Digitally Lean, Physically Fat

Just heard from a marketer about Digital-Lean! that he was trying to sell. No wonder there's a pull of  IOT (internet-of-things) all around now.

Seems to be a new jargon though, like Lean-Six-Sigma that evolved while maturing the Six-Sigma initiative of Motorola, GE, et all.

Such jargons that evolve, rather 'revolve' at regular intervals confuse the practitioners.
That was a point of my contention in one of my books 'Stay Lean, Make Planet Green".

Proponents of various management techniques (under jargons) such as BPR, TOC, 6-Sigma, etc. in past advocated hardly anything different than the original JIT thinking itself of Toyota to attain Lean. Nothing is wrong with these approaches except a major difference that the same proponents tried to catch up with either under different jargons or under a few augmented versions.

Most of these approaches focused on working top-down on obviously visible problems (as the links of a steel chain, say, that had already given way) that had reached a crisis stage. Naturally such crises problems demand radical changes. JIT philosophy instead, as a preventive culture, exposes potentially weak (but so far ‘invisible’) links before they actually turn weak and before they give way.  

Apart from the above, the 'people' aspect of problem solving (the Hitozukuri) also got ignored in the former approaches in their enthusiasm to invent newer mathematical models, tools and jargons.

Behavioral part of JIT instead builds and nurtures an army of soldiers capable of exposing and fighting potential weak links. Thereby it preempts failure of the process of making and delivering (the Monozukuri) of the offering.

So, the Fad-of-the-day, Tool-focus is the culprit of confusion, if any.  

Only when it was realized that the 'Toyota approach' is 'much more proactive' and ‘heart-full’ than what met the eyes and gray cells of a few fly-by-night consultants on a study mission to Japan, that the ‘augmented’ versions of their management tools appeared on the horizon of  the management world.

After the Re-engineering as a tool; to BPR; to Re-engineering of Management, etc.; the latest example is the re-christening of highly digitized statistical '6-Sigma'! It was jargonised as 'Lean-6-Sigma' having realized that '6-Sigma' as a measurement was already in use at Toyota. 

Exactly on similar lines, Toyota already had its very own invented SIS, strategic information systems technology in the 1960s. Toyota did the IOT (internet of things) in its own way then. It had its own towers in order to telegraphically release management information so that they could respond to market needs just-in-time, JIT.

They knew that information systems with speed is an integral part in order to be a leaner company. So wherever possible and needed, it was a necessity to get over the bottleneck speed of  physical systems by installing digital systems in order to exchange information in real time as far as possible.

So to that extent, to the extent of available soft technology then, the lean journey at Toyota was already digital.

Today when I heard about Digital-Lean! I thought of cautioning the practitioners not to confuse themselves with it as a jargon. If they do, then the fate could be that the Digital! may get installed but the Lean! may still stay flat and Fat! or rather Fatter! to the extent of the investments made in going  Digital! without correspondingly justified returns (or benefits) over it.

Know that digital was always existing. It's its continual improvement and its development that the today's developed level of Digital! needs to be looked at. It is an integral part of the lean journey anyway.

For instance, going digital in today's context may call for aiding the physical Kanban by E-Kanban wherever possible in support of the physical Kanban (rather than to replace it). The E-Kanban is about the electronic information system about 'when and where to deliver what and how much, etc.' It was earlier existing anyway in terms of a physical card, physical stock management fixtures of needed material and corresponding visuals, etc. Both are supposed to prevent excessive stocks & the resulting wastes!

Another example of going digital in today's context is about the use of RFID tags to sense movements of physical resources during their flow across the supply chain or the value chain.

Or it's about digitally monitoring of the conditions and status of the resources like done using sensors to monitor equipment conditions on-line and using them for decision making (using advanced analytics and statistical analysis of big data) in real time.

But of what use the borrowed 'digital' brain (the digital analytics of data in soft form) is when the real brain 'walks over' (ignores) the real hard data: The data or the hard facts about the probable abnormalities in their seed stage that could be seen, heard, felt, tested (and also tasted) and sensitized in real time?

That's exactly where the caution is.    

                  

                    'Smile-day’ The October 2^nd: Smile!

