Listening

Dwight Bowen's "COMPETING" pod cast (a marvelous resource!) has a good posting on the importance of LISTENING (visit Dwight's execellent website: COMPETING). It resonated with a few things we're trying to do at Green Leaf Plants, so I commented - and reproduced the essence of the comments here. Part of what I'm hoping you'll begin to see is that "Lean" is much more than a set of tools, but is an entire approach to work and business.

We are developing a top-level plan in our strategy deployment exercises with the theme “The Voice of the Customer”. Problem statement (paraphrased): We have not been listening well. In discussion about how to capture the current situation and set targets in a simple graphic picture we had a hard time getting past the need to respond. Is documenting our listening what is important? Or, as some argued, do we need to show our response? My challenge to the group was to consider Stephen Covey’s habit #5, just as Dwight did. Resist the impulse to listen with the intention to respond, but rather listen to understand, and reflect this understanding back to the speaker (customer). Our responses are obviously vital, but they will show up in other metrics of operational effectiveness - shorter lead times, new products, improved customer interface, REVENUE GROWTH!!, etc.

LISTENING needs to come first.

If we define the problem as “NOT LISTENING”, then Dwight and Covey have given us a good lesson by reinforcing the need to suspend (or at least separate) repsonse, and focus on the listening itself.

As Dwight observes, this is built into the structure of an A3 plan. The other tie in is management by the Socratic method that we hear so much about from Toyota (and try to practice!). Rather than DIRECTING, we ask questions, and listen. What do your people know? How do they define the problem today? What is the right question to ask next to deepen our understanding. A close reading of John Shook’s “Managing to Learn” (READ THIS BOOK!) shows the challenge of NOT responding first, but patiently listening and questioning, to lead our people to deeper understanding of problems and capabilities.

Isn’t it interesting that a system (TPS) that creates such urgency in so many areas, urges us to go so deliberately with this! Take the time needed to define the problem. Listen to your people, your customers, your processes. Solving the wrong problem is no solution at all!

TOP TEN reasons why Lean won't work in our industry: Reason #10 - Piecework

I asked "Why not LEAN in the greenhouse" in my last post. In upcoming posts I'm going to give the top ten reasons - other than "we're different" (which I hear plenty of, but it is too lame to consider at length).

I hope you'll consider these and respond with comments.

Reason number 10. "We pay piecework; if we paid by the hour we'd be dead."

This is a fascinating topic - when we bring people from other ornamental horticulture operations to see us they are amazed that we DON'T pay piece work. Why don't we? What does it have to do with Lean?

It's a long answer (you could write a BOOK) but in a nutshell we measure PROCESS not PEOPLE.

We set out to standardize work so we get the results we want in a predictable way, and we have a stable foundation to improve from. Given stable work processes, we can staff to get the work done and know that our employees will have full week, but not work overtime. This honors them and their needs, building trust and respect. We can track progress against takt time (how frequently we need to get something done to meet demand) without racing ahead. We expect consistent performance, productivity and quality from everyone. Most important from a process perspective, is that given clear workable standards, we can clearly see problems and opportunities to improve. If someone has a better (faster, easier, higher yield, etc.) way, we want to learn it and share it. It respects the fact that inputs and circumstances (individual, workplace, supplies and material) can vary and lead to varying results. This variation then becomes the subject of a PROBLEM SOLVING CONVERSATION, not a contest over incentive or piece pay.

Contrast this with piecework, or highly incentivized individual performance measures:

Typically, quality suffers or you need to institute extensive/intensive measures to inspect for quality and discard the defects you discover. Commonly, safety suffers also, as people race for their incentive. Again, policing for safe practice becomes the alternative to designing safe work. People will game the system to get their rate or incentive - more policing required, more defects to inspect out after the work is done! If someone has a better way, what is their incentive to share it? If the days work is a zero sum game (a fixed number of units), then by helping someone else they will only hurt themselves. This does not build an organization that is driven to continuous improvement.

So, you were right, piecework is not compatible with lean. But does that mean don't do lean? I don't think so. If all you want is short term results based on exploitive relationships, sure. But if you are in it for the long haul, want to delivery the best possible quality products and services, develop employees, reduce costs, and become more responsive to customer and market demands, then challenge yourself to make the other decision: embrace lean thinking and find a path out of piecework to a more collaborative, respectful relationship with employees. It's good for you and your employees and lays a foundation for continuous improvement for what you do for your customers.

This is far from an exhustive treatment of this question. See Toyota Talent, by Liker and Meier, for an in depth look at people in lean organizations and how we use standard work to engage, develop and improve.

Why not LEAN in the greenhouse?

One of my good friends likes to ask people who are dragging their feet with a lean implementation "can you explain to me why you would NOT want to be more competetive?"

There is usually not any good answer to that one, but when we ask why not learn from the best and most competetive companies and pursue a lean implementation, there are all kinds of answers. The most common one is "Our business is different." Jeez, we grow plants, after all!!!

One of my early teachers loved this one. "Let's see," he'd say, "you take raw materials and use labor and capital to convert them to finished goods, you ship them to customers and then bill them. Yup, you're pretty unique!"

It is a brilliant perspective because it makes it so simple: If you are creating value, there are opportunities for interuption in the flow of value. We call that WASTE. It costs money and it wastes peoples' spirit. Lean is all about learning to see and eliminate those wastes. It is just as real in a greenhouse as in an auto assembly plant - it is just that we in the green industry haven't been compelled to cope with the same competetive pressures as some others in the past. Not any more.

