Meet-up: My Flexible Pencil's David Kasprzak

Today, I would like to introduce David Kasprzak of My Flexible Pencil. David and I have been friends ever since we started blogging a few years ago. We have carried on a dialogue online over the years that has been thought provoking. He has contributed to this site many times which you can find here.


The goal of Meet-up is provide you an opportunity to meet some other influential voices in the Lean community. I will ask these authors a series of questions:

Who are you and what do you do?
My background is, primarily, in large-scale, multi-year, hardware development program planning and analysis. This includes both engineering R&D and transition into manufacturing. Most of my background is in support of DoD programs, but also includes commercial aviation and IT programs as well.

How and when did you learn Lean?
My employer launched a Lean initiative and put a core group of us through GBMP's 8-week Lean program.

How and why did you start blogging or writing about Lean?
The Lean training really lit my fire in terms of being able to understand the, frankly, broken way in which most organizations operate - particularly as it relates to the humanistic aspects of work (or lack thereof). That fire burned hot enough for me to go back to school and earn an MBA. I started blogging 1/2 way through that program as a way to broadcast my ideas and network with others who share my belief in changing the underlying mindset by which organizations operate.

What does Lean mean to you?
Lean is a philosophy of human behavior. It offers an explanation of why people do what they do, describes the path to develop an ideal mindset, from which ideal activities take place. Seeing Lean as a philosophy explains why it is so hard to understand fully, and yet so easy to apply to many different situations and activities.

What is the biggest myth or misconception of Lean?
That it is only about reducing cost. Reducing cost is just an outcome of Lean practices and, especially if you believe in the Shingo model. (easier, better, faster, cheaper) All too often, those cost reductions are enforced in a way that makes the work harder - which is unsustainable since no one will, or even can, do that which is more difficult for an indefinite period of time.

What is your current Lean passion, project, or initiative?
I am always looking for ways to make home life more efficient, effective, organized, simpler....so there is an on-going personal initiative to apply Lean concepts to daily, personal life. On the blog, I keep looking for way to introduce typically non-Lean audiences to Lean concepts. Usually, this focuses on white-collar, knowledge management environments and the project management activities I'm most familiar with. The more I dig into it, the more I find similarities in the approaches different schools of thought advocate. When it comes to organizing large groups of people, the tactics are often very similar even if the terminology or application is different.

Meet-up: Lean Leadership's Christian Paulsen

Today, we’ll meet-up with Christian Paulsen, who blogs at Lean Leadership. Christian has contributed several guest posts here. He started blogging shortly after me so we have grown through the process together. It has been nice to have someone to trade insights with and learn with.



The goal of Meet-up is provide you an opportunity to meet some other influential voices in the Lean community. I will ask these authors a series of questions:

Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Christian Paulsen and I have been working in food manufacturing since getting out of the Navy in 1989. I have held several manufacturing leadership roles with Unilever, Frito-Lay, and Nestle and a couple smaller manufacturers. I am currently using this experience to help food companies optimize their manufacturing processes using Lean - TPM as an outside consultant.

How and when did you learn Lean?
My first experience with Lean was when I was a supervisor at Frito-Lay. We were not calling it Lean yet and it was really Dr. Deming’s Total Quality approach for those that remember TQM. I was not directly involved but started to see the benefit to Pareto charts and started to glean some knowledge. Within a couple years I was a Production Manager at Lipton (Unilever). We were serious about Continuous Improvement and TQM. The supply chain was going JIT and we had teams addressing one loss issue after another. Start up losses were being driven out by the start up team and SMED principles were used to cut change-over times in half several times. I was hooked when I saw how we could work with the team to drive out losses and make it a better place to work. It was classic Theory X vs. Theory Y management to me and I’d rather work with the team than have to fight them to make improvements. I have attended several seminars and courses like Total Quality, Root Cause Analysis & DMAIC, TPM, and Lean Six Sigma. These have helped strengthen my knowledge of Lean theory and to support the hands on experience along the way.