That's where there's scope for the Digital! to get decimated to be a 'Fad' or 'Flavor of the month', 'Flavor of the week' or 'Flavor of the day', etc. It's much like celebrating such ‘fad-days’ as jargons if people celebrate going Digital! but in reality stay Fat! with problems surrounding them!

Rather than advocating 'fads', a good coach called Sensei in Japanese would handhold, guide and steer the learner to clear off anything that's unsustainable.

So let Digital Lean! evolve and get installed as a matter of strategic need rather than it getting installed to appear modern.

Otherwise it might get easier to digitally smile (as a typical robot would do) while in real world it might still be a physical frown. 

It happened once while I was flying on an airlines! The choice of seat with it's features was a 'window-seat', perfect as it was shown on the computer screen while booking the ticket. But in reality the seat did not have a window at all! 

The last seats normally don't have a window!!

Also read a few relevant blog-posts here-under: Please do consider leaving a comment or consider sharing this post.

Kaizen, even in air!

Digital Corporate Yoga

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! 
Soon... Waste-to-Eat ! Sea-to-Drink !!
About my first book World-Of-Kaizen

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow 
How To Make A Difference 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
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 
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?
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

Can you do it like the likes of Suzuki and Toyota?

What is common between Maruti-Suzuki and your workplace?

A car every 12.5 seconds!
That’s what Maruti-Suzuki did in the year 2010!
There are plants around the world who may be making one every 1-second!!

What is important is answering the question, whether the corresponding plant are agile and flexible enough to adjust to the change in the rate of the demand from the market.

Yes companies like Suzuki and Toyota do it.
In their parlance this is called as running the plant by adjusting it to the tact time.

TACT is about ‘Time Allocated (by the customer) to Complete the Task’. During the process of fulfilling the customer demand, produce just-in-time (JIT) i.e. nothing more, nor less than what is desired by the customer. While doing so, their employees look for day-to-day problems as opportunities to improve and uproot the causes thereof to prevent their recurrence elsewhere as well.

In fact, not only Suzuki but many other excellent companies run their business learning from the TOYOTA (Kaizen Management) Way!

You can do it too!
You can create similar benefits specific to your business, customers and in fact for all the stakeholders as done by Suzuki and Toyota!!

The Kaizen way¹ of running an organisation is implemented there in a structured way.

Like in Maruti-Suzuki, Kaizen has improved quality and productivity in many organisations like Mahindra, TATA, etc. Kaizen made their processes leaner and faster to deliver in response to the ever-changing and pressing customer demands. It improved efficiency of (man, machine, material and space) resources, pruned  their costs besides achieving near-zero break-down, near-zero defectives and thereby near-zero customer complaint levels. All this is achieved at improved safety levels, reduced pollution and improved employee morale, motivation & involvement.

The journey (be it in manufacturing or service industries, from pin-making to air-lines or from hospitals to hotels) involves three stages.

First, the companies have to benchmark themselves against their past performance.
Then, they have to benchmark themselves against the best practices and companies in the world.
Third, the companies themselves have to become benchmarks worthy of emulation by others.
To achieve such a transformation, what is needed is making a beginning by transforming thoughts that you too can!

Also read a few relevant¹ blog-posts² hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or consider sharing this post.

Footnote-¹
Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so? 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
When Safety Becomes Sorry
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis

Make checklists your friends 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-nation?
In-big-problem-wear-hats-to-solve-it 
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 

Footnote-² ... Other relevant blogposts
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

Ant Knocks Elephant Down 
Will It Work Here?
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important 
Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It! 
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis 
Will It Work Here? 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Does recognition really matter 
Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ? 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
ABCD of India Shining 
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 

Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ? 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits

How often do you hear VOC

Given an opportunity, which air-conditioner would you buy: split or window?

Would you buy 'split' at the price point of the 'window' unit?

Of course, I would go for 'split' at the price point of the 'window' unit. Less noise at lesser price! 

But I've not done so yet.
Not because the split unit is not available at the price point of the window unit but because I've been on a search for a split air-conditioner of which the diffuser is small enough to fit into the opening for a window air-conditioner. I am yet to be delighted on such an offering.

