Learning to Live with "Igor"

As promised, blogging has been slow the past couple of weeks due to the shoulder surgery I had before Thanksgiving. I'm pleased to report that the surgery seemed to have had its intended effect in getting rid of the bone spurs. However, I have also had to learn to live with a tender and weak right arm. I've nicknamed the arm "Igor" as it kind of just hangs there and I sling it around as needed.

And Igor has taught me several things. Take the simple act of brushing my teeth in the morning. I'm right-handed...and Igor is on my right side. Have you ever brushed your teeth with the "wrong" hand? Wow, does it feel weird. Clumsy. Unnatural. New. Different. Slow.

And very, very wrong.

It takes me a lot longer than normal to brush my teeth. My gums hurt more, as I jam the brush in from an unnatural angle. I can't think about other things as I brush...I have to concentrate on this very mundane task or else my bicuspids get ignored badly. I don't like it. I'm working hard at my physical therapy, so that I can get Igor up high enough to take over again. But it's looking like it will be another 3 weeks before he's "up" to it.

What I've learned, afresh, is just how uncomfortable change is. Doing something differently hurts. It feels weird. Clumsy. Unnatural. Slow. And very, very wrong.

When I come in, all flags flying, proposing some new lean implementation, it should not surprise me that folks resist. Because none of us want to brush our teeth with the wrong hand!!

Thus, having Igor here is a great learning tool for me as I continue to try to drive change. Change is hard...give it time and keep persisting. The "therapy" will pay off.

The best work I've read on this whole subject is George Leonard's little book Mastery. In it he described the physical and mental blocks to change. Very helpful, if you'd like to understand the change process in more depth..

I hope this is helpful.

Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

Wisdom from a Lean Veteran

This morning on the Northwest Lean Listserve, my friend Mary Pat Cooper posted a very incisive post, which I want to pass along. She wrote the following in response to a question posed by another reader; "What's in it for me to pursue a Lean strategy?"

Mary Pat's 20 years of Lean experience at Wiremold and passion for people jumps out of this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And, you go apply some this deeply held and well-learned wisdom!

Dear Jeff,

What's in it for me? Your question is inspiring. I will try to limit my
comments to these 4 themes:

1. Creating a crisis...
2. What you learn to achieve, no one can take away.
3. Improving work working life is improving the quality of our lives.
4. If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

1. There is a crisis - we just can't see it. Our assumptions about the
stability of our jobs, our work environment, and our own expertise are
all pure fantasy. No one knows what the future holds. We do know that if
we learn how to learn quickly, we can adapt faster than the next guy.
That's basic science, survival of the fittest (which, if you really
think about it, is really survival of the most adaptable...) Waiting
until the doors are closed and the facility is consolidated into
something else will be too late to do anything other than film another
chapter of "Roger and Me..."

2. There is a powerful speech made by the protagonist as he runs for
president in the book "Primary Colors." When challenged to promise job
security, his passionate answer is that our basis of competition rests
in what we put between our ears. Job security is a moving target. You
may not be able to control which base is closed, but you can add to the
employability of your skills.

3. During the weekday most of us spend at least 8 hours at our jobs,
another hour or two in the commute, and another 2 or 3 hours chasing
after the required errands of our lives. Maybe 8 hours asleep. That
leaves 3 or so hours for "enjoyment." We would not expect to "enjoy"
work - that's why they call it work, isn't it? How could anyone enjoy
working all day around stupid processes in a slop heap of wasted time
and energy? Work is a bitter, dirty, junkyard of busted dreams filled
with grey-faced sleepwalkers with a scattering of posers climbing
towards the corporate Olympus over the backs of everybody else.

What a horrible picture! Why do we accept it so readily? Why do we
keep ourselves separate and cynical, never expecting anything more?

Watching successful teams is a multi-billion dollar entertainment
industry. Groups of people overcoming outrageous odds are the highlight
of the human condition. Think about how fun it would be to be a part of
a great team. Learning how to continuously improve a work situation
under difficult circumstances is a high, as natural and as addicting as
physical exercise. You do it once well enough to make a real difference
and you get hooked for life.

