Mar 9 2012

What visible actions should managers take to support Lean?

Fifth in a series of questions from the Spanish magazine APD (Asociación para el Progreso Directivo). My answer is as follows and, perhaps, your comments will help me make it better:

I take a “visible action” to be an action in support of Lean implementation that is visible to others, meaning related to appearances.

Being regularly present on the shop floor and asking questions about both routine operations and improvement projects is clearly one such type of action. Lean implementation does not go well with absentee management. Managers must act as a visible incarnation of the company’s concern for what happens on the shop floor, but, while doing so, they must be careful not to get involved in technical discussions in which their positions would give their ideas undue weight, and to respect the authority of the managers directly in charge of the shop.

The managers should wear clothing that does not set them apart from the production teams. Suits and ties are inappropriate where operators wear overalls, because they symbolize distance. If operators wear uniforms, the managers should do too, without visible signs of rank. The message must be “We are on the same team.” There is a hierarchy in the organization to do the work, but it should not carry over to activities that are not strictly work. In this spirit, unless they are entertaining visitors, managers should eat in the same cafeteria as operators, with the side effect that the food and service quality improve. They should also use the same restrooms and forgo reserved parking spaces.

Lean includes activities that require participation by everyone, like 5S or TPM, and managers must ostensibly participate so that no one can claim that these activities are beneath their dignity or that they are too busy. Operators who see the plant manager occasionally participate in the cleaning of a machine will not be reluctant to clean their own work spaces.

By Michel Baudin • Management • 30 • Tags: Lean, Management

30 Comments

Kyle Cornelison
March 10, 2012 @ 9:13 am

Have to park on the far side of a 5 acre parking lot (if you come and go) is not practical but all the rest I concur. Being viewed as a “dirty handed” manager will pay untold dividends.

Reply
Alon Goldis
March 11, 2012 @ 9:45 pm

Michel, I fully agree with you. I knew some managers in 24/7 factories that “relocated” their desk into the shop floor in order to be closer to the team and to the action (Gemba). This created a feeling of “one team” and “let’s do things together” while keeping the clear hierarchy in place.
On the other hand I know some managers that I would assume still wear a tie and very seldom show their nose in the shop floor. In some cases operators and even shop floor managers know a person only by his email address…

Reply
Pat Wardwell
March 12, 2012 @ 11:21 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

Commit to spending a lot of time in Gemba and becoming a servant-leader. Use every opportunity possible to communicate the “know-why” of doing lean, and focus on coaching and mentoring efforts. One other thing, establish ability to monitor and manage processes “visually”, so that problems stand out and can be signaled readily and managers can quickly understand what is happening when they are in Gemba.

Reply
Jerry O'Dwyer
March 13, 2012 @ 11:26 pm

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

The word “support” does not convey what Managers have to do since it conveys the concept of an initiative that is separate from the manager himself. Managers have to Lead and be part of Lean not a supporter….which is everything that Pat Wardwell states. In addition I encourage you to engage with a coach / mentor and that you establish a relationship with an individual within the organization that you are leading through change and who is willing to give feedback on your leadership. Both of these sources will give you valuable pointers as to how to adapt your approach, i.e., what visible actions work or might work in your particular situation. But above all …make yourself visible and available. Encourage and be open to questions from all and answer all constructively.

Reply
Maya Gray
March 16, 2012 @ 3:33 pm

Comment in the Lean & Six Sigma Community discussion group on LinkedIn:

In order for Managers to support Lean-they must believe it’s true. In most cases, Managers are introduced to Lean with power point slides and/or high-level training. That’s not convincing. As believers we must paint a perfect picture that illustrates how thinking and believing of Lean can indeed eliminate waste and produce only value added processes. The greatest accomplishment of implementing Lean in an organization is watching front-line managers believe and support the value of Lean via their respective actions and insight.

Reply
Paul Cairney
March 19, 2012 @ 4:27 pm

Comment in the SME Society of Manufacturing Engineers discussion group on LinkedIn:

Hi Michel

I would recommend that all managers start with a common book to get them all “reading-from the same page” & get behind a campaign of communicating to the rest of the team that “positive change” is coming to move the company forward.
A book that might be of interest is Lean Transformation (Bruce A. Henderson & Jorge L. Larco), which will also give the managers a common road map.

Good Luck
Regards
Paul

Reply
James Korth
March 19, 2012 @ 4:29 pm

Comment in the SME Society of Manufacturing Engineers discussion group on LinkedIn:

Lead by example.