How and why did you start blogging or writing about Lean?
I started blogging while in transition from my traditional manufacturing roles into consulting. It was a good time to establish a stronger presence on the social media scene and served as a great way to refine my thinking on a variety of topics. Tim McMahon (author of this blog) was a lot of help to me while getting started. He was kind enough to field my questions even though we didn't know each other at the time. Jamie Flinchbaugh was helpful while starting as well. Guest blogging for other Lean thinkers has been a great way to challenge my level of thinking on a topic. Several bloggers have been kind enough to have me guest blog. Tim at A Lean Journey, Beyond Lean (Matt Wrye), Gemba Tales (Mark Hamel), Gotta Go Lean (Jeff Hajek) and My Flexible Pencil (David Kasprzak). The Lean community is helpful and open with information. My blog is Lean Leadership. The name of the blog reveals the focus of that blog. I am also one of a dozen contributing bloggers at Consumer Good Club but I am the only one with a Lean focus there.

What does Lean mean to you?
Lean is all about a pursuit of excellence. While many of us focus on reducing cost by eliminating waste, it should be about being great at what we do. Pursuing excellence will maximize profits while eliminating waste and reducing cost. There is a big difference between just cutting costs and making sustainable improvements. Lean thinkers attack waste and optimize value added activities rather than slashing budgets and letting others deal with the consequences. Lean principles give the structure to make it sustainable rather than the flavor-of-the-month.

What is the biggest myth or misconception of Lean?
You hear a lot of discussion in Lean circles about Lean being a way of thinking and not a set of tools. There is certainly a lot of misconception about that. I think that there is also a lot of misconception about the difference Continuous Improvement camps. I hear some people talk about Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, and even TQM as if they are mutually exclusive. There are books and courses about Lean-Six Sigma, Lean-TPM, and such that seem to imply that the different camps can somehow co-exist (There are some great manufacturing minds and Lean thinkers behind this material, so these comments are not intended to be critical of them). I'd suggest that there is more similarity between the methods and less differences than many people think. I grew up on Deming & TQM principles then got deep into TPM. I started to hear more and more about Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. I decided to start reading up on Lean and was very surprised to see that it was a lot of what we had been doing under the TQM umbrella. Then I decided I better read up on Six Sigma. Again, I was surprised to find more similarities than differences. Don't think though that I didn't learn anything in this process. I'm still learning with each new venture. To me, there is a lot of overlap and similarities. They are far from being mutually exclusive.

What is your current Lean passion, project, or initiative?
I have been doing a lot of TPM work, mostly Autonomous Maintenance with a couple well known food companies which has been a lot of fun. It's great to see a teams come together and improve Safety & Quality while reducing downtime by 50%.

I am also working on a Kaizen initiative with another food manufacturer. This one is focused on eliminating the waste is a manual process. It's also fun to see the light bulbs go off as we teach the operators about the lean concepts.

Guest Post: ROWE v. Lean – My Two Cents

My good friend Mark Hamel, author, blogger, and Shingo Prize Examiner joined the conversation on ROWE.  Mark takes on the David's point linking ROWE with Shingo's respect for people in a counterpoint. I am happy to share Mark's thoughts on the Shingo Prize principles and their relevance to ROWE.
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Recently, fellow-blogger David Kasprzak, introduced me to the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) strategy. ROWE, created at Best Buy’s Minneapolis headquarters, espouses a philosophy under which employees can work where they want, when they want, and how they want – as long as the work gets done.

I love meritocratic thinking!

Of course, there’s nothing like a brand new philosophy or system to challenge, and/or sharpen, one’s personal belief systems. You can’t defend that which you don’t understand.

Admittedly, I am more than a bit fuzzy about ROWE. I’ve done some reading on the internet, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I’m considering buying the seminal book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution, but haven’t pulled the trigger.

