Crying? It's time to kick-it-off!

'What's on TV?', wife asked.
'Dust', the husband said and then the fight started.... I began my speech with this PJ.

It was a presentation in front of about hundred strong audience attended by president of the company along-with management team of it's business units (BU).

Presentation began with chief of one of the business units appreciating each and every employee from a pilot for their wholehearted involvement. In about four months time the process and machine's performance effectiveness improved from 65 percent to 90 percent. After him, his team began sharing experiences.

"Seventh month in a row, machine hasn't broken down yet", said the mechanical maintenance supervisor.

"And the machine will 'tell' us well in advance before breaking down", said the operator. "Post implementing the TPM¹, it 'speaks' to us as a child does to the mother".

"It's rare to see this kind of culture and sense of pride in their work": The finance head of the company couldn't resist temptation to voice his observations after watching their enthusiasm and before-after pictures of achievements.

Can money buy such a kind of engagement and satisfaction?

Message of the proceedings was loud and clear to the audience: Although Google might be a knowledge bank with sea of literature on technicalities of TPM there to be read and researched, generating such a kind of positive attitude and sustaining the corresponding improvement culture is a different ballgame altogether: The one of soft dimensions of TPM: The Kaizen culture that needs to be experienced to be believed.

This was a story of a TPM pilot and a couple of it's support functions covering about fifty grass-root level employees from a continuous process plant. The change had begun with their top management team going to shopfloor to find opportunities for improvements (OFI) and implement changes, the Kaizens. Doing this on behalf of the employees was to take the 3D (Dirty-Danger-Difficult) realities on the floor head-on and demonstrate leadership commitment.

Unlike the man in the PJ 'showing' dust on TV, that's the way to get others to proactively "see" dust on their machine and prevent it from entering it's bearing as also from breaking it down. That's the kind of behavior expected from managers expecting a deep rooted change in their employees.

And when people in power do so, their subordinates change the very definition of problem: There is nothing called 'problem'. It's just the absence of an idea to find solution just like there's nothing called 'darkness', it's just the absence of light. 

And when they focus on solutions rather than 'crying' of problems they 'see' more and more OFI possibilities (Kaizen-Teian). That's the beginning of a change in culture.

If you want to experience such an improvement culture then it's high time to be ruthless with self and ask:

How many times do I practise it myself rather than 'telling' others to behave?

How many times do I 'catch' others to give positive strokes (recognition) for having tried to make a difference?

How many times do I procrastinate like that character in cartoon saying: I definitely want to praise your hard work but I just can't find the right words!

It's time to enable self and then others!
It's time to kick-it-off!!
It's time to do-it-now!!!

Footnote-1: TPM means Total Productive Maintenance or Total Productive Management as some like to call it.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It!

Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers 

In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it!

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 
Does recognition really matter 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Take your career in fast lane! 
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!  
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!!   
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
Make checklists your friends  
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers

Don't Forget: Stir-Coffee-Well !

Sometimes we struggle through a tasteless coffee till its last sip. Then we find sugar lying at the bottom unused.

That's LIFE: (My Haiku on it...)

I fail, I fail !

Why blame others for the hell !!

It's sweet but not stirred well..!!!

That's the dilemma of a teacher or a coach or a guru: Students forget that they themselves are the sugar. Students forget that even 'the knowledge' is sugar. They forget to 'stir' it (as also to 'stir' themselves) well!

Above message received on social media reminded me of a student of Kaizen who bumped into me on a flight.

To my question, how was Kaizen journey-to-excellence going on in his company, his response was: "Well back to 'business as usual', 'full of fire-fighting, blaming-naming', 'no time to breath', etc."

Like most do typically on leaving school, he seemed to have forgotten 'teachings' of the Kaizen-school. That the Kaizen journey itself is to get rid of such ills so that it 'helps' to take 'full-breaths'. Kaizen journey is to get people aligned towards this thought.

