility was not as organized or spotless as the Toyota Lexus plant I visited in Japan but none the less, a great plant to see the Toyota Way in action without having to go all the way to Japan.

Push versus Pull

"Under a push system, there is little opportunity for workers to gain wisdom because they just produce according to the instructions they are given. In contrast, a pull system asks the worker to use his or her head to come up with a manufacturing process where he or she alone must decide what needs to be made and how quickly it needs to be made. An environment where people have to think brings with it wisdom, and this wisdom brings with it kaizen (continuous improvement)." - Teruyuki Minoura, Senior Managing Director, Toyota Motor Company.

Improvement

"Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before." -Shigeo Shingo

Prepare your Mind

“A relentless barrage of “why’s” is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often”
-Shigeo Shingo

Very early in our process improvement training, we are taught about the 5 why technique in problem solving. I have learned in my kaizen efforts, by simply asking why, numerous opportunities for process improvement can be found, potential root causes identified and countermeasures created.

In this quote from Shigeo Shingo’s book “Kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking”, we hear about asking why again but for a different purpose. We can use the why questioning to prepare our minds. Think about that for a moment. By preparing our minds first, we break our mental barriers with the status quo. Until we do, we are not ready to realize, implement or accept any improvements.

What better way to prepare our minds than by asking why. Isn’t the process of asking why, the core essence of human development? Throughout human history, most of our progress can be linked to someone asking why (or why not, in some cases). Even as children, asking why is a central part of our mental development process. Asking a relentless barrage of why’s is a great way to open our mind, just ask any 3-6 year old.

Work in Progress Virus

As I take my Gemba Walk at a client site, I see a virus spreading at epidemic speeds in the offices and shopfloor. The virus is a simple “Work in Progress” sign posted above a work area, usually above a pile of material or individual workstation. What once started as a plea for fairness during 5S audits in one area has now spread across the entire organization.

Apparently, someone did not like getting a poor score on their 5S audit. Instead of using kaizen to improve it, they argued that the designated area should not be counted because it was in a constant state of disarray as a result of doing work. When a 5S auditor went along with the scheme, the “Work in Progress” sign was born as a free pass to overlook this area in a 5S Audit. Just like a virus, the “Work in Progress” signs started showing up everywhere. It is not a surprise to see the popularity of the signs. This approach is certainly easier than making an actual improvement but the wrong approach. (I did like the turtle to describe the flow).

Isn’t every square inch of our facility a place to do work with some stuff just moving faster than other stuff? Why don’t we put a sign over our front door declaring the whole building as work in progress and skip the 5S audit entirely? Don’t laugh. This was actually done over an entire department work area as a joke and the Auditor accepted it!



On our lean journey, it is easy to fall into traps like the immune “Work in Progress” designated areas and even boldly call the signs a visual management tool. Don’t be fooled. The lean principles are to be applied in every process, every function, and every square inch of our organization. There are no free passes, my friends.

Lean and Six Sigma's Effect on Complex Organizations

Last Wednesday night, I attend the APICS Chicago Chapter Monthly Professional Development Meeting to listen to Praveen Gupta, President of Accelper Consulting and author of many books including Six Sigma Business Scorecard and Virtually Stat Free Six Sigma, on his topic, Lean and Six Sigma’s effects on complex organizations.

Praveen’s insights on the applying improvement strategies in our increasingly complex organizations were thought provoking. From his point of view, our limited success in getting results from our improvement activities rests mainly on our approach (which has also gotten more complex) and not understanding the purpose behind our activities.

In his presentation, Praveen expanded on the book, The Goal, in modifying the goal of business from making money to the goal of business is to sustain profitable growth. In order to sustain profitable growth we need three things.

1. Any process improvement approach like Lean, six sigma, Lean/Sigma, etc.
2. A business scorecard to measure what we value.
3. Growth not dependant on Mergers and Acquisitions, but driven on innovation.