In any event, here’s my two cents on what I think I know about ROWE. I could break into the Donald Rumsfeld spiel about known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns…you get the point. So, in the end, what I have to say is worth just about $0.02. Definitely, nothing more.

As you read this, or perhaps more appropriately, after you read this, check out Kasprzk’s latest post on ROWE. It’s right here on Tim McMahon’s A Lean Journey blog. Consider this a type of good-natured point/counterpoint between the two of us.

Here it goes…

ROWE ostensibly engages and empowers the workforce. It strips away some of the organizationally and self-imposed muda of rigidity and silly limitations and focuses on accountability and results. It’s tough to argue with that.

Of course, this almost seems too easy. The “Free Love” days of the 1960’s sounded great, but were not necessarily the best thing from a socio-ethics perspective.

Stupid analogy!? Maybe.

Part of my concern has to do with interdependence. In an enterprise, we can’t all be free actors all of the time – whether we are part of a natural work team or are individual contributors.
Virtually no one in an organization is self-directed (even the C-level executives, just ask them!). What we can be is self-managed within the aligning context of deployed breakthrough objectives (think strategy or policy deployment), key performance indicators, value stream focus, standard work, problem-solving, etc.

So, one burning question I have is where and how does “do[ing] whatever you want, whenever you want as long as you get your work done” intersect with this notion of interdependency and self-management? And, with that, how does it square with the Shingo Model principles?

I bring up the Shingo model (yet again, I know) because David did first…and because it’s a great place to start.

Here’s a quick list of some of the Shingo principles, from bottom to top, and my ROWE relevant questions/comments.

Respect for every individual. Freedom without accountability is license (not good). Accountability without freedom is repressive (also not good). ROWE seems to get that. But, back to the interdependence – can my focus on getting my work done trump the value stream performance and/or that of my natural work team members?

• Lead with humility. Certainly leaders must have a certain deference to workers in ROWE.
• Seek perfection. I hope that folks seek to make things easier, better, faster and cheaper, NOT at a sub-optimized level, but for the broader business. There is no kaizen without standard work. So, one question is whether or not ROWE facilitates standard work, its development, adherence to and constant adjustment (improvement). I hope that ROWE fosters team-based problem-solving and alignment of that problem-solving. 
• Assure quality at the source. Cool, as long as “getting your work done” ensures that it meets customer requirements and that jidoka is regularly applied.
• Flow and pull value. My biggest concern (and it’s not trivial) with ROWE is whether or not it promotes continuous flow or if it is subordinated to “non-levelized” schedules of empowered workers. Also, if it does not promote adherence to standard work, how do you ensure that the system performs as designed relative to timing, output, etc? Human systems are fragile! That’s why we apply lean management systems.
• Embrace scientific thinking. Good process = good output. Same goes for the rigorous application of PDCA and SDCA (standardize-do-check-adjust). Hopefully, “getting your work done” includes embracing and following the pragmatic rigor of PDCA and SDCA.
• Focus on process. See above for my points on interdependency, alignment, and improvement…
• Think systemically. Ditto… Plus, I hope that ROWE promotes long-term focus as well as short-term. This means that “getting my work done” is for now AND the future. Also, if we recall Imaii’s kaizen diagram, everyone’s job (“work”) includes maintenance and improvement.
• Create constancy of purpose. Ditto…
• Create value for the customer. Hopefully, ROWE promotes and facilitates the necessary “line of sight” and mechanisms for the employees so that they understand stakeholder value objectives and effectively work to satisfy them. This is achieved well only if we live all of the principles identified above. 

OK, that’s my $0.02. Please keep the change.

I’d love to learn more about ROWE and explore how it can enhance the lean business system and vice versa. If you can, please help with my ROWE education. No, I’m not looking for tuition assistance; just share your experience and insight.