So, as Andy steps aside, I'm going to try to step in and help guide the way and provoke some change. We've been at this for a few years now and have seen quality and delivery schedules improve as costs drop and safety and morale improve. Kind of a winning combination! There is a lot to think about and alot to learn but most important is to START.

If you're not moving forward, you can't steer. 50% improvement today is better than 90% in six months.

I'll be back with ideas, examples, and stray thoughts as often as I can. Stay tuned!

Change

Hello! In case you haven't noticed, I haven't posted for a while.
That's because I've left the horticulture industry and moved on to another job and industry. I'm working for an incredible company, BAE Systems, as a LeanSigma Specialist. It's an intensively challenging and rewarding job.
I'll miss the many friendships I developed in the floriculture industry, and I wish you all well. Please stay in touch.
Also, as for the future of the Lean Greenhouse- keep watching. I've opened the door for some very gifted individuals, who know the industry and have implemented Lean in growing environments, to post contributions to this site. I think you'll really enjoy their posts.
God bless,
Andy

Lean in the Hebrew's Cafe

I go to the most amazing Church in the world. Not only is the content of the Church amazing and life-changing, just the organizational and functional structure is amazing.

We have 3 identical services every Sunday morning. Why? Because our worship center can only hold about 2,000 people at a time!

Every week hundreds of members and guests stream by our coffee shop- the Hebrew's Cafe.

The manager, Greg, and I Scoped the purpose, processes, & people involved in the cafe processes.

We decided we wanted to be able to minister to more people by

• reducing cycle time
• increasing throughput
• reducing transactional waste
• and providing a quality product to guests and members.

So this Saturday, we had a mini-Kaizen (change-event), with Greg, the process owner, and team members Ann, Cathy, Janene. This was one on-fire, innovative team!

One of the biggest headache issues- is when a Cafe Team Member has to leave the Cafe to fill up to 16 coffee pots. We counted 100 steps in the process- none of it adding value to the customer's product or experience. By changing the coffee supply location and layout, and creating a coffee pot cart with visual instructions, the cycle time for coffee refill should be greatly reduced.

Also, the team found that by moving the cash register over a few inches, they increased the workspace at the nearby sink, and put the cash register operator closer to the highest volume product- cookies! This should reduce the amount of time it takes to perform a cookie transaction, thereby decreasing the wait time for the customer. It frees the operator's time, it frees the customers time, thereby increasing the opportunity for a conversation.

I'll let you know how things go. Better yet, stop by and see for yourself. As a matter of fact, post a reply and I'll meet you for a cup of coffee at the Hebrew's Cafe at McGregor Baptist Church.

Chrysanthemum Germplasm Bank Kaizen

Wow!

What a busy three days! We did a kaizen in the germplasm bank. It's an amazing process in-and-of-itself, but looking at the process through the lens of Lean really turbo-boosted the whole experience.

We did our training, with the Lean Lego factory, a couple of weeks earlier. Then Cecilia and I worked through a Pre-Scoping & a Scoping process.

I've got to thank Beau Keyte for his excellent training and insight into the Scoping process. It really helped us bring the voice of the customer into the kaizen, and laid the ground work for customer driven specifications. More on that in a later post.

We developed a current state Value Stream Map (VSM) of the process. I had video taped a few key elements of the process earlier, so we were able to observe the process with up to 11 people in the spacious conference room. We would not have been able to cram 11 people around a hood.

Then we walked through the Value Stream Questions, and developed the Future State VSM, prioritized our 10 projects, and broke up into team to attack the problems.

• One team worked on developing Standard Work for the retrieval process.
• Another team worked on work station design (cell flow) under the hood.
• And the third team worked on defining storage locations in the cooler layout.

This was one of the best teams I've ever worked with. They grasped key Lean concepts and were able to make some insightful, powerful application to this lab process. Great job Team! And thanks Cecilia & Mary for all your guidance and support.

The DNA of the Toyota Production System

Here's some of what Pascal Dennis shared in the "Building a Sustainable Lean Culture Workshop." It's great material that lays the ground work for good management, team dynamic, and leading-edge greenhouse application. (If you get a ever get an opportunity to be in the workshop- it's worth it's weight in gold.)

Jim Womack says we are on the verge of the 3rd Age of Lean.

• 1st Age: 1900-1980. Age of Discovery.
• 2nd Age: 1980-to present. Age of Lean Tools.
• 3rd Age: TBD. Age of Management Mental Models

This 3rd age will call for management to create new mental models about their

• Business Purpose
• Business Processes
• Business Performance

Lean is more than the implementation of tools. Steven Spears, in his Harvard Business Review article "Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System" gives insightful analysis into what really makes Toyota tick.

As a matter-of-fact, 6 out of 10 companies that try to implement Lean fail. Largely because they try to replicate the tools, instead of changing mental models to to understand the DNA in the underlying system.

So here's a thumbnail of the DNA:

The Four Rules

Rule 1 - Standards

• All work (including support processes) is highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, & outcomes.
• People who actually do the work, design the work
• The work has self-tests built-in

Rule 2 - Connections

Customer-Supplier connections are direct, binary, & self-diagnostic

Rule 3 - Pathways
Pathways (the Value-Stream) for products & services are

• simple,
• pre-defined, and
• self-diagnostic

Rule 4 - Improvement

Our Problem Solving approach is

• structured,
• standardized
• self-testing
• occurs by those who do the work with capable teachers

The Four Capabilities

1. We design work so that problems are readily apparent
2. We swarm problems when they occur
3. We share learning laterally
4. Leaders take responsibility for developing their people.