I've been telling people listening is the master skill of the leader. Jeffrey Cufaude goes one step further. In Just Perhaps, Jeffrey reminds us that sincere inquiry with the predisposition of being influenced by what is said is critical for bringing us together.

"Until we can listen to others with whom we might violently disagree with some degree of authentic curiosity, openness, and respect, little is possible."

Next time you find yourself disagreeing OR agreeing, stop to investigate why the person is saying what s/he's saying. You're bound to be surprised.

posted by Hal at 12:44 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

After a handful of reader comments and another handful of reader emails I've decided I need to comment further on Wednesday's posting Innovation and Lean Go Hand-in-Glove. I wrote it in response to Joyce Wycoff's Do Less, Have More appearing in her weblog Good Morning Thinkers! Joyce argued for more slack time so people have time to be innovative saying that companies focus on "sucking out all the fat" so they are left with a "lean machine" eliminates the time to be innovative. I commented that lean initiatives create slack time. Each reader essentially has the same thing to say to me. I've included the text of one of those emails followed by my response.

  >
  > You and Joyce Wycoff are talking two different things. When a company 
  > goes "lean," they often take out too many employees "because they are 
  > going to work smarter." The thing that happens is the work is not 
  > analyzed for best procedures and risks, so the remaining employees are left to 
  > carry an extra work load and have no time to think or act proactively. 
  > You, on the other hand, are talking about solving problems before 
  > removing employees -- and no where did you indicate removing employees is 
  > necessarily part of the plan. What you could be removing is time, or 
  > waste, or effort. 
  >

One way of seeing the situation is that Joyce and I are talking two different things. However the risk is that most people will not see that. When we communicate there is always the denotative meaning, the connotative meanings, and the oh-so numerous misunderstandings. Those misunderstandings have numerous sources. Here are two. The first is a blindness to the denotative meaning in the choice of words used. The second is a blindness to the listeners' knowledge of denotative meaning. As David Schmaltz points out in his comment to my posting there is a growing understanding of lean to be mean. It is that definition that Joyce conveys. It is unfortunate. I encounter one person after another that has objections to lean initiatives because they anticipate mean consequences. I've traced this back to Chain-Saw Al Dunlop's driving Sunbeam into the ground under the banner of lean. We have to change this. We can't let anyone think that Joyce and I are writing about the same thing. Lean has a very specific meaning that everyone in business must know to be successful.

The lean approach has separated Dell from everyone else in their industry. Dell is able to invest in new US factories at a time where others are off-shoring. The lean approach allows Toyota to build cars in each of the markets they serve rather than exporting from Japan. The lean approach is responsible for an Ohio general contractor expanding in a very competitive and scarce market these last two years while other firms struggle for their existence. A hallmark of all three firms is how they've systematically tapped the everyday-always inventiveness of their people. Invest in Dell and Toyota. They will continue to thrive as will other firms who take a lean approach. Too bad you can't invest in the Ohio GC. It's a 100% employee owned firm.

I have my own take on why innovation is stifled. It has to do with the Two Great Wastes: not listening and not speaking. But that's for another time...

So thank you Joyce for continuing to write on innovation. I'll keep visiting your weblog Good Morning Thinkers!. And thank you everyone who wrote comments and emails. You've given me the opportunity to sharpen our understanding of lean.

posted by Hal at 5:11 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

A host of books have been published on company-wide improvement approaches. One of the first descriptions of the approach that makes Toyota and other Japanese firms successful with continuous improvement was Kaizen, written by Masaaki Imai, published in 1986. Imai updated that work with Gemba Kaizen in 1997. Along the way there have been many good books about employee initiated everyday improvement and innovation. The latest is the book Ideas Are Free, by Alan G. Robinson, Dean M. Schroeder.

Robinson and Schoeder claim a company-wide practice of putting the small ideas into use will separate your firm from your competitors without tipping your hand as to what is making you more competitive. Here are their eight recommendations for an idea system:

1. Ideas are encouraged and welcomed.
2. Submitting ideas is simple.
3. Evaluation of ideas is quick and effective.
4. Feedback is timely, constructive and informative.
5. Implementation is rapid and smooth.
6. Ideas are reviewed for additional potential.
7. People are recognized, and success is celebrated.
8. Idea system performance is measured, reviewed and improved.

I have one quibble with the authors. They place too much emphasis on ideas and no attention on making assessments that lead to innovation. (There'll be another posting on just that point.) There are plenty of ideas available from our project team members and throughout our firms. Greg Howell and I have found the missing element to be what we call The Two Great Wastes: not listening and not speaking. None of this works without an environment that embraces the varied opinions and contributions of everyone. There must be attentive listening and unfettered speaking. It takes leadership to get both.

