How to hire the right fit for your corporate culture

Quick answer, you don’t and I’ll explain why!

If you ask many HR executives in the current business world they will tell you that the way they gauge if they want to hire someone is by evaluating if they will fit the corporate culture well enough to be productive. They will also tell you that a bad cultural fit in the organization can be disruptive and can deteriorate performance of the entire organization.

My questions to you are:

1) If a single individual can be such a disruptive force on the core of the business, such as the corporate culture, did you have one to begin with?

2) If the corporate culture is such an important thing to the business then why do you hire people to fit it? Why not hire people that are the best for the job and have them fit into the culture themselves?

3) Finally, if the corporate culture is so important, why many people can’t define it when asked what the corporate culture of their own organization is? Go ahead, ask your peers what the corporate culture of your organization is and you’ll get dozens of answers all great yet all different. Funny thing is, you’ll laugh how right in your face the answer really is.

Let’s look at the first question.

If one person can disrupt your corporate culture, you don’t have a corporate culture, you just think you do.

Seriously, lets look at culture and society in general. In today’s culture if we have an individual so disruptive to the society that it is causing issues we have laws, rules and regulations that will either correct their behavior based on consequences or will remove them from being a disruption. Yes, it’s an oversimplification but you get my point. Not just that but if someone doesn’t break the law, but breaks a “moral code” the society will nudge the individual back in line and correct their behavior until they conform. So if that happens in normal society, why doesn’t it happen in many corporate environments where the corporate culture has such great value? Simply put, because the corporate culture is not defined.

Now for the second question.

If you have to hire the “right fit” for your culture, you are missing out on the best talent out there and ultimately you are failing your business!

People with great talent often don’t fit what someone would define as a corporate culture yet some businesses have figured out a simple way to harness the power of these individuals to such a degree that they actually hire them almost exclusively. Not just that but overall these businesses will hire a wide range of incredibly unique personalities that are as far apart from each other as possible and bring them together to be not just excellent individual contributors but also members of high performance work teams where they feed off of each other and create even more amazing products, ideas and services. Those businesses have learned how to create such a strong corporate culture that the individual contributors adjust their own values in order to better fit the organization. Not just that but these businesses have also learned how to grow their culture with the people that work in the organization and evolve with their employees.

Finally.

If you, and your peers, can’t define the corporate culture the same way then you don’t really have a corporate culture.

OK, this might be a bit of an oversimplification. You do have a corporate culture in a sense that there is a feeling of cohesiveness and people generally fit together but there is nothing defined about it. I would compare this to a raft going down a river. You’re in the same boat and you are headed in the same direction but at the time you only have one or two people rowing the boat to give it direction and avoid the dangers ahead. When the water is calm, all is good. When there is turbulence, panic sets in and a feeling of helplessness.

So, I told you that you might laugh of how simple it is to define the corporate culture if done correctly. If you are able to point to the organization’s Mission, Vision and Values you are already there. Those 3 major tools are what defines WHO YOU ARE as an organization and WHAT YOUR PURPOSE is as a team. Ultimately, those 3 tools are the roadmap to your corporate culture.

Here is the thing, many businesses haphazardly put together their Mission, Vision and Values together. They post them on a small plaque in the lobby where customers or visitors can see them and employees rarely get exposure. Those three tools are internal tools, to be used by the leadership to define the culture and to help people align their personal goals to those of the business.

Next time you are looking for a job, look at the Mission, Vision and Values of the business. If the organization is serious about their corporate culture, those three will be easy to find and references to them will be all around their online presence as well as their offices. Then evaluate do those values align with your own and if not, why?

Corporate culture is a tangible quantity that should be known to all. It is has greater value than currency and overall can a business go from average to industry leader if used correctly. Ultimately though the greatest benefit of a good and properly implemented corporate culture is that you will be able to get the best talent available and have them contribute immediately instead of settling for someone that might be a better fit but not as capable.

Is Six Sigma being misused?

As a Master Black Belt in Six Sigma, I have a strong understanding of the tools used in the methodology today. Having been in the Lean industry for about 15 years I’ve experienced that many of the tools being used today by Six Sigma stemmed from the Lean tools implemented by Toyota decades ago. The tool has grown and changed to satisfy the needs of the businesses that want to implement it, which is a great thing in my opinion. Over time though I’ve had to ask myself if we are misusing the tools to make them do something that they weren’t designed to do in the first place.

In order to answer the question of if we are misusing the tools in Six Sigma I think we need to understand why Six Sigma is so widespread to begin with.

