Book Review Toyota Way Lean Leadership

You can’t be Lean with Lean Leadership. The tools are easy to copy but without the people and the leadership they are useless.  Understanding the people aspect of Toyota is the real challenge, until now. Jeffrey Liker and Gary Convis have made this possible with The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. The combination of Jeff’s decades of research into the practices of Toyota and Gary’s experience of learning leadership from Toyota come together in a unique way to share a model for achieving and sustaining excellence through leadership development.

Liker & Convis offer a clear explanation of Toyota's leadership development model. Basically, this model consists of 4 levels: (1) commit to self-development, (2) coach and develop others,(3) support daily kaizen, (4) create vision and align goals. They explain the importance of "True North" as overarching vision, which is central to decision making.

This book guides you through the Toyota way of developing their leaders. They unlock a new kind of leadership where the emphasis is on learning by doing, and then teaching by doing. A model starting from self development, then coaching others, keeping a clear direction, and supporting kaizen until the big changes are possible.

They tell stories about how Toyota developed American leaders.

Chapter 1 is an overview of the values that Toyota follows for all its operations and the leadership development model that it has evolved from these values.

Chapter 2 covers Gary’s development as Toyota leader in America (NUMMI).

Chapter 3 follows Gary’s move to Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK).

Chapter 4 explains how self-development of leaders and their development of others led to continuous Improvement, kaizen.

Chapter 5 reveals hoshin kanri, the process by which Toyota manages the direction of the company, aligns goals, and deals with deviation.

Chapter 6 follows Gary to Dana Corporation after retiring from Toyota where he applies the practices outlined in the preceding chapters outside of Toyota.

Chapter 7 explores the question of how other companies can learn from Toyota’s approach and seriously develop Lean leaders who can sustain and continuously improve processes to deliver the best value to customers.

Each chapter concludes with direct advice to those who wish to learn from Toyota and apply this in their organization.

It is an easy read, with concepts that challenges thinking of most contemporary businesses, and once you start thinking of the implications, it even challenges your individual contributions to the world of work. It completely turns the tables on two basic assumptions in modern business: 1) that the leader is hired because he or she already knows everything and needs to get others to execute and 2) that competence is hired in because it's the employee's personal responsibility to sharpen their skills outside the context of the company.

A great combination of factual information, stories about and from the development of actual Toyota leaders and clear diagrams, there is something here for everyone, no matter what their level of lean learning, or where they are in their lean journey.

The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership should be a must read for all leaders especially those who are serious about operational excellence and want to understand the deep and patient process that is required to develop lean leaders. This is a book I highly recommend be in your library and that you not only read it but apply the learning. We can all do better and this book can show you how.

Note:

The success of this book led Liker to offer an online course to learn the secret to Leanleadership.

When I wrote “the Toyota Way to Lean Leadership” with Gary Convis we knew that “lean leaders” would finally have a way to live the company values, become excellent at process improvement following the disciplined approach of Plan-Do-Check-Act, learn to coach others in process improvement, and lead both horizontally across the company and vertically within their area of responsibility. This allows them to achieve the challenging targets the organization needs for success.

My online course provides an overview of each step in the lean leadership development process: Self-development, Developing and Coaching Others, Supporting Daily Kaizen, and Creating a Vision and Aligned Goals. Throughout the course you will learn more deeply through exercises, case examples, quizzes. and actual projects in your workplace under the guidance of talented lean coaches (LLI Coaches).

Disclosure:

The publisher provided me a copy of The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership for review.

7 Things You Can Do Today To Have A Positive Impact In Your Workplace

Creating a positive workplace is critical to a company's success. Most people who have experience working in an office have seen firsthand the difference between one that has a positive environment and one that doesn't. A positive work environment has a better productivity rate, happier workers overall, better morale, and a lower turnover rate.

There are a number of things that can contribute to a more positive working environment.

Set the example

The example you set in the office will have a ripple effect on your employees whether positive or negative. You can make a positive impact daily by remaining in a good mood and keeping a positive, optimistic outlook at all times. Don't blame others or complain about things you don't have any control over, and don't be vocal about your gripes or annoyances. This kind of attitude and example will spread to your employees and soon create a negative atmosphere in the office.