It's human tendency to have divergent desires and get defocused by their changing thoughts and desires. They keep dragging themselves towards the undesired: typically in a corporate setting towards individual goals. However it's the role of the leadership team to help individuals to find leads for their 'desires' in the goals of the mutual interest, towards the very purpose of its existence. It's their prime role to keep them aligned towards achieving them.

It's a compulsion by market-forces. It's a compulsion to keep improving continuously to perform at higher levels marching towards excellence while serving the stakeholders; ultimately the society and the environment. In absence of this, the daily (unmeaningful) grind is sure to make you gasp for breath every moment and perish one day.

My friend, the leader himself, had forgotten the role of leadership taught in Kaizen-school: One, that of enabling all stakeholders to make improvements. Two, that of forcing 'crying' people in particular (the ones not having 'desire' to do so) to 'get off the way'.  

His leadership team had also forgotten to keep itself updated on newer ways and means to do so in order to adopt to changing environment. 

External coaches in Kaizen-school can show the what-why-how way and walk them by holding hands only a little far. Beyond that it is the role of internal leadership team to perform the corporate-parenting of passionately walking the shown way and taking their stakeholders along.

It was evident in his 'off the school' response that his company had forgotten it's responsibility of mastering the art and science of 'making the coffee'.

Their leadership team had forgotten it's role of being a learner, of keeping their knowledge warming. They had forgotten to keep their knowledge-of-sugar stirring.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

How To Make A Difference

Will It Work Here? 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

In-a-problem? No-problem-dwell-a-while

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

ABCD of India Shining

In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it!

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy! Why?

Have you ever thought why suggestions  usually don't get 'bought' even if they are good? Even the ones given by bosses to subordinates get implemented half-heartedly, if at all.

The cause of this dilemma can be sourced at the top.

On 'hearing' about world class companies "topping the number of suggestions" with over "6 million" in Matsushita in so and so year or "over 53 suggestions implemented per employee in one single year" in Toyota (in 1987), typically the decision makers hastily installed 'suggestion-schemes'.

While number of suggestions in such excellent companies gradually increased, in 'hasty' companies the total system flopped. Blame was put on the 'prevailing bad culture here' while crediting the 'opposite there'. They even forgot 'which wall' their own 'suggestion-box' was hung. Some of them 'hung' another one during a new crisis.

Actually the real cause is that the 'hasty' managers didn't understand 'keys to success' of 'suggestion-systems' in such excellent companies and that they are much more than merely a 'box'.

Many didn't know that 'suggestion schemes' are called as Kaizen-TEIAN in Japanese companies. They got 'imported' with half knowledge. Naturally with their ill-effects they turned out to be a big flop as expected.

The way they were installed, rules themselves were 'killers of more ideas' than very few that were 'accepted': often a fraction of the total. The ones 'accepted' got disproportionately rewarded. At times the awardees were found to be same people year after year. In some companies these people even 'budgeted' their earnings. They knew when to 'create a crisis' and when to 'solve' it by their 'so-called suggestions'.

Kaizen-TEIAN system is exactly the opposite. In fact it means an 'implemented suggestion' or as a Kaizen as the world knows now. If generating suggestions or ideas is one side of the coin then implementing it is the other side. So a coin itself is a Kaizen or a Kaizen-TEIAN.

Role of the bosses or the idea-collectors is to involve subordinates in generating innumerable suggestions by training/retraining them on appropriate methods and then enabling them to implement all of those with resource verification as their own primary responsibility. In fact one of the performance criteria (KRA¹) of bosses is to 'make everyone a hero' by helping everyone contribute an idea and help him implement it.

There is no question of 'someone putting suggestions in a box' and then 'someone else assessing them' to 'accept' or 'reject' as was done by non-Japanese 'suggestion schemes' that revolved primarily around economic benefits and degree of it's creativity rather than 'motivation' of the Suggester.