Have you ever considered how we make decisions, choices and take actions in our everyday life? Take a moment and think about your normal day. Do you have a coffee shop you go to on a regular basis? How about a place you eat lunch most of the time? Your go to comfort food? Ultimately, all of those things have one thing in common, the fact that you have a degree of comfort with them and you are happy and satisfied with those choices because they make you feel at ease.Comfort, it’s something that we take for granted yet it is the greatest driving force in our decision making process day in day out. Now think, when was the last time you changed your routine just because? Unless you are a highly adventurous type, the answer will take a long while to figure out. We change things in our life because we have to, rarely because we just feel like it. Ultimately change makes us uncomfortable, the fear of unknown is sometimes overwhelming and we would rather stick with the comfort of the known.

What does that have to do with Six Sigma? I believe that the Six Sigma has been so widespread over the last 30+ years that we are comfortable with it. We know something, at least a little bit about it, and understand that it can help us change. If you’ve gone for a Bachelors in Business, or a Business oriented Master’s degree, you’ve spent time in a statistics class where they have talked, at least somewhat, about the Six Sigma methodologies. This discussion was not in great detail, probably a discussion on DMAIC or how ANOVA is used to identify non-conformance. Somewhere, someone talks about Pareto Chart and we have been introduced to some form of Six Sigma tools or analysis. Data analysis is an everyday occurrence in business world and in many circles Six Sigma is synonymous with data analysis. That little bit of familiarity with the processes is what makes Six Sigma still a powerhouse in the business world.

What I find interesting though is, what I believe to be, misuse of the tools because of the belief that they are “fix all”. If you are not familiar with Six Sigma, the roots of the methodology trace back to 18th century with the invention of the normal curve. In 1920’s Walter Shewhart identified that the deviation of 3 sigma is the point where a process should be examined for correction. The actual term and methodology for Six Sigma is attributed to the Motorola engineers in the early 1980’s as their quality control standards didn’t provide enough detail to cope with the volume and production capacity of the booming semiconductor manufacturing industry. Six Sigma was designed to provide high level of detail and control in the extremely repeatable processes with tight tolerances and very little margin for error. The lower the error threshold for failure, better the tools perform. Many have stated that methodology has evolved over time into a management strategy and overall business philosophy that is meant to create great increases in productivity, quality and ultimately profitability.

As a data analyst myself, I wanted to find out how successful has Six Sigma been as a management strategy and here are my findings.

Motorola, the organization that was credited with the invention of Six Sigma (and the holder of the Trademark for the term), was a multinational telecommunications company. Motorola was highly successful in the 80’s and 90’s with it reaching over 150,000 employees  in 2000. Since then, it has been a downward spiral for the organization. By 2002 the company had 93,000 employees. In 2010 Motorola sold off portions to Nokia Siemens and shortly after, in 2011 the company split into two separate businesses. The handset business has been losing considerable amount of money while the main core of the business, Motorola Solutions, continues to operate outside of the mainstream customer view. Ultimately, the organization that had their hand on the pulse of everything digital in this world has been pushed into exile. Even Motorola, the company that invented the Six Sigma concepts decided to “go back to basics” with the methodology in 2011.

GE is a powerhouse created by Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan that, to date, has more influence on our everyday life than any other organization in the world. You are guaranteed to touch at least a dozen GE products, or products containing GE components, every single day. The company produces anything from airplane engines, locomotives, hydro electric dam and wind turbines to TV’s, microwaves, coffee makers and light bulbs. Hear of NBC Universal? GE owns 49% of it with Comcast having the other 51%. GE Capital is one of the largest lenders in the nation. The list of companies owned by GE goes on and on. During the late 90’s Jack Welch implemented Six Sigma in GE as a management strategy. Many believe that GE is the embodiment of successful implementation of Six Sigma into the core of an organization. With such a huge reach over the many industries one would think that GE would be unstoppable, yet since the high of almost $60/share in late 2000, GE stock has been on a downward trajectory. The stock would show recovery during good financial times but overall it has been outperformed by the DOW Jones Industrial Average for the last 12 years straight. Even during the Jack Welch’s hay days GE grew at the pace of the market with the profits of the business growing at 385% while the market cap grew at 400% during his leadership from 1981-2001. Most importantly, if you invested $100 in GE stock in 1980’s you’d have significantly less money today. If you invested the same mount in S&P 500 Index you would have close to 400% growth during that time period.