Reply
Tim Markoski
March 19, 2012 @ 4:31 pm

Comment in the SME Society of Manufacturing Engineers discussion group on LinkedIn:

I am of the opinion that Lean should start with Human Resources and IT departments.
All one has to do is look at the companies that do implement Lean strategies in manufacturing and production and you’ll see that both of these departments are typically devoid of any Lean practice. You then have new hires who walk in and HEAR all the talk about Lean but the first things they encounter are the bureaucracies of HR and IT.
This dichotomy is NOT lost on new hires and taints their perceptions of both Lean and the company’s commitment to it from the outset.

Reply
James A. Swanson
March 19, 2012 @ 4:33 pm

Comment in the SME Society of Manufacturing Engineers discussion group on LinkedIn:

Managers need to truly believe in the Lean philosophy for it to be effective. Too often, it is the program of the month. Lean isn’t something you implement in a few months. The entire organization must make decisions based upon the Lean principles. Running a few 5S or Kaizen events doesn’t make you Lean. These are a good start, but often this is the extent of the efforts. Very few organizations buy into the entire concept because of their own short-term vision.

Reply
David Visco
March 20, 2012 @ 11:56 am

Many good points above. Being present and spending value added time in the Gemba is the most critical. Additionally, while out in the Gemba, humility will go a long way. It’s important for leaders to sincerely listen and realize if there are issues it is typically the process and not the person.

Reply
Paul Dunlea
March 20, 2012 @ 2:53 pm

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

A good article. I would suggest adding that a very important and visible action is that the manager should lead by example. For example he/she can’t support 5S if his office / workspace is like a bomb went off.
He/She can’t start analyzing lost time if that person runs meetings that waffle on with no objective or clear output

Reply
Biren (Brian) Prasad
March 20, 2012 @ 2:54 pm

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

Managers should maintain a CPI/Lean improvement Board posted in a visible area accessible to all. They should regularly assemble around this board and review the progress from each team on a regular basis. This encourages others (fellow employees) to take interests, be vocal, be responsive, and participate fully in CPI (continuous process improvements) and lean activities.

Reply
David Collins
March 21, 2012 @ 5:18 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

I Think Jerry is so correct. When people think of lean as a program they support that in itself ensures it does not work. It is a way of life. If the senior management does not get that then it will fail.

Reply
Michel Baudin
March 21, 2012 @ 5:28 am

Although describing Lean as “a way of life” may be pushing it a bit far, I would agree that it is a way of working that affects just about everything you do professionally. Its implementation, however, takes the form of many projects that must be carefully sequenced both to leverage available resources and to grow them. And that is what I call a program.

Reply
Roger Shrum
March 21, 2012 @ 7:54 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

It is critical that managers live and breathe safety, 5-S, and work force development across the organization. Get people involved, establish relevant metrics and publish results.

Reply
Jerry O'Dwyer
March 22, 2012 @ 3:36 pm

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

Michel Baudin……You wrote this “Its implementation, however, takes the form of many projects that must be carefully sequenced both to leverage available resources and to grow them. And that is what I call a program” Well If everyone is engaged, on the look out and empowered then Continuous Improvement is not carefully sequenced.In the early stages VOC , Strategy and a VSM will certainly direct the organization towards priorities and this may initially require a “careful” program approach but as employees become empowered, engaged and skilled a centrally managed program is only part of the improvement engine. But not the only part ………in a World Class Continuous Improvement ( Lean, Six Sigma blah blah) organization indirect staff spend 80% of their time on CI and 20 % on “routine” …they are continually “on the look out”……hand on heart I have honestly worked for an organization which had achieved this work balance …….it was not a program and it felt like a way of life ….whilst at work at least.

Reply
- Michel Baudin
  March 22, 2012 @ 3:38 pm
  
  You write “If everyone is engaged…” This is the big “if.”
  
  What you need a program for is to get from zero to that point. Once it’s a way of life, you have won the war.
  
  Reply
Julio Rodriguez
March 23, 2012 @ 8:48 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

Managers supporting Lean?? Definitively this is a key topic, but no doubt about it, managers should not support Lean but be part of it. They have to lead kaizen events, be the trainers, the coaches, the origin. We should always keep in my mind what it sounds simple but perhaps the hardest to reach, “Respect for the People”

Reply
- Michel Baudin
  March 23, 2012 @ 9:18 am
  
  I am mostly interested in actions people need to take in order to effect the transformation of an organization with no knowledge or experience of Lean to one where it is “the way we do things.”
  
  The only action you mention is leading Kaizen events, but there is much more to Lean implementation than Kaizen events. What about the rest?
  
  You say they should be trainers and coaches, but, especially in the beginning, how could they have the expertise to do that?
  