Don't dwell on the negatives

Mistakes are inevitable. Deadlines are missed, typos are made, and plans are botched. If these things are happening on a regular basis, then it is important to call attention to the problem and fix it. However, don't dwell on mistakes. Doing so can bring down the overall motivation of the office. Instead, focus on how they can be fixed and how to prevent them in the future. It's important also, when reprimanding or pointing out something negative, to preface and end on a positive note.

Foster good communication skills

You can make a positive impact daily by taking the time to communicate with and recognize your employees. Don't rely solely on email and phone calls to conduct the majority of your business and correspondence with your employees as well as your customers where possible. Instead, drop by offices and cubicles. Face to face interaction can have a more positive, personal effect than just emails or phone calls.

Set Goals and Deadlines

The greatest keys in helping people to become self-motivated are clear goals, a sense of purpose and urgency and challenge. These elements provide a feeling of accomplishment, the "Wow I did it!" feeling. People thrive on challenge and this will drive the positive attitudes in the workplace that you want.

Promote Respectfulness

Job titles may mean that there is a certain order to control and responsibility, but that doesn't mean someone with a lesser job title is any less important. Respect each individual for what they bring to the organization. Success and positive attitudes in the workplace are created when the entire team respects the value of each position and the diversity of thinking, talents, styles and experience each person brings.

Create Team Spirit

One of our basic human needs is to feel we belong to something bigger than ourselves, and for many people that need is met by being part of a supportive work group. Encourage an attitude of cooperation rather than competition. This unity will help your team members feel valued and that they belong. As a result they will want to be at work, your team will function smoothly, and your unit will be better able to carry out the missions and goals of your organization.

Continue Learning and Trying Out New Ideas

Encourage your organization to promote the importance of learning at work as a value. A culture of learning promotes both formal and informal learning, It acknowledges that employees need opportunities to try out newly learned skills and that mastery or competence takes time. It’s possible that creating a culture of learning will reduce resistance to change, because change is an inevitable part of learning and performance improvement. A positive environment promotes learning.

These are just a few of many ways you can have a positive impact throughout your office and with your employees. Creating a positive workplace is critical to a company's success. It is important for managers to define a purpose, set clear goals, and use appropriate positive reinforcement to motivate employees. Continuing to do so will make your office a better, more productive place to work for all employees.

Lean Quote: Use PDCA to Develop People

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.

"For Toyota, PDCA is more than a way to get results from process improvement. It is a way of developing people." — Liker and Franz, The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership

Developing people means challenging people. But just issuing challenges isn’t enough. You must also teach a systematic, common means of creating solutions and meeting those challenges.

To get people across an organization to systematically work on improvement every day requires teaching the skills behind the solution. And for that to happen, their leaders and mangers also need to practice and learn those skills.

A simple, pragmatic problem solving methodology is the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) approach. It begins with a Planning phase in which the problem is clearly identified and understood. Potential solutions are then generated and tested on a small scale in the "Do" phase, and the outcome of this testing is evaluated during the Check phase. "Do" and "Check" phases can be iterated as many times as is necessary before the full, polished solution is implemented in the "Act" phase.

One of the advantages of developing and following a proper PDCA cycle is the ability to learn and acquire wisdom.  Wisdom requires that we arrange what we observe and know, and create meaning from it; it also requires that we consider what we need to unlearn as well. 

The purpose of PDCA is to generate surprises and thus opportunities for learning & progress toward the target condition. Unexpected results (surprises) lead to valuable learning experiences. When a hypothesis is refuted this is in particular when you can gain new insight that helps you learn, improve, adapt and innovate. When a result is as-predicted it confirms something you already thought.

The PDCA procedure is specified, but the path is not. Things will occur along the way that shift your thinking and cause you to revise your ideas. That’s normal. The target condition remains the same, but the path shifts as you learn.

The steps of PDCA constitute a scientific process of acquiring knowledge. The PDCA cycle model is built as a continuous loop and this loop ensures frequent iteration. This is very beneficial because this is the learning cycle that is necessary in solving problems as well as developing problem solvers and leaders alike.

