The power of gemba walks

The gemba, the workplace, the place of work(!), this is where value is added, this is ultimately where a business can be lost or won.

Therefore, it is critical that the managers and leaders are in that area, seeing what is really happening, not what their spreadsheets tell them, and of course, acting upon what they see.

A gemba walk, when used well, is probably the most powerful lean tool that any company can use, it opens the eyes and the mind to waste whilst becoming a focal point for daily improvements. It also allows senior managers to spend time on the shop floor, pushing their message to all staff and creating connections within the business whilst opening a two way communication flow between the shop floor and the senior management, this is the true power of gemba walks.

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Location:Ashford,United Kingdom

What makes a good manager

Is a good manager decided by the environment they work in? Should they adapt to the environment or should they try to change it to suit their style?

TBC

What makes a team

The word ‘team’ is thrown around in business far too much these days. It is often mistaken for a workgroup of people who align their goals to that of the company but their individual objectives and accountabilities differ.
A team has shared leadership and objectives but has individual and mutual accountability. The team, in my view, works differently to a workgroup and leaders need to recognise the difference as the two need different management approaches.
As a team has shared leadership (look at how special forces teams work, they agree on how to do something as a team but do not debate what they are tasked with) the approach from management needs to be far more inclusive and diplomatic, whilst ensuring the team is still aligned to the business objectives, should they change. The workgroup not only tolerates but encourages a far more dictatorial approach, with strong, goal orientated leaders suiting the role.
This leaves us needing to know if we have workgroups or teams, or indeed, decide which we require before we look at hiring people to manage, as this will likely dictate success or failure. This also leads me to ask, what makes a good manager, as surely this is decided by the environment in which he/she is placed?

TBC

Your thoughts?

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At standard?

Ok. So my employer uses performance management reviews to base pay rises upon. This year we have been told that even if all our staff are “at standard” we must give 10-15% of them a zero% pay rise instead of the budgeted 2%.

Your thoughts guys?

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Weak management

In my honest opinion, there is very little worse than weak management. It is a managers cardinal sin, from weak management flows every other workplace failure as the weak managers do not have the backbone to stand up to staff (or indeed other managers) who do not meet acceptable work ethics, output and criteria. Unfortunately we are obsessed with HR policies and ensuring that everything is “nice” for the employee, whilst neglecting our primary concern, which, for every business (even social enterprise) is to survive, which means make more money than it costs to run the business.
I recently had a disciplinary situation with an employee who reported to a different manager but he took direction from me as his manager works permanent days whilst the chap in question works permanent nights. Basically the guy was refusing to follow a reasonable request and this elevated somewhat until I found it necessary to tell him to go home, he then refused and stomped off muttering about talking to his manager.
I spoke to his manager, explaining the whole situation, his manager told me that he 100% supported my decision and that he would advise the chap in question that he must do as he is asked or go home. The guy stayed, partially doing as instructed.
Today he is having a disciplinary with his manager, but I am certain the outcome will be lame and weak willed. My view is that the chap should recieve a final written warning (there is history) and it be made clear in no uncertain terms that if requested to perform a reasonable task, that he must do so.

We shall see.

Adam.

Leaning towards efficiency?

Many manufacturing businesses (including the business I work within) are trying to achieve a “lean manufacturing” status, as defined by Shingo. Which I do applaud, it’s important to try, unfortunately, many businesses, are getting it wrong. Badly wrong.

I recently worked with an improvement team (Practical Process Improvement) and in 3 months we worked out how to spend £20k improving a process which would save the business £15k per annum, not hugely exciting I know, but, a second team running in tandem to ours but on a different project worked out how to save just £350 per annum (no cost quoted) but it took a team of 6 people 3 months to get to that conclusion, so how much did it cost for the people to work on that. Lean? I think not! The salient point is that the improvement process was taught wrong, used wrong and used for the wrong reasons. Obviously I know that lean is not just about saving money, but, it is certainly a driving factor in any manufacturing, especially in a lean environment.

The critical part here was that it was taught wrong, it was taught to a group of people who were uninterested in not only the method of how to improve the situation but to people who weren’t even concerned with the situation itself. But I think that far worse than this is the fact that they were given 2 days training and told to go solve the problem, now, 2 days may be sufficient for people with previous experience of the tools, but not for those who had never used them before.

I am also concerned with the level of reliance on “lean consultants” within the UK, point in case, the business I work for recently used a “lean consultant” to look at laying out a new plant. He did do an excellent job, but for the money he was paid, I was suprised that no sooner was I shown the drawings I pointed out several other elements that could be put in that would increase our efficiency. What worries me is that I was not the only person to notice “improvement opportunities” in his plan and that I have seen situations like this before. Another side to this is that a different company I knew of recently contracted a “lean guru” to implement 5S, he done a grand job! So would I have for £80k in 6 months.

But the “lean consultant movement” is gaining momentum because businesses are refusing to train their own people just in case they leave. Now call me daft (many have!) but surely it works out better in the longer run to train the people you have rather than employ contractors to do something that your own people could learn to do. Not only that, if more companies did train their own people, there would be less people leaving to become “gurus” because the market would soon become flooded with them!

Then I guess they will all be appying for jobs……..

Rant of the day over!

Adam