3M is another incredible organization that thrives on innovation. I actually admire the 3M company for their continuous drive to innovate. Did you know that in 2014 3M was awarded their 100,000th patent? Amazing, isn’t it. In 2000, Six Sigma was introduced to 3M by then CEO Jim McNerney, who came from GE under Jack Welch. By 2005 McNerney was out of 3M and the company was trying to recover from, what many inside 3M called, a living nightmare. One of the most recognized 3M executives and a 3M ambassador Geoff Nicholson said in an interview that “The Six Sigma process killed innovation at 3M. Initially what would happen in 3M with Six Sigma people, they would say they need a five-year business plan for a new idea. Come on, we don’t know yet because we don’t know how it works, we don’t know how many customers will take it up, we haven’t taken it out to the customer yet.”

Home Depot experienced a similar struggle as 3M. In late 2000 Home Depot hired Robert Nardelli to be their CEO. Robert worked under Jack Welch at GE and believed in the Six Sigma management principle so much that he completely overhauled the Home Depot from inside out. During the implementation of Six Sigma in the organization the employee morale plummeted, customer satisfaction was worse in company history and Home Depot quickly lost its #1 spot in the market place. Just a bit over 6 years into their journey, Home Depot abandoned the Six Sigma efforts. Ultimately while the profits soared the stock price, and customer confidence, plummeted causing the organization to change directions and abandon the Six Sigma methodology all together.

There are many more examples where Six Sigma as a management strategy failed the organization. Forbes Magazine stated that out of all the Fortune 500 companies that have implemented Six Sigma as their management strategy almost 90% trailed the S&P 500 average. The numbers and statistical evidence is overwhelming.

I believe that Six Sigma is an incredible quality management tool. It provides us with the ability to manage well established processes unlike anything else out there. As a management strategy though, it is has shown that it is too rigid for constantly changing environment. Today’s consumers are educated and empowered. They know the value of their money and are always driving to get more out of it. Today’s youth will look up prices on their cell phones while they walk the aisles. They will read the reviews and compare features between products they want to purchase in real time. That kind of marketplace requires a management strategy that allows for variation to be part of the business process. Some predict that in the next 10-15 years we will be able to print majority of our products in our home eliminating the need for retailers. So how is a business supposed to innovate and provide competing products at an increased value to the customer if their management strategy doesn’t allow them to think outside the box.

I am proud to be a Six Sigma Master Black Belt and as one I understand the power and the limitations of the tools I use. Sooner we incorporate embrace change as a constant in our data set, sooner we will be able to meet our customer needs and thrive in the market place.

Who owns Lean?

I’ve had discussions overt the last few weeks with executives that have a wide range of beliefs on who really owns Lean. It’s an issue much more common than one would think and one that comes up not only in different companies but within departments and organizations across the globe. This is not only an external issue but an internal struggle that many organizations struggle with.

In my opinion, everyone owns Lean and the responsibility for the implementation, development, growth and, ultimately, its success in the environment. I am not being overly simple and I understand, as a long time colleague told me, if everyone owns it then no one owns it. That is true to a point. I believe that everyone needs to own a very specific portion of the Lean process in order for it to succeed.

Leadership

The Leadership’s role in the Lean process needs to be defined and implemented early in the process. The ownership of the leadership falls in owning the long term strategy and the vision for the organization regarding Lean. The responsibility of the Leadership is to tell people the WHAT needs to be done and WHY it is important for the employees and the organization to achieve the goals set forth. It is also the responsibility of the leadership to set expectations early and start a practice of empowerment and accountability that will ensure that the efforts are not wasted and are sustained long term. In essence the Leadership owns the plan and long term strategy for Lean.

Lean Experts (Internal or External)

Most Leaders expect the Lean experts to do all the heavy lifting and work. While that is definitely in their realm of capabilities, the role of the Lean experts is to teach, coach and guide the Leadership on establishing the right goals, identifying the right tools and approach to implementing lean. I am the proponent of a unified problem-solving strategy in an organization, meaning a single and standard way of solving problems across the board. My preference is the Toyota Problem-solving methodology although many other exist and the reason why I am a proponent of the Toyota A3 process is because it teaches people on how to solve problems easily and effectively so that they can use it on a daily basis.

It is also the responsibility of the Lean Experts to teach, coach and train Managers on how Lean can work in their environment so that they can coach and build up their workforce into one that embraces CI as a part of an everyday routine. Once those are completed it is the responsibility of the Lean experts to own the education, the training and the coaching of the management and the workforce on the tools being used.

Management

Management, Sr. and First Level managers, are responsible for three basic things: Communication, Support and Empowerment of the workforce.

