Let people make mistakes? Tough Love of Leadership!

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]While leading an event this week, I came across a common situation that I have faced over the years.  The group, very new to pull, wanted to implement a particular piece of the pull system in an exact same way that I have failed in a past life.  Despite my best efforts through education and description of the past shortcomings, I couldn’t convince them to set it up any other way.  As an event leader what do you do next?    Impose your will on the group or let them make the mistake and learn the hard way?

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Consistency is Key for Lean Transformation

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]Those of you that are parents out there know how important it is to not send mixed signals to your children.  The same is true during a Lean transformation, especially early on in the process.  It seems I have most often seen mixed messages provided when it comes to the old world metrics that contradict with the new “lean rules.”  One must take special care to be consistent especially early on in a transformation when the team is just learning its new world.

An example would be setting up pull systems and installing rules to only produce when you have a signal from the downstream customer.  Your team is following the rules, demand drops for a few days, and then they get chastised for not meeting the old production unit goals.  What is your team to do now?  Follow the old rules or the new rules?

Andon Calls and Muri

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I’m currently working my way through Mike Rother’s book Toyota Kata.  A formal review will follow in the future as I’m approximately half done but I can already say there are many great insights into TPS.  However, one of the insights has sparked up an old fire that I always seem to struggle with understanding as I have never been employed by Toyota.

Mike talks about how a Toyota assembly plant was staffed to handle about 1,000 andon calls per shift and they became very concerned when the calls dropped to 700 per shift.  Toyota found that this could only mean two things: 

Policy Deployment #4 – Catch Ball

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How does your company roll out its annual business plans?  Do you get a huge spreadsheet with every cost possible, including toilet paper usage, broken down by accountants after weeks of calculations?  Is there a 95 page Powerpoint presentation that rivals any insomnia methods that exist today?  I really despise those techniques