Want to Increase Productivity at Your Plant? Read This

In my last post on Respect for People, I talked about the myth of Sisyphus and respect for people. In today’s post I will talk about Dan Ariely’s study and what he says about ways to increase productivity.

What makes you tick? What would cause you to give your best? Dan Ariely, a professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, conducted a study in which he set out to understand how perceived meaning of a job impacted productivity. There were two study groups used for this study. Both groups consisted of 20 students from Harvard. The two groups were asked to build Bionicle Lego models and were offered pay for their work. The only condition was that the payment was made on a declining scale. The first model got $2.00. From then on each subsequent model was paid 11 cents less. This is a linear scale, and thus at the 19^th model, the student would get paid 2 cents. From that point onwards, each model was paid 2 cents each. The intent of the study was to identify at what point is the student going to decline the payment and stop building.

The payment scale was the same for both groups. Group 1 was called “Meaningful”, and group 2 was called “Sisyphus”, after the myth of Sisyphus. The difference between the two groups was that for the second group, they were given only two Lego models. As they were working on one model, the other model that was already built was torn down in front of them by the experimenter. Thus, the study replicated the idea of the futile effort similar to Sisyphus. Sisyphus, a Greek mythological character was made to roll a rock up a hill. The rock would then roll down, and Sisyphus would have to then roll it up again. He was punished by having to repeat this for eternity. His story is the epitome of non-value added work. The students in Group 2 were made to feel like Sisyphus because the model they just built was being torn down in front of their eyes, and they had to build it up again.

Both groups had the same labor content, and the goal of the study was to find who was more productive. The productivity was measured by the amount of Lego Bionicle models they built. The results of the study showed that Group 1 (Meaningful) made 10.6 models on average, netting an average $14.40 earnings. Group 2 (Sisyphus) made only 7.2 models on average, netting an average $11.52 earnings. The experimenters argue that the subjects in the Sisyphus condition became disenchanted with their work and this impacted their productivity. In their words;

The background question, “Why am I doing this?”, is difficult to evade if an individual is in a situation where one’s work is repeatedly undone.

Respect for people & Continuous Improvement:

You feel good if you know what you are doing at work is meaningful. If the work is not meaningful, then you would soon feel burned out. Do you come later than usual to work? Do you leave earlier and earlier from work? Dan Ariely says that this could be an indication of you feeling that what you do at work is not adding any value. This is the spirit of Respect for People. Respect for People is creating an environment where your work is fully value added. Removing the elements of non-value added work is the spirit of Continuous Improvement. Thus, in my eyes, Continuous Improvement and Respect for People go hand in hand. This is the Toyota Way. I view Toyota Way as a synergy of Respect for People – creating an environment of value added work and Continuous Improvement – ensuring non-value added elements are eliminated.

Final words:

Dan Ariely’s study can be summarized in one sentence:

Create/increase the value of the job to increase productivity.

Aside from eliminating non-value added steps, train your employees on how the product is actually used in the field. I have seen organizations bring in end users to talk to the employees on the floor. Having a sense of purpose increases the value of the day to day monotonous work.

I will finish off with a story I read about perceived value.

His Holiness, the Pope is making a tour of the United States and of course has a very busy schedule that he’s trying his best to stick to. Unfortunately, things run a bit long at one stop and he has to make up time any way he can if he’s to be on time for the next gathering. So he dismisses the rest of the entourage and takes off in his Pope-mobile with just his driver.

They’re making good time on the back roads, but His Holiness is still worried they’re going to be late. He tells his driver to floor it, but the fella refuses to push it any further. After all, he had heard the police in those parts were tough on speeders and didn’t want to find out first-hand.

This angers His Holiness and he orders the driver to pull over. The Pope insists on doing the driving himself for he says no one will toss the Pope in jail. They take off in a cloud of dust, His Holiness at the wheel, his driver cowering in the back seat.