• The communication encompasses both communicating the leadership’s message on WHAT and the WHY as well as communicating to the leadership the current state through reporting on the desired metrics in both accurate and timely manner.
• Support aspect is crucial to success of the Lean implementation. In many cases the Lean plan fails at this stage because the management does not provide adequate support to the employees and to the Lean experts in successfully deploying the leadership vision. It is the responsibility of the management to clear roadblocks for success of the Lean coaches and their employees.
• Empowerment is closely tied with support role of management. Empowering the people to find solutions to their problems gives them ownership of both their process and ultimately their success. Traditional management states that more control you have over your employees the better manager you are while Lean management states that more you empower your employees the more successful they will be and therefore more successful you will be as a manager. Ultimately the responsibility here is to teach, coach and guide for success while allowing them to learn on their own mistakes. Perfection is not necessary

Workforce

Workforce needs to own the work and the actual implementation of the strategy. While Leadership, Lean Experts and Managers own various aspects regarding the support and direction of the Lean plan ultimate responsibility of owning the problem and the solution falls on the workforce. This can be somewhat tricky but if professional sports have taught us anything, people either need to step up and perform or find another team to play on. Lean can be successful but only if everyone buys in. The support that all of the tiers mentioned above provide needs to be utilized effectively.

In the beginning, it will be difficult to make the plan work effectively but by having a plan, with support and the encouragement from leadership, the growth into a highly effective Lean organization is almost certain. Get small wins and ensure that the workforce buys into the process. Listen to their concerns, thoughts and ideas so that you can address them quickly and utilize them effectively.

Internal or External experts, what is the right choice?

The last month I’ve looked at some of the manufacturing facilities of the leading automakers in Stuttgart, Germany. While all of them have achieved something that is incredible in regards to market share, branding, quality and overall customer experience; the way they did it is as different as the night is from the day. Neither of the manufacturers would be where they are right now without a strong effort geared towards continuous improvement. While one has developed a strong internal presence of Lean and SixSigma experts that drive the continuous improvement efforts in the organization, the other has relied almost completely on external experts to guide their workforce through problem-solving efforts.

As someone that has been both an internal expert and an external consultant I have seen the benefits of both an internal “home grown” effort and external expertise. I have also seen the downside of using either approach without the correct strategy.

Just like many things that drive a successful business, strategy and planning play a large role in success of developing a Lean/CI effort in any organization. Depending the expectations and goals the leadership has set, one approach might be more beneficial over another. An example would be if an organization is starting their CI efforts from scratch and the leadership wants to have all employees trained by the end of the year. In this the external expert would have a greater impact and be more capable of achieving the leadership goals while providing cost effective solution. Reasoning for this approach is set in the fact that internal resources need to be either hired or developed, both of which take extensive amount of time. Additionally, the time needed to develop the training material and deploy the training while providing enough support to the workforce would overwhelm even the most experienced of CI veterans. External experts usually come with already developed training curriculum and knowledge of the material that deploying such training would be significantly less complex and time consuming.

If, on the other hand, the leadership goal was to have someone develop a Lean/CI strategy that is in line with the vision, mission, values and overall strategy of the business then hiring an internal expert is a more valid approach. This allows the organization to find the right expert that fits the culture of the organization and will have ownership of the end result. Having skin in the game is a very important part of the strategy success. Ownership, in this case as in any other example in Lean, is the driving factor for success of the project.

Ultimately, I believe that a mixture of both internal and external CI resources should be utilized for best results. While it might be simple to say “Just use both” there needs to be a good balance of both internal and external resources which drive the Lean culture. External resources are great when time is of the essence or when training materials need to be developed/purchased or when there is a lack of expertise in a little used area of Lean (Such as 3P or Hoshin Kanri). Internal resources need to be there to keep the drive going and maintain the surge provided by the external resources. Even large companies with strongly established Lean culture, such as Boeing, Genie, BMW, Mercedes, Airbus, etc., all employ external consultants which help them set the bar higher every time and drive the improvements that are best for their customers.

Just remember, there is no single solution to the problem but a multitude of solutions that fit your business, strategy and end goals best at this time. Finding that right fit is the key but don’t get hung up on perfection. Good enough is sometimes just good enough to get you moving forward.

How do you do Lean?

A few years back, about a decade into my Lean career, I heard someone say “I can do Lean anywhere!” with incredible confidence and enthusiasm. It’s a statement that I have used myself many times in those ten years of practicing and implementing Lean concepts. In all honesty, I would agree with it full heartedly. That is until I focussed on the verb TO DO, one of the simplest and most used verbs in the English language. We use it a hundred times a day without thinking twice about it so why did I focus on this particular instance? In all honesty, I don’t know. It might have been the way it was said or just the fact that I had more time on my hands than I should have and my inquisitive mind went on a tangent. In either case the damage was done and I was actually thinking about the meaning of the statement.

