On Friday’s I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.
Feel free to share some of your favorites here as well.
"Trying to change people's habits and their way of thinking is like writing in the snow during a blizzard. Every 20 minutes you have to start all over again. Only through constant repetition are you able to create change "
- Donald L. Dewar (author of A Serious Anomaly: Quality Circles without TQC)
Check out this post on coping with resistance to change to learn about the common reasons people resist change and how you can overcome those conditions.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Respect for People One Cup at a Time
This is a guest post by Rebecca Kane Dow, Marketing and Communications Manager for CONNSTEP. CONNSTEP is Connecticut's NIST/MEP affiliate, helping Connecticut's small and midsize manufacturers compete and grow through highly personalized services tailored to the specific needs of companies. Rebecca is also the voice behind @CONNSTEP on twitter.
I visit Dunkin Donuts far more than I should. With the ease of a drive-thru at most every location and one directly across the street from my office, the convenience of getting a quick coffee is often too hard to resist… or so I had thought.
During one visit in late November, I became incredibly frustrated by having to repeat my order three times at the microphone and then again when I got to the drive through window only to realize, when I got to my office, that my coffee had no cream and all sugar, and my bagel had cream cheese, not peanut butter - exactly the opposite of what I requested. But the real disappointment lie in that, at no time, during that whole transaction, did I get a simple “thank you.”
So, for the next few days, I waited. After the transaction was completed and there was no “thank you,” I waited, and when the employee annoyingly asked, “what?” I simply said, “you’re welcome.” This exercise got me a few annoyed, “thanks” or for the most part absolutely nothing.
I called and spoke with three store managers – nothing changed – and after reading about how Comcast and Dell use Twitter for customer service, I developed the “12 Days of Dunkin Donuts” campaign (as it was the holiday season). Each day, I would use my allotted 140 characters to share my experiences – good or bad (mostly bad) - to illustrate how unvalued I felt as a customer with the hopes of getting corporate attention, and by day three, I got a direct message from the voice of corporate Dunkin Donuts. We chatted, I got a lovely gift of coffee and a travel mug for my time and follow-up calls from the managers of the stores that I specifically highlighted.
Sadly, though, poor customer service seems endemic regardless of franchise, so I continue on with my campaign to highlight the poor customer service culture at the largest coffee chain in America. But what does this have to do with Lean?
The two basic tenets of the Toyota Production System, the genesis of Lean, are “Just-In-Time” and “Respect for People” and they are equal in importance.
During the times I have been inside a Dunkin Donuts, I’ve noticed the successful implementation of some Lean principles including single piece flow, kanban, point of use storage, FIFO and takt time, however, I believe it is the intense focus on takt time or, as they call it, the “customer wait time,” that is partially to blame for the degradiation of customer service. And witnessing how managers treat employees and employees treat each other, the root cause of poor customer service is glaringly obvious - if you don’t work in an environment where there is “respect for people,” then how can you pass respect on to the customer? Dunkin Donuts is out of balance.
DD’s biggest competitor, Starbucks, provides health insurance, benefits and a higher paywage to their employees and the culture of customer service is evident throughout your visit - from the greeting when you first arrive in the store through to the appreciation from the barista when you receive your coffee. Granted their coffee is more expensive, but I feel valued – and that value is worth paying for.
Every customer has choices today – from the customer who buys coffee to the customer who buys actuators or circuit boards or fuel systems – and in this commoditized market, how do you differentiate your company from that low-cost supplier?
Respect and value your employees, they will in turn respect and value your customers.
And don’t forget to say thank you.
If you enjoy this post and want to continue learning you can subscribe to A Lean Journey, join the discussion on LinkedIn, and follow me on Twitter with links on the right hand side of this page.
I visit Dunkin Donuts far more than I should. With the ease of a drive-thru at most every location and one directly across the street from my office, the convenience of getting a quick coffee is often too hard to resist… or so I had thought.
During one visit in late November, I became incredibly frustrated by having to repeat my order three times at the microphone and then again when I got to the drive through window only to realize, when I got to my office, that my coffee had no cream and all sugar, and my bagel had cream cheese, not peanut butter - exactly the opposite of what I requested. But the real disappointment lie in that, at no time, during that whole transaction, did I get a simple “thank you.”