Not too much later, a State Trooper pulls them over. The young man strides up to the car all businesslike and mean. This lasts right up until he sees who’s driving. His face pasty-white, he heads back to his car to radio in for some advice.

“Uh, let me talk to the Chief … Hello, sir. Sorry to trouble you, but I have a bit of a problem. Just pulled over a speeder and it turns out he’s someone quite important. How should I handle this?”

“Depends on who you got, son. Let me guess, it’s the Mayor, right?”

“Uh, no sir, not the Mayor.”

“Bigger than that, eh? Not the Senator again!”

“Uh, no sir, wasn’t the Senator. Someone a lot more important.”

“Well, who you got, son? The President?”

“I don’t rightly know, sir. But whoever he is, he must be damned important because the Pope is his driver.”

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Ten Things I Learned from The Walking Dead.

The Myth of Sisyphus and Respect for People:

Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra in Greek mythology. The Gods punished him for tricking them. His punishment was to push a boulder to the top of the hill, upon which the boulder would then roll down the hill to the starting point. He had to push the boulder back up again, and the boulder would again roll down. This continued for eternity. Sisyphus was engaged in an endless task of futile effort. Do you feel like Sisyphus at work? What Sisyphus is trying to do is to push the boulder to the top of the hill. There is no value in this. What he is accomplishing is heavy labor and no progress. Sisyphus is a perfect metaphor for non-valued added work.

The myth of Sisyphus is closely related to respect for people. Sisyphus is engaged in a 100% non-value added activity. No matter how much kaizen he does, his activity would still remain 100% non-value added. Perhaps, he can come up with a cart with wheels to improve his work; still what he is doing ultimately does not add any value. He is going through a punishment. Is this comparable to an operator spending 10 minutes to an hour looking for tools or making parts that are poor quality such that they have to be reworked immediately?

Labor Density – Toyota:

Taiichi Ohno, the father of Toyota Production System has stated the following about work and motion;

Moving about quite a bit does not mean working. To work means to let the process move forward and to complete a job. In work there is very little waste and only high efficiency. Managers and foremen must endeavor to transform mere motion into work!

Here, work indicates value added activity. Ohno talks about ugoki, which in Japanese means wasted motion and tenuki, which in Japanese means an act of omission. Ugoki is when an operator is merely moving material from one location to the other. Tenuki is when an operator is carelessly performing an operation such as tightening a bolt half way. Hataraki, on the other hand in English can be translated as value added work.

Toyota describes Labor Density as follows;

   Work/Motion = Labor Density

The goal is to increase the Labor Density as much as possible. There are two ways this can be done. The first way is to increase the numerator (Work) by making the operators work harder. One way of increasing the numerator is when the work load is increased without improving the process itself. The second way, prescribed by Ohno, is to reduce the denominator (Motion) by eliminating waste.

The Counterintuitive Nature of Respect for People and TPS:

Employees at an organization give their valuable time and energy to the organization. Sometimes, it may be perceived that TPS is about getting the maximum benefit out of the employees. This is against respecting them, as taught by TPS. However, TPS is not all about numbers. Toyota’s goal has always been to reduce the overall man hours required by eliminating wasted motions. This concept eliminates those actions that do not produce profit and do not let the process to move forward. This concept utilizes the energy of the employees to effective and useful work. This is stated in an internal Toyota document from 1970’s as an expression for respect for humanity (or respect for people as it is termed now):

If the organization does not create an environment where the work performed by the employee is not value added, it is against the principle of respect for humanity.

The following is taken from Toyota no Genba Kanri,(the title of English translation was changed as Kanban – Just in Time at Toyota);

People’s sense of value cannot be satisfied unless they know they are doing something worthwhile.

Source: The first book Toyota Production System, Ministry of Education 1973.

Respect for People is not about making the employees work harder, but increasing the value in what they do. Another way that Ohno talked about this was by introducing the idea of “work floating” and “work flowing”. The process can only progress when things flow. This is the concept of “work flowing”. Everything is connected, and work is pulled by the subsequent operation. However, when material is transported from one operation to another in batches, work is not flowing. It is now “floating”! Ohno called the different stations as remote islands.