Like in most houses provision for a window unit is a given. 

Same isn't the case for a split unit which actually needs a smaller hole, much smaller than one for the window unit. Is it a design-flaw or is the exclusion itself by-design?

Whatever may be the case but above paragraphs have some Voice Of Customer (VOC) hidden in there that has potential to differentiate an offering. 

1/ For a builder-developer and an architect by providing a hole for a split unit at construction stage itself. This is to avoid the wastage of breaking the wall open for split unit.

2/ For an air-conditioner manufacturer-designer by making diffuser of a split unit small enough to fit into the opening provided for a window unit. This will create an opportunity for increased sale of the split unit.

From the configurations (see figure) of a typical manufacturer, you may find that none of the diffusers of the 'split' unit fit the 'window' width that is about 660 millimeters (standard). Of course, this is not until someone makes it to fit into the window and makes the customers aware of it thereby pulling 'window' unit customers to buy 'split' unit.

There are many opportunities if marketers and designers choose to innovate by mining into VOC such as above. Differentiated offerings as above could be possible by simple frugal innovations though many real innovations themselves are possible with frugal expenses on R&D if at all.

"How often do you hear VOC?"
Jokingly many reply: "Hardly any! Because she (customer) doesn't speak!"

Although this is fit to be a whatsapp reply, part of it is certainly true.

Customers are difficult to get to speak. Hardly any tell you what they want.
Fewer know what they need although they want to design their own life.
So somehow both the above types get rid of you by filling in the blanks in customer satisfaction survey forms in order to comply to your request. Analysis of such 'tick-marks' on the forms adds a little value if at all. 

If at all any of them do (speak), hardly 4-out-of-100 that are not satisfied with the offering, do so to complain reluctantly.
Rest leave without telling the supplier and join hands with the competitor.

Knowing this well some excellent companies capture VOC proactively.

Komatsu for instance fitted GPS-enabled software (KOMTRAX) in their equipment so that their engineers can capture and 'visualize' customer problems, needs, etc. in real-time as also they can value-add to their operations by updating them on their equipment utilization, etc.

Toyota for instance, fitted micro-phones in their new car models during test marketing so that they could capture 'feelings and expressions' of their customers that could be built into the product before commercially releasing them as competition to their own current models.

So do you have guts to cannibalize your own products before your competitors do?

Can't you make your customer speak, capture it, and build it into your offering faster than your competitor just as the Komatsus and Toyotas did?

Why not? 

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)
Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)
Functional-Aesthetics
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
How To Make A Difference
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily
Does recognition really matter
Customer or Custo-Mer ?
Experienced A Delightful Payment !
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul
Do you keep curing your brand ?
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers
Do You Force Customers To Quit
Should one care for value ?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Do You Ask Right Questions ?
Talk In Order To Listen! 

Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It!

Business of the company that I went to assess was driven by research and development (R&D), high obsolescence of products and uniquely varying needs of customers.

High customisation was the order of the day. That in turn called for high level of customer contact and listening skills in order to capture voice of customer (VOC) precisely. This obviously calls for leadership skills to get it made in-house and get delivered before competition could do.

The need may appear unique to the company. But this in fact is the order of the day for most suppliers given the ever dynamic market place characterised by VUCA¹ and high level of competition.

While CEO of the company was keen to improve business processes to help retain their position externally, simultaneous concern was about 'attrition' he had been facing. Recently 'bought' talent also left, he complained.

Won't the training go waste under such circumstances, he feared.

Between the trained people leaving and untrained ones living (with you) for ever with their errors to annoy you, what is better?

Education, training and coaching builds people. Between 'Building' relevant skills captively versus installing 'Bought' skills as a foreign particle, what is preferable?

Companies need to understand that building pipelines of people is no less important alongside building the pipelines of products. In fact the former should be their prime agenda.

Why do people quit?
Especially those with high aspirations definitely do.

In fact, those without aspirations too move in absence of a conducive environment to hold them back. One of the major reasons of the other party leaving is indifferent treatment be it to people in general or to a customer in particular. 