Initial enthusiasm due to 'novelty' of such 'boxes' might attract novices to put an idea or two in it. But would you not be indifferent if yours get repeatedly 'rejected' due to it's 'smallness' or due to someone else's 'bigness'?

Or would it not be demotivating if it gets handled the way it does in a typical housing society where office bearers typically react saying: "talking is easy" or say: "you" do it rather than "let's do it together". Most often their body language not only 'repels' an idea but they see to it that it doesn't get implemented.

Under such circumstances leaving 'common-good' to it's destiny, people keep their brains under 'lock-and-key' while behaving in common places. After all it's 'your rule' not 'my idea': that's exactly the human psychology Kaizen-TEIAN system pre-empts.

In Kaizen-TEIAN there is no question of slapping or punishing a failure. It's about handholding subordinate to 'open  umbrella during rain' (an improvement action to tackle a problem) while giving credit of doing so to him.

This is where the journey of 'doing a Kaizen and reporting it with due credit and recognition to others' begins. With sustained and concerted efforts it accumulates into a 'million Kaizens'.

Without clarity and alignment on such key differences of Kaizen-TEIAN as above, fate of 'suggestion-schemes' will continue to stay doubtful.

Footnote-1, ¹KRA is Key-Result-Area

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Big-Be Or Bug-Be !

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

Nauseous Communication Gaps

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!

Will It Work Here? 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!!

That's How Morons Work

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

That's how some business partnerships work

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

"What happened? Why are you so nervous?", I asked one of my singer friends during our monthly singing meeting. "We have a lovely theme of singing 'monsoon songs' with a lively setting of heavy rains in the background!"

My friend is usually well-prepared for our singing meet up every third Sunday. We all professionals from various fields with a common interest enjoy theme-based singing.

"Are you not prepared today?", I continued.

"That's not the case", he murmured. "I am worried about my business dear. It has become a noise while I am on a song".

He owned a mid-sized business. In spite of reasonable compensation he had a problem of attrition affecting business performance year-on-year. It was their innovative product that had been somehow helping them sail through. In fact, their 'somehow'-management techniques consisted of 'pushing' people (including a major chunk of attrition-substitute freshers) for production, 'shouting' at them for mistakes, etc. This had been resulting in a 'snow-ball effect' of managing rejections, delayed deliveries, and so on.

In effect, sagging morale of people had been posing a perpetual challenge of keeping both the old brigade as also the new breed engaged homogeneously. Anxiety of future, that was evident on his face, seemed to take toll on him. Actually he had been voicing this concern at regular intervals in past.

What was the solution to engage people? 

There was no point in him worrying about attrition in particular. Even big and successful companies could't prevent that. Finding ways and means to get both the old and new engaged speedily and sustainably was the only answer. More the engagement, lower the performance issues, easier and faster the familiarization to processes, higher the affinity to workplace, lower the possibility of attrition.

Getting that done was a challenge particularly on a fear-struck workplace that on the other hand was full of challenges on quality, cost and delivery front.

In a fear-struck workplace if leader himself behaves like a maniac, it adds fuel to the fire. "What if I change the process" kind of 'What-if' questions haunt people under-fear especially if they are freshers.

Fear of unknown haunts just as a child gets scared of entering a dark room.

What will boss say if I make mistakes?
Will I be able to do this neatly or adequately?
Will I be able to complete it (Compliance)?
Will I fail?
Will I be able to communicate my stand?
Will my colleagues ridicule me?
Will they criticize me?

Such aesthetic fears promote staying put in status-quo.

While on one hand people under the grip of fear wish that everything should go right, on the other hand they imagine everything undesired happening. They begin worrying and get excessively anxious. This results into several mental, emotional and physical symptoms including demotivation, loss of self-esteem and self-confidence, etc. In other words generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) takes their charge resulting into negative 'snow-ball effect' around. 