Final Words:

Respect for people’s impact on productivity is also backed up by science. Dan Ariely, a professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, has shown that making work meaningful increases productivity. More on this in a later post.

The Engineer in me tells me that with time, Sisyphus would have cut through the hill due to the constant rolling of the boulder. The boulder would turn into a small pebble from the constant rolling as well. Thus, maybe the moral of the story is to be persistent at what you do, and in the end you will succeed. There is also another explanation that the story is about the sun rising and setting. The sun is the boulder that gets pushed at the break of dawn, and reaches the top at noon time, and then rolls down to cause the night.

I will finish this post with a story I heard as a kid. Strangely enough, there is a character in Kerala’s mythology that is similar to Sisyphus. Kerala is a state in India, and I hail from there. The character of the story is called Naranathu Branthan, the madman of Naranathu. He is regarded as a very wise man today, but was seen by others as a madman in those days. One of his characteristics was that he had elephantiasis (a deformation caused by disease where the leg is swollen up) on his left leg. He used to roll a boulder up a hill every day, and then would let it roll down for his own enjoyment. He would clap his hands and laugh with glee as he watched the rock roll down. Unlike Sisyphus, the madman of Naranathu did it just for pure enjoyment. One day he met Kali, an Indian goddess, as he was retiring for the night. Kali was impressed by the madman and told him that she will give him a boon (blessing).

“I do not want any boons”, the madman said.

Kali informed him that she has to give a boon or a curse, and she insisted that he take a boon.

“I want to increase my life time by a second”, the madman replied.

Kali told him that she could not do that.

“Then I want to decrease my life time by a second”, the madman said.

Kali told him she could not do that either.

The madman thought for a while and asked Kali to move the elephantiasis from his left leg to the right leg. Kali complied, and the madman lived with elephantiasis on his right leg from that day onwards.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Stop Asking Why!

Chewbacca, Poka-Yoke and Respect for People:

One of key concepts in Toyota Production System with respect to Quality (other than Jidoka/Autonomation) is Poka-Yoke (ポカヨケ), or Error Proofing. “Yokeru” in Japanese means “to avoid”. “Poka” means “error” or “blunder”. The story behind Poka-Yoke has an underlying theme of respect for people.

Baka to Poka:

The concept of Poka-Yoke was made famous by Shigeo Shingo, perhaps one of the best Industrial Engineers. He coined it as “Baka-Yoke”. “Baka” in Japanese means “idiot” or “fool”. Thus, Baka-Yoke means “fool proof”.

Around 1963, Arakawa Auto Body adopted a fool proofing device as part of a Baka-Yoke program. This device prevented seat parts from being spot welded backwards. The story goes that one of the part–time workers started crying when the supervisor explained about the fool-proofing device because the workers were sometimes mixing up left and right handed parts.

“Have I really been such a fool”, she asked. She ended up staying home that day. The supervisor had to go to her home to convince her to come back by explaining that she is not a fool. The device was being used because anybody can make inadvertent mistakes.

Shingo was told this story, and after some thought he changed the name to “Poka-Yoke”. Thus choosing a term that communicates more respect for the worker.

Poka-Yoke and Respect for People (RFP):

The story above shows that Shingo was being respectful and the new name of Poka-Yoke is certainly more meaningful since it does not put any blame on the employee. I have heard this story being used to explain Respect for People. But more than the story, I feel that the concept of Poka-Yoke is a part of Respect for People. You may have heard that things go wrong sometimes, especially when the operator is doing a highly repetitive activity. The big red book of Poka-Yoke by Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun states the following;

The idea behind Poka-Yoke is to respect the intelligence of the workers. By taking over repetitive tasks or actions that depend on vigilance or memory, Poka-Yoke can free a worker’s time and mind to pursue more creative and value-adding activities.