About the Author:

Mark R. Hamel is a lean implementation consultant, blogger at Gemba Tales, and award-winning author. His book, Kaizen Event Fieldbook: Foundation, Framework, and Standard Work for Effective Events (Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 2009), received a 2010 Shingo Research and Professional Publications Award. Hamel can be reached at mark@kaizenfieldbook.com.

Guest Post: Shingo and ROWE

Recently, David Kasprzak, of My Flexible Blog, and I had a conversation about ROWE. ROWE - Results Only Work Environment is a human resource management strategy co-created by Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler wherein employees are paid for results (output) rather than the number of hours worked. ROWE was detailed in Daniel Pink's bestselling book DRIVE. I asked David if he would author a guest post in which he connects ROWE and Shingo's "Respect for People" foundation.
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The Shingo model, while relatively unknown outside of manufacturing, is not just a model for understanding or improving manufacturing processes. It is a comprehensive system of management that incorporates both cultural and tactical, operational elements to bring about culture change and improved effectiveness. In the Shingo model, Guiding Principles determine the values of the organization, which lead to the development of processes and the usage of tools, as needed, to deliver results. It is not the just the implementation of tools to get a specified result – it is a reinforcing dynamic between both tools and culture. The two are taken together to form a comprehensive paradigm for workplace transformation that addresses, directly, both the need for culture to change and the need for the business to perform so that one may sustain the other. In fact, it was in a workshop put on by the Shingo prize organization where I first heard the term “Old culture plus new tools = same results.”

Some time after my introduction to Lean and the Shingo model, I discovered the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) concept. ROWE is a practice created at Best Buy’s headquarters in Minneapolis that allows employees to work where they want, when they want, and how they want – as long as the work gets done. In their book, “Work Sucks and How to Fix It” Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson describe the reasons why they developed ROWE and how it was implemented. In the book, they state:

“We’re offering not a new way of working, but a new way of living. This new way of living is based on the radical idea that you are an adult. It’s based on the radical idea that even though you owe your company your best work, you do not owe them your time or your life…..

In a Results-Only Work Environment, people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. Many companies say their people can telecommute or work a flexible schedule. But these arrangements often still include core hours, or can be dissolved should business needs change or are doled out stingily as a perk for the privileged few. In a ROWE, you can literally do whatever you want whenever you want as long as your work is getting done. You have complete control over your life as long as your work gets done.”

The book goes on to lay out the rest of what ROWE is based on, at its core: The myth that time + physical presence = results. The authors also identify several things that make a ROWE work, centering on building behaviors that create trust between managers and employees. Among these are things such as all meetings are optional, people will stop doing anything that wastes time - theirs, the company’s, or the customers’, there are no last-minute fire drills and nobody brags about how many hours they work (and especially not about how many hours they worked for the sake of just showing up and looking good without producing much of anything.)

Those aspects of ROWE sound a lot like what Lean thinkers would easily and readily identify as waste, and it is encouraging to see that wasteful practices are so easily spotted by people with no Lean or manufacturing background. Although ROWE, in my mind, has a weakness in that it doesn’t offer a system for continuous improvement such that the tremendous cultural awakening it generates can be sustained, I don’t think that ROWE is inconsistent with Shingo’s teachings, either. In fact, I think ROWE in many ways takes the cultural aspects of these teachings, especially the Respect for People foundation of the Shingo model, to a whole new level of understanding.

Respect for People needs to be an absolute. It’s not just Respect for Workers (meaning we only offer respect to a person when they walk in the door to go to work), it’s respect for the person. The person, of course, has needs, wants and desires that existed long before they ever came in to work and that will go on long after. If Lean and Shingo are about trusting front-line workers to the point that they can determine for themselves the best way to go about their work, then ROWE is simply taking that concept further. It is saying that not only should workers be given the respect and freedom to optimize their own work, but their lives as well – which may very well mean that individuals can also decide when and where they get their work done, too.