Praveen challenged us to avoid some of the traps of our current improvement approaches like:

1. Corporations not measuring sigma levels.
2. Leaders avoiding accountability of improvements activities to the bottom line.
3. Too much statistics entering into Six Sigma at the cost of product/process knowledge.

Praveen Gupta’s message for success:

“Standardize intent, customize methodology, utilize the right mix of tools and reduce the number of measurements.”

For more thoughts from Praveen Gupta, check out his long list of books, and look in Quality Digest Magazine for numerous articles he has published.

Kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking

I just finished reading a truly great “new” book that explores the thinking process of making improvements, “Kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking” written by Shigeo Shingo, published by Norman Bodek (PCS, Inc) and Collin McLoughlin (Enna Products Corporation). Actually, this is not really a new book since it was first written by Shigeo Shingo in 1958 but has never been translated in English before now. The official release date of this newly published English translation is set for October 15, 2007 and you can pre-order your copy here.

Knowing that the book was written back in 1958 caused me to wonder if any of the information would be relevant to today’s lean journey but after reading this book, I was not disappointed. Unlike the other great Shingo books which were more lean tool driven, “Kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking” focuses on the thinking portion of problem solving, making improvements and meeting opposition to the guardians of the status quo. There are a great number of improvement examples in this book to clearly explain Shingo’s points which I found extremely helpful and entertaining. Some of the information has been written about before but there are plenty of new insights to make this book a must read for those of us on our lean journey.

The book confirms what I already knew to be true from my early days in lean when Shigeo Shingo taught me the SMED system. Shigeo Shingo is a genius and has a gift for teaching.

What can I do Today?

Being overwhelmed is a common feeling on the lean journey, especially as we become better at seeing all the wastes. When faced with long kaizen newspapers and seemingly endless kaizen opportunities, we ask the wrong questions like “How am I going to get this all done?”. We might think we don’t have the manpower or time to work on all these kaizen projects and employee suggestions with our current workload.

As a lean thinker, we change the way we look at those same kaizen opportunities. Ask the right question, “What can I do today?.

The Emotional Side of Lean

As we navigate our way in applying the lean principles within our own company cultures, value streams and business processes, it can sometimes feel like we are strapped in backwards on a roller coaster with a blindfold over our eyes. We experience a huge range of emotions and feelings in a short period of time including fear, panic, pain, excitement, hopefulness, uneasiness, pride, adrenaline rushes and frustration. Taking the path on a lean journey can be an extremely overwhelming experience.

There is plenty of technical information on the tools and concepts of lean but very little on the emotional side of lean. We tend to brush over the emotional issues associated with a lean transformation as nonexistent because this lean stuff is simple to understand so how hard can it be to just do it.

There is also a tendency to look down on anyone caught up in these emotions as wimps. In my earlier days on the lean journey, if we questioned any of the lean changes in our company we were called concrete heads or barriers. And anyone who did not get on board quickly found themselves looking for a new job.

In reflection, it was good to push us on the lean path because some of us would have never taken the first steps. We over came our emotions, struggled to get it right and eventually found ways to make it work. But I think it would have been a far better journey if the emotional side of lean was recognized.

By recognizing the emotional side of a lean transformation, we take the time to help employees mentally and emotionally embrace the lean approach. Some people easily embrace the lean approach while others struggle to accept it. When you have employees who hesitate making some of the lean changes, don’t tell them to trust you or just have faith. Unlike religion which is faith based, the lean approach is better accepted based on experience, experimentation and education.

Tell them, show them and let them learn by doing. Be a coach, providing endless encouragement and even a little pushing, to build confidence to go forward. Just like when our child first learns to walk, as parents, we cheer, encourage and praise our child’s attempts to take a single step. Even as our child stumbles and falls, we continue to cheer and extend our hands out to support them. Before long our child is taking several steps. We celebrate the success, taking pictures and videos. With more confidence and experience, our child learns to walk. Helping others on the lean journey should be no different, one step at a time.