So, for the next few days, I waited. After the transaction was completed and there was no “thank you,” I waited, and when the employee annoyingly asked, “what?” I simply said, “you’re welcome.” This exercise got me a few annoyed, “thanks” or for the most part absolutely nothing.
I called and spoke with three store managers – nothing changed – and after reading about how Comcast and Dell use Twitter for customer service, I developed the “12 Days of Dunkin Donuts” campaign (as it was the holiday season). Each day, I would use my allotted 140 characters to share my experiences – good or bad (mostly bad) - to illustrate how unvalued I felt as a customer with the hopes of getting corporate attention, and by day three, I got a direct message from the voice of corporate Dunkin Donuts. We chatted, I got a lovely gift of coffee and a travel mug for my time and follow-up calls from the managers of the stores that I specifically highlighted.
Sadly, though, poor customer service seems endemic regardless of franchise, so I continue on with my campaign to highlight the poor customer service culture at the largest coffee chain in America. But what does this have to do with Lean?
The two basic tenets of the Toyota Production System, the genesis of Lean, are “Just-In-Time” and “Respect for People” and they are equal in importance.
During the times I have been inside a Dunkin Donuts, I’ve noticed the successful implementation of some Lean principles including single piece flow, kanban, point of use storage, FIFO and takt time, however, I believe it is the intense focus on takt time or, as they call it, the “customer wait time,” that is partially to blame for the degradiation of customer service. And witnessing how managers treat employees and employees treat each other, the root cause of poor customer service is glaringly obvious - if you don’t work in an environment where there is “respect for people,” then how can you pass respect on to the customer? Dunkin Donuts is out of balance.
DD’s biggest competitor, Starbucks, provides health insurance, benefits and a higher paywage to their employees and the culture of customer service is evident throughout your visit - from the greeting when you first arrive in the store through to the appreciation from the barista when you receive your coffee. Granted their coffee is more expensive, but I feel valued – and that value is worth paying for.
Every customer has choices today – from the customer who buys coffee to the customer who buys actuators or circuit boards or fuel systems – and in this commoditized market, how do you differentiate your company from that low-cost supplier?
Respect and value your employees, they will in turn respect and value your customers.
And don’t forget to say thank you.
If you enjoy this post and want to continue learning you can subscribe to A Lean Journey, join the discussion on LinkedIn, and follow me on Twitter with links on the right hand side of this page.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Lean Quote of the Day - January 15, 2010
On Friday’s I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.
Feel free to share some of your favorites here as well.
"Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day." - Frances Hesselbein - The Key to Cultural Transformation, Leader to Leader (Spring 1999)
Follow these ten factors for making culture change stick in your organization.
If you enjoy this post and want to continue learning you can subscribe to A Lean Journey, join the discussion on LinkedIn, and follow me on Twitter with links on the right hand side of this page.
Feel free to share some of your favorites here as well.
"Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day." - Frances Hesselbein - The Key to Cultural Transformation, Leader to Leader (Spring 1999)
Follow these ten factors for making culture change stick in your organization.
If you enjoy this post and want to continue learning you can subscribe to A Lean Journey, join the discussion on LinkedIn, and follow me on Twitter with links on the right hand side of this page.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
New 5S DVD To Get You Focused on Eliminating Waste
This is a guest post by Jeff Hofstetter, the President of Xtreme Lean Consulting. I previously wrote about Jeff and his company in this post on Xtreme Lean's 5S Quiz and Learning Videos.
5S is a powerful improvement process that gets impressive results. It is an essential part of Lean manufacturing because it focuses heavily on the elimination of waste. This is also a great place to begin a Lean program for any business.
The main challenge of implementing 5S is developing a shopfloor understanding of its key points and tools. It is important for all employees to have a good working knowledge of 5S before you begin, and this new DVD uses easy to understand graphics and animations which clarify what 5S is, how it works, the numerous benefits, and how 5S can be implemented at your business.
This DVD will make it easy for your entire workforce to comprehend all of the principles of 5S with examples of Sort, Set-in-order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain being explained in detail, and how they can be applied at your business.