Obviously, the ROWE concept is easier to conceive of in knowledge work environments, where work products are a bit more intangible, less dependent upon facilities and large capital equipment, and where technology has developed to the point that work products can be transferred from producer to customer from nearly anywhere. Given that ROWE was created in white-collar space by Human Resources professionals, it is strongest in that area, much as Shingo, which began in manufacturing, is strongest in that area. There is nothing to say, however, that the concepts can’t be applied to other areas. In a manufacturing setting, for example, trusting the personnel in the supply chain, assembly, and shipping functions to coordinate, carry out their tasks, arrive at the plant, produce the units and deliver 10,000 widgets by the 18th of the month is entirely consistent with ROWE’s teaching. ROWE is not entirely about working any time, any where, it is about trusting people to do their jobs without being baby sat.

Other concepts that form the basis of ROWE are very similar to those in the Shingo model, particularly with regards to Culture, Guiding Principles and Results. The Shingo model is much stronger, however, when it comes to identifying the specific systems and tools that help to reinforce and build up the cultural elements. In this respect, the ROWE concept feels a bit incomplete. While it certainly embraces and evolves the humanistic concerns and personal motivations that result in employee engagement, the Shingo Model’s greater emphasis on methods for Continuous Process Improvement and Enterprise Alignment offer guidance on how to sustain it.


About the Author:

David M. Kasprzak is the author and creator of the My Flexible Blog, where he shares his thoughts on improving workplace culture through the use of Lean concepts. While working as an analyst to develop and analyze program-level cost and schedule metrics for the past 12 years, David has now turned his attention towards understanding the behaviors that create high-performing organizations. In May of 2011, he received my MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing & Strategy.

Guest Post: The Management Lessons of Angry Birds

Angry Birds, that time-draining app that has spawned a cult phenomenon and a slew of stuffed toys at Walmart, might seem like an odd place to look for wisdom on accomplishing tasks. Nonetheless, the game offers several highly useful examples of how to manage yourself and others in order to get things accomplished:

You can only use what you have - Some levels, you wish you had a wood-smashing yellow bird, but all the game gives you are some fat, white birds. How on earth will you ever kill all the pigs with THAT??! So it is with employees and team mates – you have to find a way to get things done using what you have.

Not every resource can be applied in the same way, to the same problem, every time - Sometimes, that fat, white bird is a high-level bomber. Other times, it’s best to drop the egg and let the bird smash into the obstacles. Or that boomerang bird might be best used as a non-boomerang. You have to apply your resources to the situation at hand and remember that just because it worked over there doesn’t mean it’s going to work over here.

Challenge yourself and seek excellence - Personally, I never go on to the next level until I get 3 stars. Sure, I could move along as soon as I get the minimum 1 star and keep on playing, but there’s a lot to be said for seeking mastery in stead of only doing the least.

When you think you know what to do, taking a step back and thinking through your plan of attack is usually very worthwhile – When you can see where to hit what part of the structure, with which bird, check your aim and think through how the structure will fall – just in case. Nothing wrong with double checking your assumptions and making sure you get it right. Measure twice, cut once, so they say.

When you have no idea what to do, there is nothing worthwhile about taking a step back and thinking through your plan of attack – As much sense as it makes to double check when you are confident in your answer, it makes no sense to double check not knowing the answer. When you are completely at a loss, no amount of pondering will make you smarter. In these cases, you need to embrace the learning process and avoid looking for the immediate answer. Grip it and rip it.

Efficiency isn’t always rewarded - Yes, you can knock over the whole structure with just 3 birds. But that’s not ever going to get you 3 stars. Yes, perhaps it should, but it won’t – and that is the point. If the person judging you (a boss, or a customer) wants that which is less efficient but more spectacular – you now have to look inwards to see what you’re more willing to live with – a happy self or a happy customer. One isn’t always the same as the other.