Something in my head clicked during this event and a deep rooted memory I forgot about was brought to focus. Quick little sidebar as it will explain my reasoning here. I met Sensei Chihiro Nakao and the Shingijutsu consultants while I was working as a Lean Practitioner at Boeing. At that time I was working with the leadership on the 787 program trying to solve the plague of issues haunting the early production of the program everyone is well aware of. For those that don’t know, Sensei Nakao was one of the original Toyota engineers involved in helping develop the TPS and he was one of the handful of people that worked with both Shigeo Shingo and Taiichi Ohno during his tenure at Toyota. To say that this guy knew Lean is like saying birds could fly and fish could swim. So naturally, like every guy EVER, first time I met him I wanted to show him how much I knew about Lean. Because that is what is important, right, the whole macho chest pumping and “look at me and what I can do bravado”. So when we were walking through the plant Sensei Nakao would shake his head in agreement as I said “If you look here, I did this workshop to do yada yada yada” and “Over here I’ve done this Lean thing” “Over there I’ve done that” over and over. He smiled, he nodded, and then after over an hour he just said “Lean is not about DO, Lean just IS” and walked away. This was not the last time that Sensei Nakao, or any of the other Sensei from Shingijutsu, would teach me a valuable lesson though and I greatly value and appreciate their drive to teach Lean to anyone that is willing to listen. I never thought much of that first encounter with Sensei Nakao at the time but later on it would hit me.

Now, as I heard those words “I can do Lean anywhere” the memory of Sensei Nakao came rushing back and I realized quickly that while the statement is true at face value, but at the core it is as false as a $3 bill. Like I realized years later after I initially met Sensei Nakao, one CAN do Lean in any environment, that is very true. But Lean is not about doing Lean things, Lean is about the mindset one takes to relentlessly increase value to the customer. Yes, you read it right. Lean is NOT about the elimination of waste, the core of Lean is about increasing customer value in the services and products that we offer. This is an important differentiation to remember, one I will discuss in post later on this week.

Back to our original programing!

Today I know that, if I want to stay true to the core Lean teachings and principles, I CAN’T do Lean anywhere because Lean is not about ME doing Lean work, it is about the workforce, the leadership, the entire organization, embracing the concept of Continuous Improvement with the focus on increasing customer value. It’s been hard to admit that I can’t do something but if you know Lean, you know that these words are true “Lean is not about DO, Lean just IS”. Lean is who you area as an organization and not the number of workshops you do, the number of classes you teach or the number of “Lean experts” you have in your organization yet to this day I see people define their Lean success but numbers defining just those items.

Lean is about the CULTURE, so what is your culture like?

Who is number one?

I recently read a great article by Phil Terry on LinkedIn, and I was both thrilled and saddened by the article. The article is named “Warren Buffett includes customers! – Does your CEO?”

In the recent years I have worked with many businesses that have always wanted to gain a greater share of the market and drive higher profits. It seems that every new CEO of an organization has his own “secret sauce” that will magically open the doors to incredible riches. What makes it more puzzling is that for some reason we believe that there is a shortcut to achieving greatness.

Recently I had the pleasure of talking with executives at one of the leading Railcar manufacturers in the US and I absolutely fell in love with their philosophy which was simple. As their SVP of Operations said “We don’t want to be the biggest, we just want to be the best at what we do so we can service our customer’s needs to the fullest.” Simple, right? Steve Jobs had the same philosophy. Apple doesn’t make TV’s, Refrigerators, Washing Machines or Dish Washers like Samsung does. In fact all the product that Apple makes can be placed on an average size coffee table, yet Apple’s profits are soaring while Samsung is trying to desperately leverage its standing across many markets in order to stay afloat.

Most businesses that have been around and have established themselves as icons of the corporate landscape have always founded their success on aligning their products with customer needs while providing tremendous value. This doesn’t mean providing cheap goods but high quality product that the customers hold highly valuable. This means that not only can the focus be on what customer needs but also we can develop a business strategy that is laser focussed on products that will be profitable and successful in the marketplace.

This is one of the cornerstones of Lean. First thing that we are taught is that EVERYTHING in Lean starts with the customer. Customer sets the production tempo (TAKT) and all other parameters of production. In many cases the customer dictates the design of new products or changes in the existing product lines. To me, and many Lean practitioners, customer sets the tone of your business and if you can be in harmony with the customer, your success is almost guaranteed.

My questions to you would be how many of your business strategies involve the customer? How many of your business goals and objectives directly deal with the customer needs and address their concerns? How many of your leaders actively engage the customer not because the customer is unhappy but because they want to provide greater value to them long term? Ultimately you should ask yourself “Who is number one?” Is it the customer or the mighty dollar? You should be able to tell the difference easily.