  You also say they must be the origin, and I agree with that, but it only applies to top management. A production supervisor cannot be the origin of Lean in the organization.
  
  Reply
Bruce McDonald
March 23, 2012 @ 8:50 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

I agree with Jerry, lean in most organizations is viewed as a program and as a result either fails or at best has limited results. If the top dog on site is not evangelical about lean and spends every possible moment in the fray (I mean involved in walking the plant, being visible, etc), it will be just another program. If however the opposite happens and managers especially senior managers start to live and breathe lean amazing things are possible, just look at Toyota.

Reply
- Michel Baudin
  March 23, 2012 @ 9:18 am
  
  I don’t understand your issue with the word “program.” When you implement Lean, it takes the concrete form of a number of interrelated projects that change the physical and human organization of production lines, logistics, maintenance, quality, human resources, production engineering, product development, accounting, etc.
  
  By definition, a set of interrelated projects that is managed as a whole to improve the performance of an organization is called a program. The term says nothing about who participates. It does not exclude any “top dog,” nor preclude anyone from engaging in the fray. As Hillary Clinton said about running for office, “you can’t be above the fray, it is a fray.”
  
  Again, once you achieve enough success, Lean should cease to be identified as a separate entity to simply be “the way we do things.” But it is not so when you start.
  
  Reply
Todd McCann
March 25, 2012 @ 7:38 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

@Michel and Bruce.

I have always been and remain conflicted with the attachment of the words “program” and/or “initiative” to anything that resembles introduction of KAIZEN spirit into an organization. (from experience and in my humble opinion).
I have never used banners nor slogans when I worked with any past clients.
Be it a turnaround (distressed company) or a company that sought me out to help them improve current state conditions.
There was no pomp and circumstance, no rally cry to enable the masses to Go This Way.

We just started to head to True North naturally through easing in with simple onboarding of a new way of thinking about running the business with Gemba Keiei thinking, created new tacit and intrinsic skills required to do so by struggling, removed denial from the organization to see and understand that things are not as they appear to be, (new evident norm) and we instilled new confidence that we will sometimes fail yet learn and there will be the omnipresence of mounting internal struggles that we would need to endure over the long term.
The rate of success was greater when we did not use terms that gave what were doing at the Gemba a name. No illusions were created. The new norm was formed organically with the organization. Development of People first.

As for your Great Question:
Managers humbly and respectfully are in the organization to Serve and work for personnel who work at the Gemba and are in process.
Managers should be complicitly involved in moving the Gemba, its methods and practices and its constituents further than ever thought possible on a daily basis.
A well founded Hoshin is the force that makes moving the current state condition forward possible, and the learning and new thinking that is developed during improvements to current state.

Respectfully,
Todd McCann

Reply
Eric Schmitz ©
March 25, 2012 @ 7:40 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

We should not be reluctant to English words and only admire Japanese terms. All words are only words when we do not seek deeply.

The meaning of ‘program’ is very basic:
– all what you do, is linked with each other
– consider that there is something like a momentum or right time for everything
– consider that many steps bring you farther then one big step
– act, based on this reflection.
That is what is basically happening in a program.

Of course ‘program’ can also hide a bureaucratic way-of-thinking. But the same goes for hoshin, hourensou or other terms.

In business you have to think and act in programs, if we call it that way or not.

Reply
Jerry O'Dwyer
March 25, 2012 @ 7:43 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

Michel ….if your question had referred to “lean” specifically at the beginning then I would have answered differently. Anyway I prefer the term continuous improvement ……….it sounds less like a program and helps organizations not to be constrained in thinking so that they use all the stuff that is applicable to one’s organization and it’s particular situation e.g., Lean , Business Stats and using facts and structured problem solving (AKA Six Sigma), TOC etc etc….interestingly I have worked in Japan in 2 separate factories . My first experience was in a factory that won the Deming Award…..although I am not a Japanese speaker there was no mention of any specific initiative as far as I could make out yet everyone was doing the stuff as part of their daily routine. In the second I experienced the factory as a customer working within it to perfect a part which was being made for us( we were invited …which speaks for itself!). This supplier was a large global company but not a particularly high profile one. For the short period I was there I was amazed to see how all the work force used techniques and thinking from Lean etc as part of their normal daily routine ……all day.

Reply
- Michel Baudin
  March 25, 2012 @ 8:05 am
  
  I am actually interested in both the initial Lean transformation of a plant and its management once it is underway, which I call M.I.L.E., for “Managing In a Lean Environment.”
  
  I would not reduce M.I.L.E. to continuous improvement, because it includes many activities that do not fit under that label, such as hoshin planning, Lean daily management, or major projects like line redesigns or new line designs.
  