 

Learn Any New Skill in 20 Hours With 4 Simple Steps

With just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice, you can go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach for acquiring new skills quickly with a small amount of practice each day. He shows how to deconstruct complex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers, creating a realistic framework for drastically cutting the time it takes to acquire any skill.

In the video above, he reveals the four steps to learning any new skill, fast.

The four steps in Kaufman's method are:

1. Deconstruct the skill: Break down the parts and find the most important things to practice first. If you were learning to play a musical instrument, for example, knowing just a few chords gives you access to tons of songs. If you want to learn a new language, learn the most common 2,000 words and you'll have 80% text coverage.
2. Self-correct: Use reference materials to learn enough that you know when you make a mistake so you can correct yourself.
3. Remove barriers to learning: Identify and remove anything that distracts you from focusing on the skill you want to learn.
4. Practice at least 20 hours.

If you are interested in learning more you can read Kaufman’s practitioner's guide to rapid skill acquisition, “The First 20 Hours, How to Learn Anything…Fast!”

Reader Question: Management Involvement In Lean

A long time reader, Dave, recently asked me for advice on leadership commitment for Lean implementation:

Can Lean be successful if you don’t have top down commitment? I currently work for a midsize manufacturer that only like to say they are Lean, when in reality they only have one division attempting. Any advice?

In my experience I have learned that the single most important element for success in Lean is the human element.   First and foremost Lean managers have the critical role of motivating and engaging all people to work together toward a common goal. Management must define and explain what that goal is, share a path to achieve it, motivate people to take the journey with them, and assist them by removing obstacles.

Lean requires top-to-bottom leadership of a special kind. Lean leaders are firm and inspiring, relentless and resilient, demanding and forgiving, focused and flexible. Above all, they have to be smart and highly respected in the organization. Every successful company has at least one of these leaders. These people must be a passionate part of the Lean leadership team.

All managers are teachers, and their actions determine company capability. Whether consciously or not, with their everyday words and actions all managers are teaching their people a mindset and approach.

The level of involvement in Lean by the management team often shapes the Lean implementation and those who may lead it. In my experience the less knowledgeable the management about REAL Lean (Bob Emiliani’s term) the more they think of it as a set of tools the more they want you to just do it. These are the managers that are usually hands-off with Lean and want to see the short term gains to demonstrate they are improving the process. They are focused on the results and outcomes and not the means by which we achieve them. This task oriented approach to management unfortunately is only sustainable while the doer is doing.

Most management teams don’t understand Lean. When we don’t understand something it is next to impossible to support it. This lack of understanding of Lean by management allows even the most subtle of things to derail Lean efforts.

However those managers who truly know Lean understand the benefit comes from developing people to think and improve their own process the more they define the role as influencing or coaching. As Mike Rother said in Toyota Kata management must focus on how solutions are developed. Develop, via practice with coaching, the capability in people to develop new solutions. In this view the Lean leader can have the biggest impact coaching or influencing the process of improvement to capture the ingenuity of those in the organization.

Commitment from management is a “MUST”. In fact, it is the driving force. Procedures, tools, and database are all useless if the management does not want to see an improvement culture in the organization. The employees of the organization will not care, if the management themselves do not show the attitude to follow the right path.

The truth is demonstrating commitment is hard work. Wavering commitment is usually seen as no commitment at all. The only way to achieve a reputation for commitment is through determination and persistence. Genuine commitment stands the test of time.

Ways you can develop a successful Lean culture and demonstrate your commitment as a leader include:

• Allocating time, money, and resources to continuous improvement
• Eliminating road blocks that prevent progress
• Providing effective training and knowledge in problem solving methodology and countermeasure tools
• Encouraging and empowering opportunities for improvement
• Valuing employees ideas and contributions
• Involving employees in decisions
• Frequent open and honest 2-way communication
• Set standards and create systems of work
• Go to the Gemba where the action is

Commitment is demonstrated by a combination of two actions. The first action is called supporting. The second action underlying commitment is called improving. It is the combination of both supporting and improving behaviors that makes up the practice of commitment. Company leaders demonstrate their commitment to change and improvement by making these behaviors visible to everyone. Leading by example is the ultimate demonstration of your commitment.