So one of the most important portfolios of the CEO is not to leave HRD² to HR-D (HR-Department). Instead, creating culture that 'compels' people to stay back should be her hands-on agenda driven personally.

One can't ignore the fact that even seemingly dumb people have intelligence, so-called average though. It usually stays latent or dormant until challenged.

Leaving aside their own ego, superiors just need to facilitate unleashing it by making them feel confident and help them to realise their self-worth. They just need to be given an opportunity and a platform to shine. This can be done by encouraging them to express their thoughts, experiment corresponding changes in their work area without fear-of-failure.

It's a process of enabling³ people.

Once done, latent talent can be seen flowering and flowing-in smoothly. The pipeline of HRD can be seen getting 'built' that not only ensures employee retention but also creates a pull.

How to enable³ people?

First of all collect (Not Buy!) people who have fire-in-their-belly although with not-very-high aspirations and high-qualifications. Then enable³ them step-by-step. 

Step-1. Establish your credibility by demonstrating your actions on what you speak.

Step-2. Explain your expectations from them. Communicate your urgency and seriousness through complimentary evidences.

Step-3. Educate, train and coach them.

Education is to help them acquire goal specific knowledge.
Training is to help them acquire goal specific and industry-relevant, organisation-specific skills.
Coaching is to help them on 'Do-Why' and 'Do-How' in order to apply the knowledge and skills to enthusiastically achieve the goals of common good.

Step-4. Encourage, inspire & motivate to keep them engaged in the process. Give them a platform to showcase their talent and to shine.

Step-5. Empower them: Give them freedom-within-a-framework to experiment without fear of failures.

Step-6. Ennoble, means dignify them with high respect. Recognize & reward their achievements by actively listening to their efforts.

Step-7. Repeat the enablement cycle to take up higher challenges.

'Building' people rather than 'Buying' them is in a true sense creating a learning organisation as companies like Toyota do. It's their company level strategy driven by the top rather than merely a HRD² strategy left to the HR-D.

Footnotes:
1. VUCA: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. A term of military origin that represents warfare environment.
2. HRD: Human Resource Development.
3. Model 7-E© from Book "How To Enable A Change Process? Start-From-Self". Author: Shyam Talawadekar.

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

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

Andon For Visibility Before 'Andolan'

It was a huge protest (Andolan!) after the infamous Delhi gang-rape in a moving bus and another one in Mumbai. As a reactive fallout, one of the actions was strict adherence to the rule: Windows of all vehicles should be transparent.

This action is to bring out visibility, failure of which might result into crises such as above. Focus of this blogpost is to bring out it's importance generically.

Imagine there's no timetable, be it of a train or an exam or of a training classroom. And one is forced to keep guessing time of arrival/departure of a train or keep shuttling around notice boards that are usually difficult to locate/access if at all they exist at corresponding venues. 

Imagine seat numbers not marked inside an outstation train compartment or a theater.

Imagine a speed-breaker is not painted and you bump into it at 40 kilometres per hour.

Above situations may be rare in some cases. Visual systems in above cases in particular might have got more or less matured due to fear of resultant chaos. You are lucky if bogie of a train arrives at a designated location-mark on the platform. Now-a-days (inside a local train as well) they announce arrival of stations. You are lucky if 'sometimes it functions'.

In organised workplaces such Visual Systems are known as Andon: A visual communication management innovation perfected by Toyota. An example closer to you might be a display of token number in a bank alongwith an announcement and hooter sound to attract attention.

But why aren't versions on similar lines practised in other professions and places? There's a tremendous scope for bringing out visibility in order to make work predictable, prevention oriented and simpler in many other situations. The productivity benefits to customers thereby outweigh the costs of doing so in geometric progression.

A medical professional, for instance, might be able to impress upon a patient about speedy recovery if he hands over a Do-Don't instruction to be adhered to (featuring a sketch on how they work).

An electrician could display some sketches of the Do-Don'ts in case of a trouble that he shoots at. An accident may get preempted or a breakdown may get attended to faster with such Do-Don't lessons.

A computer mechanic could display, say, a sketch indicating where frequently possible loose connections can be mended autonomously.

A 'customer service' window could have 'steps' displayed with necessary sketches in case of actions to be taken during 'what-if' situations. Their office inside has signboards, labels on racks, files, etc. instead of a mess. Corresponding delays may get eliminated thereby.

An organisation, for instance, could make it's career-plan-ladder self-explanatorily 'visual'. Attrition may get reduced as a result.

Absence of practices such as above are examples of poor visibility prevalent in typically complacent organisations.

Sometimes lack of visibility is inadvertent. Sometimes it's intentional in order to protect vested interests.

Poor visibility breeds abnormalities such as defects, delays, corruption,etc. Ultimately it leads to less optimised performance as well as spoiled relationships.

That's why excellent workplaces promote visibility in innovative ways by using graphs, pictures, radiant colors, blinking lights, hooters, etc. as done in Seiton practice of Five-S's. 

They know that Andon For Visibility is better than resultant Andolan due to lack of it. They know that it's as dangerous as driving on a heavily raining day with a very very poor visibility as low as a couple of meters.

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

That's How Morons Work
Functional-Aesthetics
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Take Habits For A Ride
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow
How To Make A Difference
A Ride To Hell
Make checklists your friends 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !
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
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane! 
Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands
What You See Isn't What's Made
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 
Beware Of Political-Presentations
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
 

One-Is-Better for JIT

In response to an interview on style-tricks, an actress said: Focus on just one body part and show it off.

Whatever may be the message she expected her readers to carry home, to me it was a reminder to complete this long pending blogpost One-Is-Better!

Today when I read news "set up a biz with just one form" it further got reinforced.

In Five-S technique of Kaizen to improve productivity and performance there is a pillar titled Seiri. One-Is-Better¹ is one of the themes or campaigns driven under it.

1-is-better campaign is a means of streamlining operations. It also facilitates 1-piece flow as required to make a quick or JIT: Just-In-Time delivery. 

Take nail-cutting activity for instance. It involves cutting followed by polishing off burrs on nail. Imagine cutting nails of all the 10 fingers at once followed by polishing all 10 at once. You will be free to attend to any other interruption only at the end of 10 minutes if each nail takes 1 minute each for both cutting and polishing. Instead you could get ready to attend to next interruption at the end of every minute if the cutting of one nail at a time is immediately followed by polishing the same. 

It's like freeing up or 'delighting' 1-customer every-minute instead of processing a batch of 10. The latter forces all the 10 customers to wait until the full batch of 10 gets processed. Such batch practice thereby 'delays' the delivery. The latter forces one to work with more stocks than optimum that the former (that is the JIT) advocates as also makes it possible. Not only the former speed up delivery but also it reduces the cost of poor quality (COPQ) part of the cost of quality (COQ). 

Basically, 1-is-better thought is a way to eliminate redundancy. It strips away the un-needed (be it the activity steps or the material resources for activities). Imagine just a single key or 1-key (as pioneered by Japanese auto makers like Toyota, Honda, etc.) that opens a car-door as well as dickey and the fuel-lock. 

A 2-in-1-paper-weight cum penholder, a 4-in-1-color pen, a multi-function printer, a pen-pencil combo, a One-Point-Lesson (OPL), etc. are few other examples. Such 1-is-better ideas in action facilitate lean work culture and eliminate clutter (the visual noise) as well. Thereby they enable focussing on the task at hand. 

In general, the 1-is-better concept helps one to do more with less resources and less efforts and finish the work faster.

So isn't the Narendra Modi government's single form (administrative process) to incorporate business a most welcome step. In fact more the use of such One-Is-Better! themes better it is.

The 'easing' thereby reduces a lot of Waste as a result of eliminating 3D: Dirty-Danger-Difficult activities. In fact it improves performance also. India ranked 142 among 189 economies by the World Bank in 2015 is expected to improve its position to 50th in two years if such 'Ease of Doing Business' continues.

So let's be innovative to find more and more One-Is-Better! opportunities to improve whatever, whenever and wherever we can.

Footnotes:
1: Examples from the book "Visual Management through Five-S A Japanese Tool Of Kaizen" Author: Shyam Talawadekar

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: Please do consider sharing this post or sharing your initiatives on above lines in comment box.

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

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