  Reply
Todd McCann
March 25, 2012 @ 7:47 am

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

@Eric.
Great comment!
It is interesting that we in this thread have found at 2 words to poke at.
Program and Initiative.
Natalie Sayer and I have run this one over and over again.

When I go to a Rangers game I can purchase a program.
What I go to an opera I receive a program.
When I go to my son’s school to watch a presentation I receive a program.

Our nations Nuclear Power industry has a paradigm of operation where the word “program” is ever-present and tagged onto just about everything you hear about in discussion regarding operations. Ex: Reactivity Management Program, Lock Out Tag Out / Clearance Program, Human Performance Program, Healtthy Fuel testing and monitoring Program, Corrective Action Program (CAP) the list is endless. The Ways of Working in the Nuclear Industry is for all intent and purposes is “Program” based.

While working in the Nuclear generation station in our company almost everything that I put my head into to improve was either a program or had programs associated with the a corresponding process and programs associated with the process served as guidance / instruction and/or oversight for the conduct of the process. Connecting the dots with interrelationships of all of the Programs layered into the operations of a Nuclear Power plant can become a bit of a trial. Decoder ring required.

Some programs come and go. A Program is based on a need to take action on a set of general and/or specific circumstances that have arisen in the world of Nuclear Power.
Example the Fukushima Plants > Earthquake / Tidal wave scenario sent shockwaves through the nuclear industry in the US. A call to take action was immediately sent to all US nuclear stations to address.

Here is my simple minded rendition of what course of action is taken to set up a program. Problem / Symptom is duely noted in Corrective Action Program, The organization sets up a tent, they fill it with people to focus on researching and then correcting a suspect condition of abnormality of non-compliance, which could come from a new NRC regulation, or something that the station personnel found during benchmarking of another nuclear station which they thought would help the station.

There are other inputs to this list that trigger a program to start up.

Some of these Programs spin up for a while, measurements are put place to see the effectiveness of the program, and maybe, just maybe after time and the deviation from norm appears to be corrected, the people leave the tent, the tent comes down and then entire program spins down and terminates.

Thought I would share my experiences with the word Program and the Paradigm of how programs work in Nuclear industry with others from a world that many of us do not get to entertain on a regular basis, Nuclear Power generation. Food for thought.

Michel, I apologize for straying from your intial question.

Respectfully,
Todd McCann

Reply
- Michel Baudin
  March 25, 2012 @ 8:06 am
  
  Actually, your post is enlightening to me because I just didn’t understand why so many participants in this discussion seemed to be hung up about the use of the word “program.”
  It clearly carries some bureaucratic baggage and has been overused in some quarters.
  
  If you don’t want to use it, do you have any suggestion for an alternative?
  
  Reply
Bruce McDonald
March 25, 2012 @ 1:17 pm

Hi Michel and everyone: I did not intend to hijack the discussion by using the word program. My point was and is simple if the senior management level is not totally committed to the long term, with lean, the results will be limited. To me the word program was intended to reflect the bureaucratic way-of-thinking as noted above by Eric.

In an era where performance in many companies is measured by the next quarters results, I wonder how many senior managers especially in publically traded companies can aford to be focused on the long term (10 years and beyond)?

Reply
Eric Schmitz ©
March 25, 2012 @ 1:18 pm

Comment in the Lean CEO discussion group on LinkedIn:

Concerning terminology and words: I am not in favor to search all the time for new words. Maybe programs have an uggly sound for someone. But the same is for kaizen, 5S, lean, operational excellence … All words tend to devaluate and to be mis-used. If you change the words, you will keep changing. It seems better to explain everytime the thinking behind the words.

Concerning programs: they are very necessary (with the meaning of program as indicated in my previous comment). I cannot agree more with you.

Concerning the visible actions: managers should not initiate a-one-time- action. They will be most visible by thinking and acting lean continuously in their daily operations. In all what they do, they should breath lean thinking. It is that easy. In this I agree completely with Todd. I only want to add that the managers should be always focused on the customer and his needs of today and tomorrow. A manager who really cares for his customer, will also care for his colleagues and will also practice a balance between short and long term.

Reply
Role of Management in Lean (In Spanish) | Michel Baudin's Blog
June 30, 2012 @ 5:45 am

[…] What visible actions should managers take to support Lean? […]

Reply

What visible actions should managers take to support Lean?

Like this:

Related

30 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Follow Blog via Email

Recent Posts

Categories

What visible actions should managers take to support Lean?

Share this:

Like this:

Related

30 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Follow Blog via Email

Recent Posts

Categories

Social links

My tags