All the responsibility, none of the authority!

Recently I’ve been having conversations with several organizational leaders across a wide range of industries. These are VP’s and Directors that were charged with deploying Lean in their organization. They understood the importance of Lean and the benefits they could gain from implementing such strategy but all of them, and I am talking over a dozen so far, believed that people implementing Lean should have no authority. In fact, some of their questions for potential candidates were worded “How do you implement Lean practices in an area where you have no authority? Give us examples of when you’ve been successful in implementing Lean in such environment and what were the end results?” I actually asked some of the leaders if they meant actual or implied authority when asking their question and their answer was “Neither. We are looking for someone that can make a difference without direct support of the leadership or authority”

I understand what the leaderships intent was in this case and the reasoning behind their ultimate wording of this particular question. Ultimately, leaders want people that will drive others to change without telling them they have to change. The saying “Slow waters run deep” is very true and having someone who can slowly and carefully drive change in any environment is a huge benefit. Ultimately though, those types of efforts will get you only so far.

As I mentioned before, we are all selfish creatures and tend to only be motivated by things that ultimately benefit us. The best way for the organization to succeed is to have the workforce goals and objectives be aligned with the organization. If they don’t, and we have all been a part of that at one point in time or another, change is difficult if not impossible to make. Ultimately, what is there to motivate someone to make a change when the Lean consultant comes over and talks to them about possible process improvement activities? Especially in environments where CI is still a new concept there isn’t much to drive that behavioral change.

Many psychologists believe that the only true behavioral change occurs in us is when there is a true risk/reward situation. In this case there needs to be a risk in not acting and reward in making the change. The risk needs to be significant enough to consider the change and the reward needs to be significant enough to outweigh the risk and any potential downfalls during the implementation. In other words, if at the end of the process the net sum is a status quo, it’s not worth the effort. So the improvement, the change, needs to be greater than where we are now and outweigh the risk at the same time. Some refer to it as the “carrot and the stick” method.

What happens when the Lean practitioner has no actual or implied authority? There is no risk of inaction, or “the stick” and therefore no incentive to gain the reward. Some, who might be more ambitious than others, will jump at the possibility of getting the reward without any risk but most will continue on their daily practices as they always have. What is worse, the Lean practitioner is tasked with the responsibility of making the difference. When they fail in that task, regardless of the level of authority or support, the leadership says “See, Lean won’t work here. We should cut our losses right now” and any possibility of changing the culture will disappear.

In these situations, when an organization is bringing in a Lean expert, it is important to give either implied (direct support of the leadership) or actual (management or leadership position) authority. Having this in place will allow them to drive change more successfully and ultimately add the most value to the organization. This is not to say that the person will drive change with totalitarian rule. That is not in the nature of any true Lean practitioner. Just the appearance of authority and support will entice the employees to try the new practices. Which in turn will show them how successful they can be and will start the beginning stages of the Continuous Improvement cycle. Remember, a little bit of authority can go a long way in the hands of a Lean expert.

To 5S or not to 5S???

Many times in my career I’ve come across people who boiled down Lean to “We just need to do some 5S and we’ll be fine”. In all honesty, while a very beneficial as a tool, 5S has caused me more heartburn and frustration than any other tool in the Lean arsenal. If you’ve spent a day in Lean as a consultant, you know what I mean and you are chuckling right now because of it.

Why do I bring this question up right now? Because this is just the right moment in the growth of a Lean culture that a leader might be tempted to “spice things up” with something else and usually they will throw in 5S as the thing to do. For some reason we feel the urge to rush things along and make things happen. For another, even more mysterious reason, everyone seems to default to 5S as the “SOLUTION” to their woes. I haven’t figured out why on either account and all root cause analysis attempts have failed miserably. (Little Lean humor never hurt no one… right?)

Anyways, in order to really answer the blog question of “To 5S or not to 5S?” I think we need to get on the same page of what 5S really means. When I ask what 5S is, I receive a wide range of answers, from “It means to keep things clean” to “it’s the foundation of any Len activity” but in reality the answers do not tell us anything about the tool or the methodology.

When I asked Sensei Nakao what 5S is to him, he simply said “NOTHING”. I was somewhat puzzled and I asked him to explain. This is the summary of the answer he gave me:

“Boris, 5S is the result of doing things right. It is an embodiment of the core Kaizen principles rolled into one concept. If you do them all on their own, you’ll have 5S without doing it. If you do 5S fully and completely, you’ll have the principles in place without having done them.”

Then he went on to explain his reasoning in a conversation that lasted over an hour and went by in what seemed minutes.