Apart from demotivating work-environment, causes of such worrisome behavior could be a mix of biological, psychological, social and cultural ones that may include: lack of preparedness for the occasion, personality inhibitions, shyness or learned behaviour of habitually worrying or anxiety (as a trait) inherited from their family environment, etc.

In personal setting the affected people may get conventional advice that of resorting to self-help strategies such as to "have self-confidence even if others don't have it in you" or to "look at your own self positively and get set & act" or to "relax, deep-breathe and meditate" while in mess, and "to "approach solving a problem one-step at a time", etc.

Yes, it's always good to make your own-self robust than trying to change outside world to accommodate your weaknesses. But only one's own family members with their captive homogeneity and serious interest may afford to spend that kind of time and efforts on helping one individually.

But in a typical dead-line based corporate setting that employs 100s and 1000s of people with multiple diversities at personal and professional level, spending that kind of time and efforts on helping everyone individually may become prohibitively expensive and difficult in spite of employing a fleet HRD managers and their initiatives. 

So what is the alternative solution for businesses such as that of my friend?

How to instill self-confidence in each and every member of the corporate family? How to align them with speed matching that required to perform and deliver time-bound goals of the organisation?

One pioneered by Toyota among various methods was about creating various listening platforms in order to preserve "respect for people" and to preserve their "individuality" in terms of individual creativity as well as speed of participation without affecting speedy demands on the organisation.

Toyota did this by providing

1/ empowered environment to make changes in work under an individual's direct control,

2/ structured platforms to declare and get recognised for the efforts put in suffering or making those changes with rules that would pre-empt all the fears including that of failed changes, if any.

This is where structured problem solving methods such as Gemba-Kaizen, One-step instant Kaizens, Seven-step Kaizens, Quality-Circles, Kaizen-Teian, etc. were born that helped them mint millions and billions of improvements. Most important common thread among them all was listening to the changes made by people with employee empowerment rules such as following as the essence among other support structures for creating Kaizen-culture as they say in one-word at Toyota. 

1/ The Kaizenee (an employee willing to make an improvement) is the boss to decide, make and declare small-changes within a pre-decided area with pre-decided conditions viz. 'go-zone' that won't disturb safety standards and customers. He is given full help by a Kaizen Engineering Team (KET) to experiment changes. (P. S. There are methods elsewhere in my blogs that help 'pull' all employees into willingness to do Kaizens).

2/ Mistakes and failures, if any, are pardoned. However they should be recorded as opportunities for improvement.

3/ There is no question of quantum of adequacy and compliance and that of size of savings as long as the deviations are recorded so that they don't go unnoticed and undergo next improvement (PDCA) cycle followed by standardization (SDCA) cycle.

4/ The Kaizenee's style and method of communication is considered least important as long as efforts in making changes are demonstrated personally or evidenced with before-after pictures. Anyone found ridiculing or criticizing a Kaizenee or her style and her sincere efforts is dealt with strictly.

5/ Moment an abnormality is noticed, anyone can stop the entire running line at a touch of a switch of an Andon that blinks or hoots placed at strategic locations.

6/ All help and attention is provided to a Kaizenee by a designated team if s/he brings forward any abnormalities in compliance to above rules. 

With such empowering rules, where is the question of fear now. Isn't this kind of empowerment enough to 'manufacture' self-esteem, confidence, teamwork in order to make the workplace self-managed.

It was difficult for my friend to believe this kind of maverick approach. In fact, his reaction was "with such rules 'they' will force 'us' to close down the shutters". Short of efforts to act he was stuck in his own set of paradigms. 

He may finally end up believing the maverick Kaizen-way on visiting some case-studies though. But I have serious doubts whether he will create one of his own because it's about 'believing-by-doing' which is very difficult for people who believe in 'talking-than-doing'.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 
That's How Morons Work 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
That's how some business partnerships work 
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Customer or Custo-Mer?  
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! 
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul 
Less With More And More Gets Sore 
Should one care for value?  
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings