COMPETING Blog

Changing and Building Culture

Perhaps your company’s “Continuous Improvement” process is disappointing. Culture is in the way rather than moving forward.

Why? Maybe your inability to effectively drive “lean initiative” down throughout the organization is a reason or, company leadership is inconsistently supporting the Continuous Improvement process. We could all add many additional points, but lets look at some possibilities to effectively change and build culture.

Chances are, most of your employees are used to being told what to do when at work. As intelligent people, they quickly learn that often “applying their thinking gets them in trouble”. This is typical of most pre-lean companies. “Check your brain at the door, then pick it up on the way out” is the unspoken rule. To believe that your team will immediately feel it’s safe to think and act accordingly is not realistic. Maybe some of these concepts could help you build culture:

1. Adopt an improvement time policy, specifically written to name and authorize a certain number of improvement hours per person, per targeted area, per week. Following the “what gets measured gets done philosophy” (thank you Al Weber) be certain to support activity by tracking progress and sharing the simplified chart with all employees.
2. Use the “Toast Kaizen” video to explain kaizen and how, as a company, you intend to implement it’s effective use. The Toast Kaizen video is available from the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership 617-287-7648 and is one of the simpliest, most effective tools to train continuous improvement
3. Create a scoreboard to show controllable performance. How are we doing? Did we have a good or bad day? These questions are answered by posting timely, meaningful feedback to our teams. Information such as how many should we complete today vs. our actual completion quantity. Hourly updates can be very useful in creating pace, even in a make-to-order environment. The value (in $, hours or whatever unit of measure that makes sense to you and your team) of what was completed, or shipped is very useful.
4. Single-Point Lessons: Rapid Transfer of Best Practices to the Shop Floor

Simple, visual instructions, such as this example, are very effective.  Working with your teams to create them supports the engagement of all team members.

Building a new culture is not easy and will not happen over night.  YOU MUST PAY CONSTANT ATTENTION TO YOUR TEAMS AND THE PROCESS.  Ask yourselves, “Are we paying enough attention to our teams and the process?”  If culture change is not working, you probably are not.

Don’t forget: You are a lean enterprise, every minute of every day from now on.

Examining “Phase II” of your lean transition

Perhaps your company has had some initial success with lean. Possibly, you have successfully addressed the first four Lean Principles (1 Specify Value, 2. Identify the Value Stream(s), 3. Create Flow, 4. Pull to Customer Demand) and are making progress with the fifth Lean Principle, (5. Continuously Improving towards Perfection).

Many of my clients are immersed in Principle 5, “Continuously Improving towards Perfection”. I have taken the liberty to refer to this as “Phase II” of their lean transition. At this point in the transition, several issues frequently appear:

1. Not noticing the “new rocks” created by the lower water (elimination or reduction of waste)

a. Symptom: It’s “good enough”

b. Possible root cause: No means to regularly monitor your lean system’s competitiveness……..

Plan, Do, Act, Check

2. Inability to effectively drive “lean initiative” down throughout the organization.

a. Symptom: Kaizen becomes weak and/or diminished

b. Possible root cause: Insufficient training and exposure of lean to all employees, and/or inconsistent application of lean tools and philosophy by leadership/management.

3. Inability to remove obstacles from the value stream

a. Symptom: No progress is being made and undocumented or inappropriate excuses are the cause.

b. Possible root cause: Chapter 8 of Womack & Jones “Lean Thinking” states “Remove the Anchor-Draggers………The general manager and his deputies….promised to work on a long-term plan, but it was apparent that nothing would happen soon; shortly afterward they were asked to leave Pratt.”. With a new general manager measurable progress was soon attained.

***People are not the enemy. We all need to do everything within reason to allow a teammate to be successful, but when all else fails…………remove them from the value stream. You owe it to the company and the rest of your teammates.

Is your performance improved over last year, last month, last week? If you do not know or have not begun to identify and apply countermeasures, you are not actively seeking perfection through continuous improvement. Your lean program is likely stagnant. In today’s hypercompetitive markets, stagnant all too often means death.

Take a look at the three simple examples listed above and see if any apply to your situation. If so, become proactive ……Plan…Do…Check…Act. Focus on rekindling the excitement present during the beginning of your lean transition. What gets measured gets done and performance will improve.

Don’t forget: You are a lean enterprise, every minute of every day from now on.

“We are good enough.”
(or are we?)

What do you think your competition is focusing on right now? Do you believe they are thinking “ABC Inc (your company) has been working on lean for a while now and we will never catch them”… or “ABC Inc delivers in half the time we do and we will never catch them”. I don’t, in fact, I believe they are doing everything they can to catch and then pass you. Earlier this week I went to the Flyers home opener against the New York Rangers. The Flyers are expected to win the Stanley Cup, while the Rangers are not expected to even make the playoffs. Well, the Flyers get off to a 3 to 1 lead and the game was beginning to look like an easy victory, but then…………..the Rangers score 4 unanswered goals. What happened? Well, after the game the Flyer’s coach and some of the players admitted that they were “outworked in the third period”. The net result, the Flyers lost to their competition 5-3 because they were outworked. I suspect you do not wish a similar fate.

If your company has begun its lean journey you must constantly remind yourselves “we are a lean enterprise every minute of every day from now on.”

Continuous Improvement

The most used and most effective tool to sustain and continue improving is the Gemba Walk or Manager’s walk. It takes more than a report to sustain lean gains. Cultural change must occur on the shop floor and the front office. Successful lean
managers must show their commitment to importance of the new manufacturing/operational strategy by inspecting what they expect and getting out of their offices and walking and talking to their teams in every area of the enterprise. (Being noticed noticing)

As a result of a rapid improvement event, standard layouts, standard work
and standard job instructions should have been developed and posted at point of
use.

Behavioral change requires conditioning or breaking old habits. Gemba walks to the area of recent kaizen activity must be repeated often to accomplish this.

In closing, all of us are not as competitive as we could be. We have unlimited potential, resting on our laurels will only make us an easy target for our competition.
Sustain gains and strive to constantly make new ones.

Going a “mile wide and an inch deep” is a mistake, but so is being satisfied with “6 inches wide and 12 inches deep”.

Don’t allow yourselves to get outworked by your competition.

Resilience vs. Brilliance

Okay, so by now maybe you have been implementing your lean program for a few months or years. What have you noticed about the process? Here is what I have experienced with many companies implementing lean.

1. In the beginning, most companies have a large percentage of employees questioning the intent of their lean program.

At this stage it is extremely important to effectively communicate THE SAME simple message (your objective) to all employees.

2. Typically, the next step is a Value Stream Mapping event. The VSM team is very motivated, while those outside the team may feel, disconnected, unimportant or (worst case) about to be eliminated.

Communicate to all employees during the process, formally or informally. Again, a simple clear message is needed.

3. Implementation is forever. If you are not implementing something, even a small improvement, why not? It is important not to overwhelm your resources and by going a “mile wide and an inch deep”. Forward motion, however, must be constant and become an integral part of your culture. You win, win, lose, win, lose, lose, win, win, win, win, lose, win, win, lose, win, win, lose, win………………….I put more losses in the array than we normally face, but it does require an answer to “what do we do when we lose?”

I suggest you admit it to your team, then carefully identify why it happened (root cause) and develop countermeasures (corrective actions) to detect then eliminate the problem. This may take several attempts. This is why I will take RESILIENCE OVER BRILLIANCE. Brilliance usually expects quick wins, we need to be able to consistently deal with quick wins, slow wins, quick losses and slow losses (the worst)…………..by the way, most slow losses take so long because we did not effectively measure the outcomes or we didn’t keep our eye on the objective.

Communicate the status of the program. Regularly updated Kaizen/5S (or 6S) communication boards constantly deliver your clear and simple message…

We are a Lean Enterprise every minute of every day from now on.