4. I saw this bumper sticker on the back of a pickup truck; I think it
was a government service vehicle of some sort. "If it ain't broke, fix
it till it is." I'm sure that it was meant as a cynical dig at the
bumptious, ambitious, crop after crop of program-promoting dimwits that
wear out the "working stiffs" with their endless management fads of the
month. But riding along in traffic behind this pickup, I realized that
this is exactly what we must do to survive. How else can we break
through mediocrity and sustain front-running performance?

Wasted work creates its own false reality. High inventory hides the
waste of bad quality, poor planning, inept equipment and busted
processes, making everything seem just fine. Long lead times, ridiculous
layouts, computer complexities and stacks of paperwork grow illusions of
importance and security; of course we are so badly needed to deal with
this stuff because no one else can! We are trapped in our assumption
that the recipients of our goods and services must be satisfied, because
they keep coming back. Therefore, it "ain't broke, so don't fix it."

But our customers only come back until they can find satisfaction
somewhere else. We are trapped until we "break it", or "break out of it"
or have it broken by someone else who has figured out a better way
before we have.

What's in it for me? What's not?! Thank you for the inspiring
question, Jeff. Best of luck.

Sincerely,

Marypat Cooper
Brooks Electronics Division of the Wiremold Company
Philadelphia, PA

I hope this is helpful. Thanks, so much Mary Pat.

Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

New Meaning of "Minor"

Blogging has been non-existent this week of Thanksgiving and will likely be so for another week or so. You see, I had "minor" surgery on Monday, November 24.

I was diagnosed with bone spurs in the right shoulder which were the cause of a lot of pain over the past couple of months. "No problem" says my doctor, "we'll do some minor surgery and shave them off." And, so he did.

I clearly underestimated just how much the procedure would throw me off. Six days later, I'm only now getting to the point of comfortably reading. My right arm is largely immobile, making it tough to type. The spurs do appear to be gone...as is muscle tone!!

And so much to write about!! Saw an incredible example of Lean the night before surgery as I waited for a pizza. Several other very useful thing have come along. I'll have to share them as we go along, though.

Thanks for your patience. And may none of your surgeries be as "minor" as mine was!!

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Training and Learning

One of the many cool things about a Lean system is the constant learning. Here's a wonderfully creative treatment of learning by Jeff Angus. Note how the teacher learns as much as the learner, why documentation is important, why "all of us are smarter than any of us."

Go learn something new today and write it down while you are at it. And, you can feel free to forward to a friend who is also anxious to learn.

I hope this is helpful. Email me

Situational Awareness

In early August, I had the privilege of attending the graduation of my oldest son, David, from the US Army's Airborne School . He spent three weeks at Ft Benning Georgia learning how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes at low altitude. I'm glad there are people who are willing to do this.

I have no military background at all, so watching David work through Army training over the past year has been a real education for me. On the morning of the graduation, I arrived at the outdoor graduation site an hour early. I began to observe the various officers and enlisted men in uniform interact in the preparation for the event. In particular, I noted who saluted whom, when, in what order and what followed in the military protocol surrounding the very basic matter of a salute. As I said, all of this is new to me, a lifelong civilian.

Later that day, I described my observations to David, wondering just how everyone knew what to do and when.

He chuckled. "It's all about 'situational awareness' Dad."

What's that mean??

"The saluting thing is only partially about military courtesy. Underneath it is the constant discipline to be aware of your surroundings. "

Sorry, pal, I still don't get it.

He sighed, wondering if he could make the old man understand. "Here's how it works. When you are in uniform, you must learn to quickly identify anyone else near you who is also in uniform. You must instantly scan their uniform to learn if they are an officer or enlisted. Then, depending on what you observe, you salute or stand at ease."

Hmmmm. So what's the connection?

He's still chuckling. "Dad, pay attention. What we learn is to constantly know what is going on around us. If you are in a combat situation, you have to be aware, all the time, all around you, for your sake and for the sake of your unit. Thus, the simple thing of saluting makes this awareness second nature. Now, does that make sense?"

Yes. It is good when the son teaches the Dad.

And I ask myself: do I have that same eye, that same situational awareness, for the wastes around me? Have I developed the keen outlook that sees and reacts with the same precision and consistency that a soldier learns? Do I "notice"?

I hope this is helpful. Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

More on Value

So this weekend I noted a nearby conveninece store had 2 litre Pepsis on sale for 79c. In the Pepsi dispenser at work, I can buy a 20 oz bottle (591 ml) for 95c every day.

Things like this make me wonder "Why is this so?"

