A new flavor of the day is the conduct of customer satisfaction surveys by many organizations. The reason I say flavor of the day is that many organizations are using their surveys as a command and control tool to enforce specific behaviors on the part of their employees. I had a conversation with a sales manager for a major automobile company who told me that employees and sales managers are penalized up to 30% of their paycheck for survey results that are lower than the maximum 10. I also spoke to the general manager of a manufacturing plant who told me about the one question that satisfies information needs in a survey. That question is in its essence “would you recommend us to your family and friends.”

In a Lean managed organization the major purpose for any survey should be to identify problems and/or defects in the product or service in order to fix the problem or defect. A Lean managed organization should believe at its core that 98% of defects exist because of poor systems or processes. Punishing employee for bad survey results is the wrong thing to do.

When I call the customer support line for a service or product, I am frequently told that the call may be monitored. I also believe that this is a negative action on the part of management and intended to command and control their employees.

Well-managed companies using lean management principles will train their employees to deliver maximum value to customers. They will also motivate and inspire their employees to serve their customers. In a lean management environment surveys and monitoring are necessarily only for the purpose of identifying defects or problems in order to fix them.

I serve on a number of boards, and have trained boards for decades. Very few board members in Alaska have significant business experience, that is, having managed multi million dollar revenue businesses. Yet they have responsibility for organizations with substantial revenue. They rarely have the information from management necessary to provide appropriate oversight and policy.

My first piece of advice is that budgets are a terrible tool for managing an organization, whatever kind of organization it is: profit, non-profit, government, school district, cooperative or other. Other more accomplished executives like Jack Welch, former CEO for General Electric, share my opinion. The reason is that all non-Lean managed businesses have substantial amounts of waste. I write about waste frequently in this blog. Your business has too many employees, too much inventory and spends far too much on non-value added activity. Your board needs, of course, to monitor spending and assure good fiscal control. But that responsibility doesn’t mean you deliver value to your customers.

Second, I advise you to stop meddling or interfering with the role of management. When you listen to customers or employee who complain about your services, refer them to the proper management official. When you advocate on behalf of a customer or employee, you contribute to poor management by increasing variation. By interfering, you are interrupting a process. Although this point is technical, any interference with customer or employee management, except when following an improved process, increases variation and poor management.

Third, most of you are just as resistant to change as employees are. You need to embrace change, encourage it. Understand the Community Readiness Model of change. It works for business just as it does for communities. Let your Executive team travel to and meet with individuals who are on the leading edge of change. If you can, do the same. Read about new information regularly and voraciously. According to Dr. K, Anders Ericcson, it takes 10,000 hours of purposeful effort to become world class in any discipline. If you don’t spend time meeting the challenge of becoming a great board member, your organization will not change to become great.

Finally, hire a Lean CEO. While an extremely hostile command and control Executive might secure short term gains, it will not insure the long-term viability of the business. A Lean CEO who has the support of the board can accomplish enduring transformation. For a $100 million business, a Lean CEO can achieve up to $20 million in value from existing operations within a five-year period of time. It’s not easy, but it can be done. Think of it this way. If 20% of this value can be achieved incrementally in each of the first five years the CEO works on the transformation that Executive is worth $60 million to the business net of any increase in business volume. With the quality and productivity increases that follow, business will increase.

Think Differently.

I have written about our Lean Grant Writing program, but when we are successful, we have an actual grant to implement. The handoff between the granting agency and Chugachmiut has been full of defects in the past. The grant award must be received, approved and signed, input into the financial accounting system, sent for strategic review on mission fit and deployed through the assigned Division Director, their Program Manager and HR for starting the hiring process. With a significant number of grant awards arriving throughout the year, the process must be well thought out and well executed.

One of my Lean Champions is a Program Manager for organizational knowledge management. She prepared an A-3 for the Grant Award Process, and it is a fine piece of work. Our Executive Team reviewed it this afternoon.

The A-3 she prepared has the required information: Problem Statement, a mapped process with a Swim Lane developed to reflect the grant award pathway, a Target Statement, Analysis and Implementation Plan with a Check and Adjust.  Standard work has been recorded, which means organizational knowledge is preserved. A Job Breakdown sheet has been prepared from the standard work. Now the process can be taught to the Program Managers through the Program Manager Training Matrix.

Non-Profit operations at Chugachmiut benefit from Lean Thinking just as much as Healthcare does. Once you learn how to see waste (defects) and learn the process for eliminating waste, your organization can take off for the benefit of its customers. My employees are proving it every day. That’s why I am no longer involved in operations. I am a strategic leader, and by implementing Lean Thinking, I am achieving our strategic goals for efficiency and quality.

