Gemba Walks: Go See, Ask Why, Show Respect, and Follow Up

My friend and blogger Tom Southworth recently delivered a short presentation on Gemba Walks.  Tom presented this lesson as part of CONNSTEP's "10 Minutes: 5 New Ideas" series.

In just 10 minutes, learn the vital steps needed to ensure your gemba walk is a successful one. You'll learn the reasons why this is a necessary function and what you should be looking for when visiting the real or actual place.

The purpose of Gemba walks is to fully understand the current state with facts.

The word 'gemba' is a Japanese word that means the real or actual place. The purpose of walking the 'actual place' or 'gemba' is help identify problems, non-value added activities, or wastes through a deliberate observation of a particular area or process. 

Gemba walks are not to be confused with management by walking around (MBWA). It is really the check in our PDCA methodology of continuous improvement.

All too often, attempts are made to solve problems without knowing anything about or are not being familiar with a particular area or process -- resulting in a misdiagnosis or failed solution. Answers come from the floor, from the 'gemba,' where the condition occurs. You need to go to the real place and experience these conditions for yourself before being able to take the next steps.

Tom says Gemba Walks can be summarized by:

• Go to the actual place.
• Get the facts about the actual thing or activity.
• Grasp the entire situation.
• Generate reasons that explain what is happening.
• Guide corrective actions or countermeasures.

Remember to Go See, Ask Why, Show Respect, and Follow Up.

Three Styles of Communicating and Meetings

Communication is essential for effective functioning in every part of an organization. Although marketing, production, finance, personnel, and maintenance departments may receive direction from corporate goals and objectives, communication links them together and facilitates organizational success.  Meetings are a common means of communicating in organizations.


Although the reasons people meet are varied, meetings generally fall into three types:

• Information-giving meetings are used to disseminate information.
• Information-sharing meetings are called in order to exchange ideas.
• Information-creating meetings are generally used for planning and problem solving.

The three basic types of meetings can be related to three basic styles of communicating:


Bull's-eye style
The bull's-eye style is essentially an information-giving approach.  The sender of the information is concerned with delivering a specific message. If the message hits the intended mark, the sender is satisfied.  The sender is not especially concerned with obtaining feedback from listeners or readers; he or she is concerned only with conveying a message.


Ping-pong style
A communicator who uses the ping-pong style is concerned with the questions or responses the receiver may have. The communicator has a message to deliver, but the success of that delivery is at least partially dependent on the understanding of the listener or reader.  Too, the message may be further shaped or defined by the responses the recipient provides.  This style of communicating is often used in information-sharing meetings.


Spiral style
The spiral style does not represent a complete communication transaction.  Rather, the communicator sends a message and engages the recipients in an ongoing consideration of the message and its numerous implications. The sender of the message considers nuances, which may be as important as the original thought.  Spiraling means reading between the lines and provoking new ideas related to the initial communication prompt, which is continuously being reshaped.  The spiral style is common to information-creating meetings.


In today's business environment, finding better ways for people to communicate will propel organizations forward. Strong minds fuel strong organizations. Meetings planners have an obligation to their stakeholders (meeting organizers and the participants) to plan meetings that appeal to all
learning styles.

Quality Can be a Thankless Job But It Doesn't Have to Be

In ASQ’s post this month from Paul Borawski, he asks if quality professionals are happy at their job. You might be wondering why this question is necessary but that is because quality professionals sometimes have a thankless job.

Quality professionals are expected to possess in-depth knowledge on a variety of both complex quality issues and general business skills. In addition, although they are often the first to receive complaints when products fail, they seldom get praise when everything goes according to plan.

Actually, it is a very rewarding job, for several reasons. Firstly, you know that you are helping to make the product a better experience for the customer, which gives you sense of accomplishment. Secondly, it is rewarding to help drive out waste and rework through continuous improvement. Thirdly, being a catalyst for change and a voice in the formation of the culture is meaningful work. Lastly, when you make a difference in employees and customers lives it is hard not to feel pride in your job.

Quality assurance is all about character, courage, activism and passion representing the moral qualities, ethical standards and principles to fight for quality. Managers, supervisors, and leads all have to be strong leaders, versed in communication, they have to be able to sell quality each and every day; carry the message of quality to the masses. Quality professionals must be able to challenge the current norms and take on executives that balk at change. Those in quality understand the need and role of quality in the organization yet the further you are from the customer the more likely this understanding is lost.

The job of a quality professional is not easy. You have to want to make a difference because there are those who will put up a fight. Quality assurance can be a thankless job, if everything goes right, the project managers get the credit, if something goes wrong, quality management gets the blame, after all they touched it last. The purpose of quality systems in an organization is to increase internally, the quality of the people, process and products and externally the quality of the consumers experience for the products and services provided by your company.

Personally, I have found the change from a direct Lean leadership role to quality management a challenging one but a rewarding one. The opportunity to make a difference is the same but the connection to the customer is more direct. Like anything in life it is what you make of it. I choose to make a positive meaningful difference and this brings joy and reward to the work that has to be done.


I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive an honorarium from ASQ for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.

Lean Quote: Leadership is About Farming Not Hunting

On Fridays 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.