5S will help your business eliminate much of the waste found in almost all manufacturing processes. When you implement 5S and become Lean you will realize all of the benefits 5S has to offer your business. You can purchase the full version of this DVD by visiting this website, and then you too will be on your journey to a leaner more competitive business.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Coaching for Safe Behavior
Note: Coaching is founded on Dr. E. Scott Geller's Coaching philosophy, the second principle of his ground breaking People-Based Patient Safety® paradigm.
Coaching is basically a process of one-on-one observation and feedback. Coaching can be applied to safety by systematically observing the behaviors of another person and offering constructive feedback to reduce the occurrence of any at-risk behaviors. The letters of COACH represent five fundamental steps of safety coaching: Care, Observe, Analyze, Communication, and Help.
Care…Show you actively care about each other's safety and health. Looking out for each other is the right thing to do. Do on to others and you want done onto you.
Observe…Take a few minutes every day to observe people working and their behaviors. When observing, remember you are not looking for just risky actions, but also for safe behaviors to support or encourage.
Analyze…Think about why your co-worker might be doing what they're doing. Use the ABC Model to help figure out why:
A = Activator
B = Behavior
C = Consequences
An Activator directs a Behavior which leads to a Consequence that either encourages or discourages us to perform the behavior.
Figuring out why safe or risky behaviors happen helps you know what motivates safe behaviors and what causes risky ones.
Communicate…In order to be a good coach, you need to communicate behavior based feedback in a helpful, non-threatening way. When you communicate: you want to teach, and you want the message to be heard.
Help…There are many ways to help people be safer and incident free. One way to help is to educate and teach; another way to help is to offer assistance. You and your co-workers must rely on each other to choose safe actions or behaviors. Helping everyone to act safely requires a team effort.
When people sense you truly care about them, and you want to listen to what they have to say, you make them feel valued. Then they will be much more willing to accept your input.
If you do all these things, you will be a great COACH. When everyone in a workplace is a coach, the whole team wins.
This coaching process is clearly relevant for improving behaviors in areas other than safety and in settings other than the workplace.
If you enjoy this post and want to continue learning you can subscribe to A Lean Journey, join the discussion on LinkedIn, and follow me on Twitter with links on the right hand side of this page.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Quote of the Day January 8, 2010
On Friday’s I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.
Feel free to share some of your favorites here as well.
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. " - Albert Einstein
Learn how making failure acceptable is an important factor when changing the culture to support continuous improvement.
Feel free to share some of your favorites here as well.
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. " - Albert Einstein
Learn how making failure acceptable is an important factor when changing the culture to support continuous improvement.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
American Innovation Challenging Business Once Dominated By France
John Stossel does a series called "What is Good about America?" where he highlights American greatness. In the most recent story John talks about the improvements US Wine Manufacturers have made in recent years. This has resulted in the US wining in a recent blind taste test against the prominent French wines.
So what does this have to do with Lean? Well the key to the wine manufacturers success is at the heart of Lean Thinking.
Some of the key phrases from the video include:
Experiment & learn something
Try something new - Innovate
Micro-management stiffles innovation
Too many rules are restrictive
New technology feeds new innovation
As you watch the video US Wine Industry Gaining Ground look for these key Lean concepts.
What wasn't mentioned in the video but had to be done was meeting the customers expectations. The US manufacturers developed wines that the market needed and wanted resulting in profits from repeated business.
As the wine industry demonstrated in this video your business can do the same thing. Think Lean. Experiment, learn, try again, break down walls, empower people, and innovate products and services customers want.
I hope you enjoy this since I think it is always nice to reflect on a good story of American ingenuity.
So what does this have to do with Lean? Well the key to the wine manufacturers success is at the heart of Lean Thinking.
Some of the key phrases from the video include:
Experiment & learn something
Try something new - Innovate
Micro-management stiffles innovation
Too many rules are restrictive
New technology feeds new innovation
As you watch the video US Wine Industry Gaining Ground look for these key Lean concepts.
What wasn't mentioned in the video but had to be done was meeting the customers expectations. The US manufacturers developed wines that the market needed and wanted resulting in profits from repeated business.
As the wine industry demonstrated in this video your business can do the same thing. Think Lean. Experiment, learn, try again, break down walls, empower people, and innovate products and services customers want.
I hope you enjoy this since I think it is always nice to reflect on a good story of American ingenuity.
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