Lean Thinking and Lean tools are applicable to more than just analyzing and improving workflow. On Thursday and Friday of last week, I participated in a continuation of our 3P process for integrating our primary care and behavioral health processes. While the work on our integration is progressing, I floated a new idea before staff: what about developing standard work for healing. As we have been thinking about the Root Cause for negative behaviors and the onset of chronic disease, the pathway for overcoming the negative behaviors and onset became more clear to us if we are successful in healing the childhood trauma we believe is at the root of much of our negative behaviors. We have to teach people how to heal, and anytime you teach someone, the teaching methods of Training Within Industry apply.

Here is the idea. Healing your mind and body starts with good hydration. Water is the foundation for your brain’s health. The whole brain is about 77-78% water. Inorganic salts comprise about 1% of the brain volume. Water assists with digestion, regulation of metabolism, cleanses waste assists with body waste elimination, helps maintain a constant body temperature and reduces joint pain. Teaching proper hydration can be effectively accomplished through Job Instruction (JI) with standard work for hydration. Imagine Important Steps, Key Points and Reasons for Key Points for proper hydration. I can. Experts recommend ½ ounce of water per pound of body weight. Some recommend the addition lf sea salt, which has a mix of minerals similar to our body mineral composition.

Strengthening your brain may also require some supplementation. By this I mean the ingestion of things like Vitamin D, B Vitamins, Omega 3’s and possibly others.

A third healing key is good nutrition. Again, this is teachable through JI.

Finally, exercise is key to good brain health, helps in reducing or stopping depression and helps us sleep in addition to the many other benefits of fitness. JI is perfect for teaching a sequence of exercise using the concept of Shu Ha Ri, which I have blogged about before. Shu involves teaching independent movements. Ha is putting the movements together. Ri allows advanced practitioners to develop their own exercise routines.

We will be looking at JI for teaching a pathway to good health. I see no reason it won’t work.

Gemba, or waste walks, are a valuable tool for teaching beginning lean learners how to look for waste. I had the pleasure of doing a Gemba walk with 4 individuals from a sister health organization last week. We looked at a short process that involved walking from a workstation to a fax machine; approximately 8 additional work stations to both drop off and pick up paper with a return to the original workstation. The operator then moved to another workstation to input the paper into an electronic record through a scanner.

The walk took approximately 5 minutes and happens 5 times a day, on average. The work is rotated among 3 staff by week. Each staff member stated that they each did the work in different ways. The waste clue here is the lack of standard work. The walk is another indication of waste through batching and motion. Some of the received faxes were over length, another waste of overproduction.

So how can you identify waste and its impact on workflow? Ordinarily I would recommend gathering data over a period of time. With data you can analyze workflow like this. A 5-minute walk 5 minutes a day equates to 25 minutes of walking a day, or 125 minutes a week. 240 annual workdays equals 6,000 minutes of walking. That’s 12 ½ days of work given an 8-hour workday. I believe all 12 1/2 days can be eliminated quite easily.

What are the solutions to the problem? I try and stress to Gemba walkers accompanying me that the improvements MUST be delegated to the workers in the value stream. They can be guided by a sensei in Kaizen, but the solutions must be theirs. You may ask why? As an experienced lean practitioner, I can come in and map the improvements for the value team. But the improvements most likely will not be sustainable. If the team makes the improvements, they own the improvements. They will write up the standard work and work to it. New employees will train to standard work, and the workplace will gain 12 ½ days of productivity annually.

What the Gemba walk also alerted me to is tremendous volumes of additional waste in the observable value streams, which I won’t get into here. I didn’t ask individuals in these other value streams about their activities. However, I asked enough questions to realize that there are a few years of waste in this workplace. 4 years of waste equate to 7,680 hours of work given 8-hour days over 240 annual workdays. Wouldn’t you like to capture the value of that waste? It can be done.

While on personal leave last week, I read Paul G. Allen’s book titled “Idea Man: A Memoir of the Cofounder of Microsoft.” What a great read. Allen and I share a few common life threads. We were both born in 1953. He attended the Lakeside School in Seattle. I went there for a summer enrichment program for poor kids. We were both enamored by science, outer space, sports and music while growing up. He made more out of his interests than I was able to and as a result, he is incredibly rich and able to indulge his passions. While I am not incredibly rich, I am able to indulge some of my passions.

What is fascinating about the book are the creative insights that Mr. Allen had, and continues to have. On his first trip to Japan, Mr. Allen commented about the transfer of technology manufacturing capability to the Japanese. They worked harder and had greater focus and purpose than we do. We are suffering problems because of what Mr. Allen noticed those many years ago. An article titled “Five myths about the American dream” in The Washington Post said the following: “Our research showed a stunning lack of confidence in U.S. institutions. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed believe that America is in decline; 83 percent said they have less trust in “politics in general” than they did 10 or 15 years ago; 79 percent said they have less trust in big business and major corporations; 78 percent said they have less trust in government; 72 percent reported declining trust in the media.”