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Respect for People:

The more I read about TPS and Respect for People, I am coming to view Respect for People as Extrinsic and Intrinsic RFPs.

The Extrinsic RFP is superficial in nature. This is the basic respect you give to your fellow human beings. This is you being nice to people, the basic manners!

The Intrinsic RFP is the meat and potatoes or the true essence of Respect for People. As a leader in your organization you ensure that the work performed by an employee is value added. As the leader of your organization, it should be your job to develop your employees and ensure that they remain valuable assets. Toyota says that they believe in making people before making cars. Respect for people means that the organization is providing an environment where the employees are doing only value added activities.

How does one increase the worth of an employee? You can increase their worth by developing the employee to understand the value in his work. You can increase the worth by training him to look for gaps between the ideal state and current state. By understanding this gap, you can further develop him to take countermeasures and corrective actions to move closer to the ideal state. Ideally, the employee would now be able to train the employees underneath him. The employee is now at a stage to be making decisions and implementing the improvements on his own. In other words, he is empowered.

You might wonder whether Respect for People is value added. The traditional notion of value added activity is that the activity is something that the customer is willing to pay for. My view is that by creating the equation making things is making people, Toyota has transformed people development as a value added activity.

Chewbacca’s Connection to Baka:

I came across an article that suggested that maybe George Lucas created the name Chewbacca from the Japanese phrase “Chū baka” which means “Medium Stupid/Fool” or “Average Idiot”. There is of course no conclusive evidence for this. George has admitted that he was influenced by Japanese culture and movies while making Star Wars. I thought this was a nice story with relation to Poka-Yoke and Respect for People. Let Chewbacca remind you the need for Poka-Yoke as opposed to Baka-Yoke, and Respect for People.

Always keep on learning…

Image Credit – Sir Chewbacca (mcfeezy )

In case you missed it, my last post was “Would Ohno Change the term ‘Lean’”.

Respect for Humanity (An early theme in Toyota Production System):

This post is mainly about Respect for People in Toyota Production System, to show that this idea has been an integral part of Toyota Production System from the early days on.

“Toyota Production System – The foundation is respect for human rights”.

This is a quotation from a Toyota Production System book. Respect for people got famous with the famous Toyota Way document in 2001. This principle has been included within Toyota Production System for a long a time. In fact, the quotation I have cited is from “Toyota Production System First Textbook”. This is one of the early documents created within Toyota in the early 1970’s. An interesting trivia is that some of the text was written by Fujio Cho, the very person behind the Toyota Way 2001 document.

Section 5 of this document is titled “Man-Hour Reduction and Human Relations”. This section calls out TWI (Training Within Industry) Job Relations manual and cites “People must be treated as individuals” phrase from the Job Relations manual.

I have written about TWI previously here. TWI was an emergency service by US to help nation’s war contractors and essential production. There was a need to produce a lot in a short amount of time, and this required training operators to be better within a short amount of time. C R Dooley, the Director of TWI, stated the following; “TWI’s objectives were to help contractors to get out better war production faster, so that the war might be shortened, and to help industry to lower the cost of war materials.” Job Relations is one of the manuals of the TWI program. In the foreword of this manual, C R Dooley stated that “Giving workers technical skill alone is not enough. Supervisors must give every man and woman at work the leadership that enlists cooperation and teamwork.” Toyota added Job Relations to its internal training curriculum in 1951.

The “Toyota Way 2001” document made “Respect for People” the new thing in lean. This theme was not at all present in any of the western books on Lean or Toyota Production System. Naturally, this theme got a lot of attention fast.

Yasuhiro Monden’s Write-up on Respect for Humanity:

Respect for people also goes by Respect for Humanity. In my opinion, this was best described by Prof. Yasuhiro Monden in his 1983 book “Toyota Production System”. He wrote;

“At Toyota, respect for humanity is a matter of allying human energy with meaningful, effective operations by abolishing wasteful operations. If a worker feels that his job is important and his work significant, his morale will be high; if he sees that his time is wasted on insignificant jobs, his morale will suffer as well as his work.”