Control is usually a far greater attribute than brute strength – Even when you have black bomber birds, if you don’t put them in the right place, they are useless. Same thing with having “Aces” and “Cracker Jacks.” If they aren’t in the right roles, at the right time and place, you’re just going to waste those resources. Maybe you can get by and earn your 1 star just to move on, but you’ll never get any farther than “just getting by.”

Brute Strength tends to work best at the beginning or at the end, but rarely in the middle of a process - Along the lines of Grip it and Rip it, taking a good first stab at something by blowing apart as much as you can is a great way to start, or a great way to finish if surgical precision doesn’t seem possible. Between the first and last efforts, however, there has to be some amount of careful and judicious effort. Otherwise, everything is just a completely random act. If that’s true, then you’re just guessing at every turn. Which a child could do. Which means no one needs you.

There’s a good deal of luck involved – When you are successful, keep in mind that not every outcome is a direct result of your efforts. Things still have to fall into place just right. Yes, you set them in motion, and the motion might have been what you intended, but there’s still some random chance involved. If you can launch the birds in exactly the same way, with exactly the same result, and the exact same score, over and over again – then…maybe…there isn’t any luck involved. Nonetheless, it’s probably best to stay humble.

Help is available - Ultimately, if you’re completely stuck, you can always go on-line and find the answers you seek. Struggle first, though, and learn as much as you can before looking up the answers.


About the Author:

David M. Kasprzak is the author and creator of the My Flexible Blog, where he shares his thoughts on improving workplace culture through the use of Lean concepts. While working as an analyst to develop and analyze program-level cost and schedule metrics for the past 12 years, David has now turned his attention towards understanding the behaviors that create high-performing organizations. In May of 2011, he received my MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing & Strategy.

Key Learnings From 2011

In our strive for continuous knowledge sometimes we fail to look back.  Reflecting on our key learnings is an important part of the learning process. My friend Marci Reynolds has done just that in a new post on her blog The Operations Blog. Marci, the Director of Operations at ACI Worldwide, surveyed 12 top operations experts across the globe and asked them to share their most impactful learning or most important piece of advice.

I was fortunate to contribute to this post with first learning:

Developing Leadership Skills Must Be Intentional “This past year I’ve learned the value of continuous learning for the development of leadership skills. Far too may business executives believe leadership skills stem from some sort of wondrous epiphany or other such flash of insight. Sure, great ideas can come to any of us, but being a bona fide leader also means study. It takes reading books and online articles on all sorts of subjects, attending workshops/seminars, and learning from others for instance to develop leadership abilities. It can be a long education, but one with rewards that multiply with the more knowledge you have under your belt.” Tim McMahon, Founder of A Lean Journey Blog

Another favorite is from our friend David Kasprzak at My Flexible Pencil Blog:

Attendance Is Not Synonymous With Performance “In 2011, I discovered the need to ask the question, “Why are we here?” in the operational sense. A tremendous amount of waste is produced from the belief that being in attendance is the same as, or necessary for, producing results. How much of this waste could be avoided if we shattered the assumption that attendance is synonymous with performance, and managers followed the principles of the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) to measure people only on results?” David M. Kasprzak, Author, My Flexible Pencil Blog: Discussing management excellence and the pursuit of work/life synthesis

And, one last one to share was from Marci herself:

Practice Process Improvement – Before Executing Process Improvement “In 2011, I learned the value of teaching and helping others practice new process management skills, as an alternative to traditional training and immediate implementation. Professional athletes practice their moves over and over again, before they actually compete. The same can easily apply to the process of learning new business skills. If we practice first, we will be much more successful when we begin to apply them. I described this in more detail in my earlier post “A focus on learning will fuel more doing”.” Marci Reynolds, Director Global Customer Operations, ACI Worldwide, The Operations Blog, @marcireynolds12

The remaining list of learnings can be viewed on Marci's Blog -  12 Operations Experts Share Their Key Learnings From 2011.

What would you say?  Share your advice and key learnings from this year in the comment section here.