Getting executives in your company to want to support and then adopt Lean Thinking may be difficult but not impossible. We would all like to work at a company where the top people in the organization don’t just do Lean but live Lean but many of us work at a place where they don’t even necessarily do Lean. Since every company culture is different the way to get executive buy-in will be different. Here is a list of ideas to help you convince your management to start thinking Lean:

• Bring Executives to customers who are implementing Lean to benchmark and understand how to better service these customer.

• Define core guiding principles from which common ground and a common vision set the basis for improvement.

• Understand what your leaders are supposed to do not what they are doing. The improvement you make must “replace” not be “additive”.

• How to get leaders “Doing” the right things – Focus on capabilities

       o Have them concentration on what they can do, not what

          they can’t do.

                 How is your process working?

                 Where is your process broken?

                 What doesn’t work well?

                 What can you do about it?

• Survey the workforce- solve their problems.

        o What do you like? (in Company, Department, Daily Job)

        o What do you wish you could change? (in Company,

           Department, Daily Job)

• All the manager should understand they are leaders.

        o Example of engineers not thinking they are leaders.

        o Need to lead up and down the organization.

• Understand where you are in the organization.

        o You can’t change it all by yourself- teamwork.

        o Everyone’s input is valuable – listen and let them be

           heard.

• Get quick, easy wins (Someone gave example of the companies first Kanban was in the break room for sugar).

If you want to learn more about educating Executives in Lean you should read Bob Emiliani’s book Moving Forward Faster.  I recommended this book in a review a few months ago if you want to understand what REAL Lean is and how to support it or lead it in your organization.

Memorial Day is a Day of Reflection and Remembrance

Memorial Day has come to signify the start of summer for many Americans and is often celebrated with cookouts, family get-togethers, road races and concerts. But the real meaning of Memorial Day has, for too many Americans, gotten lost in holiday hoopla.

Memorial Day is a day of reflection and remembrance. It is a day to remember all of our Fallen Heroes from all of the wars. It is a day to think about the families that will forever grieve for their lost loved one. It is a day to be thankful to those who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice. They fought and died to win the freedom and democracy that we Americans cherish so dearly. They also fought and died to bring that same freedom and democracy to the people of other countries as well.

The true meaning is to remember and honor veterans of all wars and peacetime service who paid the ultimate price to keep America free. They will long be remembered in our hearts

This Memorial Day, enjoy burgers and hot dogs with loved ones, but take a moment to remember those who can’t do the same. Remember those families who will have an empty seat at their table and the men and women who used to occupy it.

Take a moment this Memorial Day to remember all those men and women who have so bravely and honorably served this country. The courage and sacrifice of all who died in military service will not be forgotten.

We can't say enough for your kind deeds and dedication. God bless you and God bless America.

Lean Quote: Stay Motivated, Celebrate Accomplishments Along the Journey

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.

"Accomplishments will prove to be a journey, not a destination." — Dwight D. Eisenhower

If you want to reach your goal it is important to look at your accomplishments along the way. Most goals have challenges that need to be overcome to be successful. Each hurdle that you overcome gets you one step closer to your goal. Ongoing data analysis and regular celebration of achievement are essential components of the continuous-improvement model. Recognition of successes and refocusing of goals lay the path for moving forward.

If big picture success seems too lofty of a goal, focus on what you can achieve each day. Take time to recall what you accomplished and contributed to the success of the goal. Keep focused on that ultimate goal and you will get there with help along the way.

Instead of waiting to celebrate the final achievement of your objectives, seek small ways to celebrate each little victory. Rewards remind you that you are coming along and achieving your goal. These small rewards will spur you on to more action that will ultimately lead you to the doorstep of the destiny you deserve. Overcoming the challenges in front of you will create a sense of pride and joy in your accomplishments.

Stay motivated and reach your goals by celebrating small achievements along the way and remember to enjoy the process along the journey!