The big bottle, plus tax, works out to 41.9c per litre. The little bottle, with tax included in the price, works out to $1.61 per litre. And it is the same sweet fizzy liquid in both.

Why would an arguably intelligent man like me (and some regular readers of this blog would argue there is precious little intelligence here :) ) knowingly pay 3.8 times as much per unit for a mere soft drink? I think it comes down to value. Consider:

• The big bottle is a "batch" of cola. I can't drink it all at once (at least in socially acceptable circles). So, it's use must spread out over time.
• The big bottle isn't cold. So, I have to either refrigerate it or find some ice before drinking it.
• The big bottle requires a drinking cup to transfer it into before I can enjoy it. Something else I have to do.
• I then have to either wash the reusable cup (a hassle) or throw away a non-reusable cup (a waste) when I'm done. I don't like either one.
• The big bottle requires planning. I have to catch the sale price and then stock up when it happens.
• On the other hand, the little bottle is there when I want it, it is cold, in a drinkable container, and requires no clean up or advance planning on my part.

In short, the soft drink folks are reaping a 3.8x premium to add services to their sweet fizzy drink. By bringing it to me, at the point of use, in a batch of one, I pay a huge markup. Gladly. Unthinkingly.

I pay for the value. Big time.

OK, Joe, why do you carry on about a bottle of pop? One reason: Simple examples often help explain complex issues.

The beginning of any Lean process is to understand the value the customer places on the product. The Lean process must focus on these two: the customer and the product. Only then can we know what waste is in the process and begin to replace it. Value is the beginning of the framework of Lean.

So, begin to notice value. Where can I find the same sort of value in delivering my product? How well do I know my customer (either internal or external) such that he/she will gladly pay a sizable mark up? Look at the numbers...it is worth pondering.

I hope this is helpful. Oh yeah, and enjoy your cola of choice from the machine today. As always, feel free to forward to a cola-drinking friend. Email me

Why is Lean Important?

Because it is a framework for understanding complex systems.

Perhaps this is obvious...perhaps it simply is another "layer of the onion" that peeled back for me. But this basic fact really hit me like a ton of CCA-laced lumber late this week.

In a week full of tough issues, with all the complexity that comes when dealing with people, money, projects, products, the economy, the weather, quality, customers, vendors, bankers, planners, users, paperwork, software, the list goes on; in this complexity, an over-arching framework for understanding is oh so very helpful.

For example, when faced with a pricing question, I went mentally to a value stream map for the item of interest and could begin to estimate the true "value added" costs that went into it...from that, could begin to think clearly about the actual cost and how it was different. Without that framework, it would have just been a matter of debate; "I think it's too high"--"No way, it's actually too low!"

More of concern, without a framework, a job can become simply "Let's work harder" or "Let's try this" or "Let's change the whole thing." There is no sense of putting precious effort onto the point where it can truly help. There is no framework for improvment.

There is no framework for hope.

The business world is incredibly complex and only getting more so. The lean framework is crucial for me to keep focus and useful action.

I hope this is helpful for you to make sense of your complex world.

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What "Just in Time" Isn't

Most folks believe JIT to work like this.

Ain't so. And to cut it this close is, indeed, to leave yourself open to walking around in your boxers. We have to build in buffers for the inevitable variances, beyond our control.

I hope this is helpful. And that you got to work on time this morning. Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

Tom Peters Online Seminar

Checked in today to a web-based hour long seminar with Tom Peters. Peters was taking questions on his latest book, Re-imagine!, which I've discussed recently. I've read a lot of Peters' stuff over the years...and nobody is as provocative.

One thing grabbed me today that was genuinely new.

How do we find people who will engage with improvement and change?

Peters was asked this question and he answered thoughtfully "You don't find them; they find you." He went on, speaking from experience.

• If you become passionate about something, those who might be similarly passionate will find you. Somehow.
• Passion is the only way to truly attract talent. Who wants to play for the Detroit Tigers? Doesn't every good player want to be on the Yankees?
• Passionate people arise from unlikely places. They also tend to be younger and lower in an organization. Don't reject that.

My observation is that passionate people also raise up more strong opinions than non-impassioned people. And, thus, get criticized. And in many organizations, that is something to be avoided. So, you gotta make your choice.

A truly waste-free system will only happen with passionate people. Find some to work with you. I hope this is helpful. Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me