Gemba
Jeff Bezos and Root Cause Analysis
unrelated update:
I’m always impressed when CEO’s demonstrate Deming-like behavior as they lead; it’s rare, but there’s almost a magical, mobilizing, and inspiring force that happens when CEO’s or corporate leaders behave in a respectful, inspiring, common-sense, and thoughtful way.
Today, I’m reminded of an experience back in 2004 while I worked for Amazon.com — something Jeff Bezos did that I still carry with me to this day.
Not Accountable, Not Responsible
Team size can make a big difference in the success of your service or product. What is counterintuitive for most people is that the larger the team size, the lower the likelihood of success for your service or product. Why? Entropy can set in and large teams are inherently bad vehicles for communication. More insipid, however, is that the larger the team, there is a higher likelihood of accountability and responsibility being diffused across the team.
Maintain Forward Tension
One principle in Wing Chun is the maintaining of forward tension. To explain, I’ll draw the distinction between Tension and Energy and show how this principle in Wing Chun can be applied to Change Management.
Tension is a type of Energy
A Wing Chun maxim goes as follows:
soft and relaxed strength will put your opponent in jeopardy
Fast Food Congestion
Every system has constraints — sometimes several — minor bottlenecks and major bottlenecks. What makes managing constraints even more challenging is that bottlenecks move: up-and-down the process paths.
I saw this phenomenon recently during a visit to a fast food restaurant, which I discuss in this post — but, my application of the Theory of Constraints, Lean Manufacturing, and Six Sigma as applied to a Restaurant can be applied to any Dynamic System.
Do Not Run From Your Customers
I’ve spoken extensively about the unheralded — but, arguably, the most important — Pillar of The Toyota Production System: Respect for People. Today, I want to highlight an interesting company that appears to have done an amazing job at Participative Management and in eliminating fear and mediocrity in the workplace: Semco Group.
I was first made aware of Semco Group after watching this amazing video on the MIT website. I sought to learn more about Semco and found some pretty amazing case studies such as the following:
Necessary but Insufficient
Motorola (MOT), the inventor of Six Sigma, is in big trouble. Even though it invented Six Sigma, this is a clear example that shows how Lean or Six Sigma are not a cure-all for corporate woes, but that good leadership and a winning strategy are key in a competitive world — Lean or Six Sigma is necessary, but not sufficient.
It’s the People also, not just the Tools
I spoke at a Lean Six Sigma conference last week, held in Chicago. The conference was packed with Supply Chain, Logistics, Fulfillment, Manufacturing, Transportation, Healthcare, and Service executives.
During the conference, I heard a lot of chest-beating, neutron-jack-welch type of comments and also a lot of focus and emphasis on the “tools” of Operational Excellence. I truly found this part to be quite disappointing, given that the audience and speakers were mostly executives from large Fortune 500 companies.