So much has been made of the opportunity line workers and project performers have for contributing ideas for improvement in their daily work. 15 years ago I worked at ABB Asea Brown Boveri. I wondered what the opportunity was for harnessing the inventiveness of our highly skilled engineers. So I did an experiment. I worked with 8 engineers. First, I taught them the standard problem-solving techniques. Then I challenged them as a group of 8 to come up with 20 adopted improvements each week. I further stipulated that the team didn't succeed unless each person had originated 1 adopted improvement in that week. They got off to a slow start. I remember the first week had fewer than 10 adopted improvements and 2 or 3 of the people didn't contribute one idea. But we kept at it. At the end of the month the team had over 100 adopted improvements with everyone meeting their weekly targets. At that point they became really innovative. The second month had even more adopted improvements. It was also at that time that ABB made major organizational changes resulting in me moving from Connecticut to Switzerland. The team was disbanded.

So are ideas free? I think not. While I'm a really big fan of continuous improvement systems, here in the USA we seem not to have the stick-to-it-ness to make these approaches successful. It takes a significant effort and rethinking of how we will manage our firms and our projects. That effort is not free. It at least comes with an opportunity cost if not a real investment in training and communication of company policy. These costs (or investments) are real. So you might ask, "Is it worth investing?" Without doubt. But take it on for strategic advantage as the authors of Ideas Are Free recommend.

For those of you ready to start here's my recommendation. One of the best guides to adopting continuous improvement is The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy Kaizen, by Bunji Tozawa and Norman Bodek. Their approach works. One of the authors is by far the most authoritative person on the subject. I call Norman Bodek the godfather of the lean movement in the western world. He had Taiichi Ohno's and Shigeo Shingo's books on Toyota translated into English and published in the US. Norman's latest book is Kaikaku: The Power and Magic of Lean. He's written a history of the lean movement that presents in one place all the elements of the lean approach. It's sure to be a winner.

posted by Hal at 11:58 AM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

Joyce Wycoff suggests that one of the reasons companies aren't more innovative is they have become so lean they don't have the time for thinking, Good Morning Thinkers!: Do Less, Have More. I've found the exact opposite to be true. Taking a lean approach to projects frees up time that otherwise is spent addressing what should have happened yesterday, but didn't. Reliability in your processes and results makes time available for team members to improve and innovate in their work. That in turn makes the project more lean generating even more time for thinking and innovation.

posted by Hal at 9:39 AM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

Are you a project executive? Consider the lead to this article, Is Project Management a Crime?, published yesterday:

Is poor project management a crime? The answer could be 'yes' now that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act makes senior executives criminally liable for misrepresenting financial information.

Pay attention. If the following is true then we all better get in action.

What can project-based organizations do to help ensure compliancy with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? If they do not already have a properly defined internal process for project management, then -- according to Section 404 -- they will need to implement one.

So what are we to do? Of course the author is ready with a recommendation: adopt an Earned Value Management System (EVMS). Huh? She cites Boeing and BAE Systems as two companies that endorse EVMS as best practice.

I've read the article three times. I'm beginning to think that the author actually believes what she is saying. So let's put her advice in perspective. The vast majority of projects involve just a few people. That's right, just a few people working for a short time. The last thing any of those people need is a highly structured reporting system for managing their projects. For the bulk of the projects EVMS will just add time and expense to the project without improving project performance. On the other end, let's consider the large projects. EVMS is a system designed for authorizing payments from the customer to the performing organization based on a baselined project plan usually created 90 or more days ahead of time. Large projects need a steering mechanism that adjusts to unexpected conditions. I've not seen an EVMS that will do that.

I doubt EVMS will satisfy SOX. Companies need more than a formal approach. Project and company executives will sleep at night when they know their project teams are managing their projects in the midst of the uncertainty of today's world. No over-the-shoulder tool will help them do that. They need an approach and skills that produces a coherent set of commitments to satisfy the promise(s) to the customer.

posted by Hal at 11:17 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

It's been far too long since I've posted on these pages. My life has been busy...so busy. And I've enjoyed every minute.

Among other matters, my youngest son is investigating his options for college. We've enjoyed our tours. It's been great father-son bonding.

I've concluded that college is wasted on teenagers! Boy would I enjoy spending four years of my life immersed in learning without a care about work. Oh well...

So now I'm back writing. I've been working on some exciting projects. I'll share my learnings and my short-comings. And I hope to hear from you along the way.

posted by Hal at 10:55 PM | link  |   |   | Google It!  | Email This  |

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