Seiri (Sort) is about determining what is Value Added and what is Non-Value Added from the customer’s perspective. In this case the customer is you so what do you need to get your work done? Things that do not bring value need to be removed. Quick, easy and simple.

Seiton (Simplify or Straighten) is about Just-In-Time and making sure that what you need is where you need it when you need it. Simple as that. Yes, you can get more elaborate with it but ultimately it comes down to JIT.

Seiso (Shine) is the cornerstone of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). Cleaning Is Inspecting method ensures that the equipment and the surrounding areas are always in their optimal condition. Your tools are always put away, your work area is always safe. It ultimately brings order to the chaos.

Seiketsu (Standardize) is the only way to achieve stable production. Standardized Work Practices are one of the most important parts of any successful business because they make processes repeatable and results expected. They establish the norm and provide the baseline for all further improvement.

Shitsuke (Sustain) is the only way any of this happens. To make a change, make it stick and then measure the improvement and see if it worked. Ensure best practices are being followed across the entire organization before making any additional improvements. Then rinse and repeat all over again.

Here is the kicker, during our conversation he asked me how do you implement 5S. Without much thought I told him the way we’ve always done it. Create a 5S plan for the area and then do activities involving all of the 5S practices. We’d do a big “5S blitz” and get rid of a ton of things, then we’d put things all in the right place and then create checklists to make sure it all worked together. You know the drill yourself if you’ve done it more than once. He smiled and said “You’ve been doing it wrong this whole time”.

He went further into explaining his statement “There is a reason why the concepts are laid out in this order. They represent a stage in journey of an individual, a team and an organization. First step is to get rid of the things you don’t need. Only way you can do that is over time. Taking more and more time to focus on what is truly needed and what is not. Once that is done and you’ve identified all the things that don’t add value in your work area you are ready to go onto the next step. Then you Simplify, and you revisit the Sorting stage and ensure it still holds true. So you don’t do all of the concepts at once, you gradually add more and more until you are doing them all.”

I’ve been in businesses that have based their ENTIRE Lean strategy on 5S and have been successful. With a couple of tweaks they have been able to achieve incredible gains and eliminate waste while adding value. I’ve also been in businesses that have been incredibly successful without 5S and have come to these same results through relentless pursuit of continuous improvement and waste elimination.

So the ultimate question is “To 5S or not to 5S?” My answer is “only if it is done right” and to do it right would take a tremendous amount of planning and support from the leadership as well as the middle management and embracement from the workforce. My ultimate suggestion would be to forego the 5S implementation for the time being and focus on solving problems. There is plenty of low hanging fruit that can be plucked easily. What you’ll get when you use the right kind of a problem-solving methodology is results very similar to what implementing 5S will do. You will get the reduction in clutter, better cleaning practices and standardized work just by properly solving problems so why add another dimension to divert the work efforts when this will do for now. Later on, as the workforce gets used to the concepts and the improvements level off, it will be the time to introduce another tool or another concept in order to maintain the expected gains in the future. For now, stay your course until your organization matures in its Lean growth.

There can be only one!!!

There is only one BEST way to do things. It’s simple as that. If you find a better way, document it and share it across the entire organization. This is the reason why even the smallest of improvements harness modest gains in Lean, because every area that utilizes the process will benefit from the improvement.

This also applies to Lean methods and practices. Taiichi Ohno, the father of TPS, has said that “Your Lean process should be a Lean process.” It sounds simple, although many focus on implementation of Lean in their production facilities they disregard the most basic principles when it comes to Lean itself. So if we use the same principle that there is only one BEST way to do things, then solving problems should have only one way.

Currently there are countless processes available for problem-solving. From the simple PDCA to the more complex DMAIC to the even more complex GROW model or the 8D. All of them have their benefits and their downfalls. My personal preference is to utilize the Toyota Problem-solving Methodology, or commonly referred to as the A3, although in this case my preference doesn’t matter. What matters is that as a whole, the organization evaluates and deploys a problem-solving method that suits it the best. The Leadership should involve their QA, Manufacturing, Engineering and various other experts from within and discuss the pros and cons of each one of the methodologies until one comes out as the favorite. Once that choice is made, deploy it across the entire organization. Educate every single employee on the process and encourage, nae DEMAND, they utilize it every time the problem comes along. Be aware though, the method has to be simple enough to remember and easy enough to use without wasting too much of their time.

Why is this so important as the next step in the process? Simple answer is VARIATION. If we use three different tools to solve problems, chances are we will get five different solutions for the same exact problem. That doesn’t work really well when the results of any process should be consistent and reliable. That additional layer of data variation makes it difficult to find that ONE BEST WAY to do things and ultimately causes the “Well we do it this way over here” situation.