Prof. Monden also links to the ability of the worker to stop the line in case of a problem with Respect for Humanity. He states “Since quality control based on autonomation (Jidoka) calls immediate attention to defects or problems in the production process, it stimulates improvement activities and thus increases respect for humanity.”

Prof. Monden also gives two rules to follow when making job improvements;

• Give the worker valuable jobs – the job performed by the worker (operator) should not be riddled with non-value added activities.
• Keep the lines of communication within the organization open – A relationship of trust and credibility needed for improvement activities need open lines of communication.

One of the mantras at Toyota is “Monozukuri wa hitozukuri” or “Developing products is about developing people”. This idea is underlined by Prof Monden. He has identified three sub-goals for Toyota Production System. They are:

• Quantity Control – The ability of the system to adapt to daily and monthly fluctuations in demand in terms of quantity and variety.
• Quality Assurance – Assurance that each process will supply only good units to subsequent processes.
• Respect for Humanity – Cultivating Respect for Humanity while the system utilizes the human resources to attain its cost objectives.

Final Thoughts:

I will finish with an amusing article on Walmart. In this year’s shareholder meeting, Wal-Mart announced that they will stop playing Celine Dion and Justin Beiber in an effort to boost employee morale. Apparently, the stores were playing a CD with Celine Dion and Justin Beiber non-stop driving the employees crazy. This notorious playlist has been replaced with Wal-Mart Radio. This announcement received the most cheers from the crowd! This was based on multiple feedback from the employees.

Always keep on learning…

Sakui – A story about abnormalities not listed on the inspection form:

In this post, I would like to discuss a story I read in the book “Total Quality Control for Management” by Masao Nemoto, a Toyota veteran.

The story was under the section “Discovery of Abnormalities and Quick Reporting”. The incident took place at Toyota Gosei’s Inazawa plant. There is a component called “fan shroud” made of plastic. This component is needed to adjust air flow and is situated near the engine fan. The operator, who was an older woman, was going to process the component as part of her routine work. She stopped and exclaimed “Sakui”, which means “soft to touch” in Japanese. She immediately called her squad leader who in turn stopped the production of the component to examine the component. Everything was checked, and everything was found to be working as expected except for the material. Another lot was used as the interim corrective action, and the components were determined to be as before. The suspect lot was sent back to the supplier and it was later found that the material was at fault. The resin was produced by “mixing of different size grains”. Since the discovery was early, the loss was minimal. As Nemoto notes, this was made possible by the older woman’s action, by reporting what felt “different” to her. She was not trained to look for this issue. The section chief wrote a letter of commendation to her and utilized this example as an opportunity for training.

A while back, I discussed the importance of fast feedback to increase the value of inspection. This story demonstrates an interesting point. If the abnormality or non-conformance is not listed on the inspection form, what should the worker do?

I liked this story since it points out many aspects of Toyota Production System. This also reminds me of Canon Production System, which is quite similar to Toyota Production System. Their mantra was TSS (Tomete – stop, Sugu – right away, and Shochi o toru – take measures to correct). Stopping the line is shunned in the traditional Taylor style production system. In the example above, the squad leader stopped the production to grasp the current condition, and took the right steps to continue production. Stopping the line when problems occur eliminates the need to stop the line for a longer time in the future. The operator has the right and responsibility to stop the line when there is a problem. This is also an opportunity for training. Stopping the line is one of the many counter-intuitive principles in Toyota Production System. The time spent stopping the line is tremendously decreased as days go by. This also encourages the operators to bring the problems to the surface. This encourages the operator to look for ways to improve the process as well.

Next time when your operator says “sakui”, heed to him/her.

Always keep on learning…

How do I do Kaizen?