It’s sad to think that so many of us believe that we are in decline, but so many of our leaders believe that we are superior. We should be supporting creativity and innovation. Lean Thinking does that. We should be competing using best processes. Lean Thinking allows us to do that. We should be spending less on government and receiving more in services. Lean Thinking can help us achieve both goals.

There is so much more that was interesting to me in Mr. Allen’s book. I highly recommend it. This man had a prominent place in developing how we work and think today. He is inspirational in my mind.

To the readers of my blog, you faithful few, thank you and a Happy New Year to you and yours. I have been a fervent disciple of Lean Thinking and Lean Management since March 2004. I have shared the message with many, and it has been accepted by very few. I have voiced my frustration in the past in the pages of this blog. I have kept many more frustrations to myself. But I keep plugging away because what I am advocating for is the customer of the organizations I am involved with. They deserve the service and quality levels that Lean can provide. And the employees of these organizations deserve the support that Lean gives them.

I want to apologize to those I have offended because I know my advocacy shows the frustration I develop through the rejection I regularly face as a Lean advocate. If you are truly committed to developing a culture of Lean in your organization, there will come a time that you truly learn to see. John Shook and Jim Womack’s book titled “Learning to See” is aptly named, and I have come to learn what its true meaning is. What I see when I walk into an organization, observe their processes and talk to their employees is oftentimes-utter chaos. There are good people working in a harsh environment, fighting fires and trying to keep things together. It doesn’t have to be that way, and that is what frustrates me. I have spent lots of time with our top leaders with what seem to be minimal results.

My New Years wish for all of the customers of Alaska Native organizations that serve them is that their leadership will have the curiosity and the intellect to give Lean a chance—a real chance. My wish is that we stop spending money on consultants and crutch positions. Instead, dedicate the funding to true healing. It’s out there, but we have to have the will to find it.

And to you and your families, I wish you great health, lots of happiness, good times and the means to enjoy it all. Happy New Year.

During the past week I bought a couch and a motor vehicle. At the conclusion of each transaction, I was called robotically for a survey, which I went through. One survey was to assess the performance of the delivery team that delivered the couch to my son’s apartment. They were very good. I was assigned a time window for delivery and they called about 25 minutes before arrival. When they were at the gate, they called again and let us know they were here. The couch was brought in promptly by 2 delivery men who were extremely courteous and helpful. Each wore a professional uniform with their names embroidered on it. I filled out the paperwork they required (one of which was on a great little handheld device) and they departed afterwards.

Within 30 minutes of the delivery I received the survey call. It was just a few questions preceded by brief but complete instructions. The questions were asked; I punched in my response and given an opportunity to leave a voice message.  The survey thanked me for my participation and it was over quickly. I was not offended in any way by the survey and was happy to take it.

The survey for the vehicle transaction happened the day after delivery. The explanatory phase seemed very long and was repetitive. I almost hung up, but the very good sales manager had asked me if I would respond. So I waited impatiently through the introduction. Then they repeated instructions twice in a way that made me feel as if they thought I were an idiot. I answered the questions (there were more than the prior survey). When I was given an opportunity to leave a voice mail I did, and let them know very clearly that I felt offended by the survey and that they shouldn’t assume their customers can’t follow simple instructions.

The surveys seem to drive positive behaviors by the employees. The sales manager we worked with was excellent. He gave us a fair price on the vehicle, walked us through all the details about the vehicle, introduced us to important people for service and was extremely friendly and personable throughout. There were no high-pressure sales tactics used. The financing staff worked quickly and effectively to help us do the application. I was happy with staff, just not with the survey.

The furniture delivery staff was also aware of the survey and was extremely helpful. They seemed happy to do the work they do and serving their customers.

If you administer surveys, please make it easy to answer and friendly. Treat us as if we have some intelligence. There, I have vented.

Chugachmiut has been working to train, educate and inform its employees about processes we have developed through our grant writing program, which I have blogged about before. As I have mentioned in the past, we are adapting Training Within Industry (TWI) techniques in order to teach standard work for administrative processes. Here is a photo of the JI Breakdown Sheet for grant writing.

One of my Division Directors, who was an early adopter of our Lean culture, has achieved wonderful results from her staff. I want to share one story with you. Our HR Department hires employees in 9 locations. I have written about their wonderful work before.
Last fiscal year, using limited budget funds; HR designed an HR Conference Orientation Center with a smart board. We provide a full day of orientation for our employees covering all of our benefits, policies and an introduction to our other employees in the Anchorage Office. We have been flying new hires in to Anchorage and paying for their airfare, room and per diem. It’s a considerable expense. HR is now able to use their Smart Board through the Internet to orient new employees at their home location. I have been informed that 3 more remote orientations by Smart Board will cover the cost of the Smart Board and all savings after that, which could be significant in some years, will accrue to the organization.
When employees own their processes, they want to make them better and better. And we reap the benefits.