There are generally three major contributors to variation in a production environment. People, Materials and the process, or procedure, itself. So in case of the problem-solving methodology, if we reduce our process to only one way to solve a problem, results should be repeatable, consistent and reliable. If I have 10 groups of people to solve the same problem using the same tools, I should get the same results and findings. 9 out of 10 teams will come up with a similar solution which gives us the ability to create data that is reliable and ACTIONABLE. When we eliminate the process as the variation, then we know that the people or the materials are causing it which gives us a better chance to solve whatever root cause we might be facing at the moment.

Remember though, this process, this problem-solving methodology will become your go-to tool to solve problems for the foreseeable future. You need to establish a sense of consistency with the workforce and having this process become a part of their daily responsibility. So keep it simple and let them get used to the process of solving problems with a tool and not just their experience. This is a marathon, not a sprint so some patience is necessary.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

It was a slow day in the office at one of my previous gigs. My team lead had been working with the leadership on our business strategy for the last few weeks and he was getting somewhat frustrated by the resistance of the lower and middle management that was resonating throughout the proceedings. Now, you have to understand that this guy is a 20 year Lean veteran. He was introduced to Lean when the organization launched it in 1995 and he was one of the best around… period. So to have him frustrated this much is unusual. We started talking about the issues he was encountering because I was trying to understand how we might be able to solve the problem with the help of the entire team. In the middle of our discussion he stops talking, grabs a dry erase marker and writes “Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner” on the whiteboard right above his desk. This one sentence, simple but accurate, epitomizes what most businesses will encounter when trying to drive the execution of their Vision and Strategy.  It’s a variation at the quote by Peter Drucker that I heard a long time ago and I believe it very much.

As the organization starts to drive strategy piece forward by giving the WHAT and the WHY to the workforce while allowing them the opportunity to figure out the HOW we have to keep in mind that the human tendency is to resist change and revert to our old “comfort” behavior. The reason why Toyota is so successful at sustaining their Continuous Improvement efforts is because the concepts are fully ingrained in their culture, it is part of their identity and their organization. It is not a part of a Japanese culture, it is a part of Toyota culture. I think this is an important part to remember.

Despite the great success of Toyota, only about 20% of manufacturers have actually implemented Lean and of those, only a fraction is actually considered “successful” at driving Lean efforts. It is not because Toyota doesn’t share knowledge. They open their doors even to their fiercest competitors and they have gone so far as to put the Toyota Production System into the public domain. During my visit to the Toyota manufacturing facilities in Japan, they openly talked about the Lean concepts I used on the daily basis and how they make them work in their environment. My peers and I asked questions and received incredible amount of information. In all honesty, the depth of the information they provided would be considered theft of sensitive company information in other organizations.

The point I am trying to make is that Toyota is not unique in what tools they use or where and when those tools are used, or even how the tools are used. Where Toyota is unique is that every single employee utilizes the Toyota Problem-solving Methodology any time there is a problem. It is second nature to them and they do it without pause regardless if they are in Japan, US, Mexico, Russia or China. The implementation and results are always the same. While similar to 8D, the Toyota model is different enough to be separated from the two. If you are curious about the Toyota Problem-solving Methodology you can view a simple slide show HERE.

In order for the Continuous Improvement tools and activities to become second nature to the entire organization they need to be simple enough for anyone to remember, easy enough to use and deliver reliable and consistent results every single time. How many times have you suggested a better solution to someone and they told you “I don’t have time for that” or “I need to get work done, my boss would kill me if he saw me doing that”. People are truly busy and if you look around you will notice that almost everyone is actively trying to get work done. We don’t have time for complex tools, data mining and “global initiatives” that suck up any minute of the precious little spare time we might have. In order for your strategy to succeed the culture needs to be willing to accept it and the only way you can ensure that is to have the workforce use simple, easy and effective tools which will guarantee success.

With a good foundation established by satisfying the most basic needs of the employees, the Vision that will give them a sense of belonging, the ability to figure out their own problems becomes paramount. It drives ownership and brings people satisfaction at work with a true sense of accomplishment. In order to have reliable and repeatable results implementing a unified problem-solving methodology is the best approach. Simple tools that can be utilized by anyone at any time are a good way to bring the culture forward just enough in your favor so that the next step is that much easier to make.

Remember, as Sir. Isaac Newton said “Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy”. Simple tools, embraced quickly and used often will drive change beyond anything you’ve done so far. Once the culture has moved enough where change is a more regular occurrence, more complex tools should be deployed but for the start SIMPLE IS BEST!