Kaizen is most likely one of the most misused words in lean. There is a strong precedence in the lean community to call a “Kaizen Event” or “Kaizen Blitz” as “Kaizen”.

Kaizen just means incremental and continuous improvement towards the ideal state.

A Kaizen Event on the other hand, means generally a week long team-based rapid improvement activity. Thus, there is a definite start and a stop to Kaizen Events, making this almost an oxymoron since Kaizen implies a continuous and never stopping state. This post is about Kaizen and not Kaizen events.

A lot of people talk about the need for doing Kaizen. This post hopefully provides nuts and bolts on how to perform improvement activities. Please note that the first step for Kaizen is to nurture your employees so that they become aware of problems. This is a post for another day.

The following figure is taken from The Idea Book, edited by the Japan Human Relations Association (1980). The original title was “Kaizen Teian Handobukku” which roughly translates to “Kaizen through (Employee) Suggestions Handbook”. This figure shows how to approach improving your process. The right column is also known as the ECRS method. Going through these questions under the Description column and then following through the steps in the Countermeasure column is how one can improve a process.

Figure 1 : How to Improve a process?

• Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks: The ultimate improvement is eliminating a task altogether. The What and Why questions help us with this.
• Combine the Steps: What are the steps that need to be done in series? Are there any steps that can be done in parallel? The Where, When and Who questions help us with combining steps to eliminate waste. Additionally, combining also reduces the number of discrete steps in the process.
• Rearrange the Steps: Sometimes changing the sequence also allows us to take away waste from the process. The Where, When and Who questions help us with this. Can we do the current step# 3 before Step# 1? Is there any logic to the current sequence of steps? Can we rearrange to create a better sequence.
• Simplify: Is there any task that can be simplified to make the whole process faster and better? Does the operator spend a lot of time trying to sort things or fumble with things? Can we ultimately simplify all the steps?

Please note that the steps are carried out in the order described above.

The reader should also be aware that the ECRS process and the questions have roots in USA’s Training Within Industry (TWI) movement that got started near the era that led to World War II. TWI was an emergency service by US to help nation’s war contractors and essential production. There was a need to produce a lot in a short amount of time, and this required training operators to be better within a short amount of time. C R Dooley, the Director of TWI, stated the following; “TWI’s objectives were to help contractors to get out better war production faster, so that the war might be shortened, and to help industry to lower the cost of war materials.”

The following figure is taken from the Problem Solving Manual from TWI. The following is also part of Job Methods program.

Figure 2: Steps 2 and 3 of Job Methods (TWI)

The following is a pocket card that was supplied as part of Job Methods program.

Figure 3: Job Methods Card

A keen observer of the Job Methods can find the scientific approach of PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) in it. Additionally, I would also like to bring attention to “Use the new method until a better way is developed” statement. This clearly shows that this is a continuous process.

I encourage the reader to study the Job Methods manual to get a better grasp. You can find a lot more about TWI here. http://chapters.sme.org/204/TWI_Materials/TWIPage.htm

As a side note, Toyota implemented the TWI programs in the early 1950’s. Surprisingly the first of the TWI programs that was dropped was the Job Methods program. This was replaced by Shigeo Shingo’s P-courses that added the Industrial Engineering elements to process improvement activities. Taiichi Ohno wanted to add the importance of takt time, Standard WIP, flow, and pull style production to the idea of Kaizen. (Source: Art Smalley, Isao Kato)

Nugget from the Problem Solving Manual:

The Problem Solving Manual from TWI also identified “Make Ready” and “Put Away” as “movements of material without definite work accomplishment”.

The manual also identified these as the “greatest opportunities for improvement”. It is also noteworthy that “Less than 50% of the total time is usually consumed by the ‘DO’ part of the job.” Current thinking is that the true value added activities equate to less than 5% of a general process that is untouched by any improvement activities.