"Networking is not about hunting. It is about farming. It’s about cultivating relationships." — Dr. Ivan Misner, NY bestselling author & founder of BNI

This is true of leadership as well. The best analogy of a Lean leader that I have heard is related to this quote. A Lean leader is a farmer not a hunter. Farmers take the long view, and win in the long term. Hunters take the short view, get early gains but ultimately die out. Farmers are shepherds.

The Lean leadership role has many names. Whether you call them a sensei, champion, coach, or leader; the role is no less critical for the organization to be successful. I am not one that pays much attention to titles. A Lean leader is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a team or of individual.

The following characteristics are desirable for a good Lean leader:

• Active-learner open to new ideas
• Natural problem-solving skills
• Basics technical skills (comfortable with spreadsheets, graphs, data, etc.)
• Keen Observer
• Hands-on
• Passionate about improving processes
• Leadership skills
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Excellent communicator (writing & speaking)
• Systems thinkers (able to understand process flows, etc.)

These characteristics alone don't make a Lean leader. The Lean leader must have technical knowledge in the lean tools and tacit knowledge from experience. Nobody is born knowing these principles and how to implement them. Everyone has to learn them through practice, trial and error, and coaching. Success is not based on who you are but rather on what you do. Behaviors can be learned and unlearned.

Priorities Matter When Changing Culture

Many change cultures fail to achieve results simply because they try to do everything at once. A “can do” culture makes progress one step at a time and develops the ability to prioritize the order of these steps. Strategic priorities position the organization to achieve its goals. Only a few priorities should be central to all areas of the organization.

When your organization is undergoing change, consider altering its priorities. Changing priorities is a significant change, but it does not tamper with the personality or character of the organization, as long as any new priorities are aligned with its purpose and the philosophy.

Prioritizing is not an easy task. There seldom is an absolute right or wrong decision, but rather several options with advantages and disadvantages. Like many soft skills, it can be taught or grown through champions within the culture who have the training or natural abilities.

The ability to prioritize enables the ability to focus, but they are not completely identical. Once the priority is set, every member of the culture needs to be informed and directed toward the specific goal to achieve the focus necessary for meaningful improvement. Again, working on too much at once is the enemy of focus. The elephant must be divided into bite-sized pieces and everyone needs to be focused on the same bite at the same time.

From the individual perspective, focus is about concentrating attention. From an organizational perspective, focus is about centralizing the attention of the group through communication and collective problem solving. These abilities can be taught, but they often are more a matter of learning by doing rather than of formal education or training.

Strategic priorities are the values that guide how the purpose and the philosophy of the organization are put into practice. Priorities matter especially when changing the culture.

A Healthy Lean Road is Paved with Exercise

Lean is a journey that never ends. There will always be a gap between where you are (current state) and where you would like to be (True North). Since there will always be a gap, there will always be an opportunity to improve. Walking the path on a Lean journey can be an overwhelming experience.

A Lean journey is full of steps not all of which are forward. Failure will occur. Its ok, the purpose is learning, and we learn through experimentation. Trying new approaches, exploring new methods and testing new ideas for improving the various processes is exercise for the mind.

Lean grew out of years of practice and experimentation at Toyota. No matter how much better they are than their competition, they continue to find more and more opportunities to improve each and every year. Lean involves the creation and implementation of continuous experiments to improve your strategies over time. This means experimenting with every process every day to get it right. We learn problem solving through hands-on improvement experiments. In Toyota and in lean thinking, the idea is to repeat cycles of improvement experiments forever.

So leaders must create a culture that puts failure in its proper place: a useful tool for learning, and a natural part of iterative experimentation. Management must avoid the temptation to harshly judge unsuccessful ideas. A leader who allows for experimentation sends a clear signal that personnel are encouraged to find better methods and products.

Organizations embarking on a Lean journey should follow a disciplined process of systematic exploration and controlled experimentation. Kaizen is the process which determines whether processes resulted in improvements. It refers to an on-going activity by all people (including managers) to relentlessly and incrementally change and improve practices in small experiments.

The road to continual improvement is a rocky one with many ups and downs. Value the incremental improvement approach to continuous improvement. Through simple, common-sense, and low cost experimentation a great deal of process improvements can be made. Experimentation is the exercise of a healthy Lean journey. Understanding this allows one the opportunity to begin the journey.

New Sponsor: OpenCollege - E-learning Content Library

I am pleased to announce a new sponsor from OpenCollege on A Lean Journey Blog. OpenCollege e-Learning Content Library is the ultimate resource for the Internet-based education of the future. It provides online course developers, teachers, and students with access to more than 700 interactive learning models covering the following subjects: Biology, Chemistry, Algebra, Calculus, Geometry, Astronomy, Physics, Economics, and many more.

OpenCollege was launched in 1993, when OpenTeach Software  joined efforts with faculty members of several European universities to create an interactive educational system. Today, OpenCollege is a comprehensive online library with a convenient Web-based interface and a full capacity to support online learning.

So if you are looking for a resource to supplement your learning in these areas then I would try OpenCollege. Refer to their catalog for a complete listing of all the content in the library.