Figure 4: Value (Problem Solving Manual)

Final Words:

Maybe it is ironic that I am going to use the introductory words of C R Dooley, the then Director of TWI, from the Job Methods manual as my final words for this post. You can clearly see the undercurrents of Respect for People and Kaizen in his words.

Most of the men with whom you will work have had years of experience. They have latent ideas which, if properly developed, will increase production, reduce lost time, prevent waste of material, and increase the use of machinery and equipment. These men command your respect because of their knowledge.

Always keep on learning…

Respect for People – Kin Test:

I work in the field of medical devices. We use a thought experiment in our field that I like to call “the kin test”. It goes something like this. Would you let your kin, your mother, your child or your father, use this medical device we manufacture? Is the quality of this device good enough that it can be used on your dearest kin?

After writing the post about Respect for People last week, I pondered about this kin test and wondered if it is applicable for Respect for People as well.

How would you answer the question, “Would you let your kin, your mother, your child or your father, work at where you are working?” If there is a hesitation in answering this, maybe the Respect for People is something that your company needs to look at.

Everything depreciates with time or so we learn from our accounting counterparts. The equipment you just bought, the building you are in, all these have lost value since day 1. There is something that actually gains value with time – people. People actually gain value with time, their experience and knowledge increases their value with time. This is all the more reason why you should invest in your people.

Not a lot is out there about this subject. The following interpretations are based on my research and thinking. Respect for People is not about being nice. It is not about saying “hello”. Respect for people is about nurturing accountability and ownership. Peter Senge, in his book The Fifth Discipline, talks about creative tension.

Creative tension exists when there are two opposing realities,

1) vision – where we should be, and

2) current reality – the status quo, where we are right now.

Creative tension resides in the zone between these two opposing forces. My thinking is that Respect for People also resides in this zone. This is one that nurtures accountability and ownership.

This Creative Tension idea actually aligns really well with Toyota Production System (TPS). In TPS, one is asked to understand the current state, the ideal state and the gap. This allows creation of countermeasures to reach the ideal state.

The current reality represents the struggle from middle management and lower management to maintain the status quo. The vision represents the struggle from the upper management and some portion of the middle management to recreate the status quo. This zone is ideal for Kaizen or continuous improvement. The continuous improvement is an everlasting march towards betterment and is incremental in nature.

A key point that I want to shed light on is that, in this zone, answers are never provided. The manager provides coaching and training, and nudges in the right direction such that the employee is able to reach the goal on his own. Giving the answer takes away the accountability; instead the manager mentors the employee to find the ideal solution by giving him thinking tools. This can happen only in the Creative Tension zone. Providing suggestions or answers and not getting involved is not the answer either. The manager is required to mentor the employee and advise him of things to consider to reach the vision state.

The first step for this is to coach the employee to start noticing problems. Taiichi Ohno, the creator of TPS is said to have drawn chalk circles on the factory floor and made his subordinates stand inside it and watch the process to identify problems. They were made to stand inside the circle until their list of problems matched Ohno’s.

Once the problems are identified, the employee is coached to find causes and propose countermeasures. The final step is empowering the employees to make decisions and implement the countermeasures.

These steps are very well described in the book Kaizen Teian 1, as four levels of employee involvement in continuous improvement.

• Level 0 – Zero energy, zero interest and zero responsibility
• Level 1 – Noticing and pointing out problems
• Level 2 – Finding causes of problems, raising ideas and proposing countermeasures
• Level 3 – Making decisions, implementation and effects

Final Thoughts:

Creating a culture of Respect for People is everybody’s job. What level would you say you are in at your current job?

As indicated in the figure above, the Respect for People increases as the number of levels goes up. Level 3 clearly results in a culture of Respect for People, and a path well aligned to reach the Vision State. This does not represent a workplace where the employee is asked to leave his brains outside. Nor does it represent a workplace where the employee does not feel empowered. You are creating the most value in a level 3 workplace. This in turn will make the employees feel valued. The level 3 workplace is a workplace that will pass the kin test with flying colors.

Always keep on learning…