R-E-S-P-E-C-T

“Respect for people” is a fundamental principle of Lean and a major difference between Lean and the Western, more Taylor-esque, concept of management. The Western tradition, which is still a part of educating MBAs, is that management knows best and makes all decisions. Workers are to do as they are told.

There is a quotation by Henry Ford to the effect that the problem with workers is that, not only do they come with two hands, but also, unfortunately, a brain. Workers are not hired to think! Lean is much less of a top-down style of management, and much more of a bottom-up, inclusive, transparent style. This is not to say, however, that the asylum is completely handed over to the patients.

This core belief influences the relationship Toyota managers and supervisors have with their workers. For Toyota, management’s primary function is more of teacher and less of an organizational police officer. We now understand, more than before, that the focus for Toyota is not just on building quality automobiles, it is primarily focused on the building of problem solving, innovative, respected employees who, then, build quality, innovative automobiles.

Dealing with people from a basis of respect permeates every aspect of Lean.

Systems thinking:

Have you ever had the feeling that, at some point at work, you were damned if you do and damned if you don't? Or, that you are in the the middle of a Catch-22 situation? If so, you have probably been the victim of poor systems or systems colliding with each other. That feeling of not being in control or at the mercy of things bigger than you.

Thinking in terms of systems means understanding that the systems at work within an organization are management and leadership designed. Systems are the responsibility of management. Workers have no authority to control or overhaul systems. They are at the mercy of the systems. Yet, many times, staff are blamed for what is, in actuality, a system design problem.

For example, if a job is not being performed well, systems thinking would first consider such things as does the worker know that job is their responsibility, has the worker been trained adequately, does the worker have the necessary tools, and does the worker have timely and correct information?

Systems thinking is more respectful. It recognizes that systems should be investigated when problems occur before blaming people.

Value:

The Lean definition of value is that which the client wants and is willing to pay for, and that improves the health status of the pet, without defects and waste along the way. Our clients get exactly what they want, when want it and in the amount wanted. They pay for only value adding services. The concept of defining value from the client’s point of view shows respect for them.

Variance and overburdening:

Lean understands that large variances in workload can be the source of difficulties and overburden our staff. Lean suggests work loads try to be leveled as much as possible. Being watchful for the overburdening of staff comes from respect.

Just-In-Time

The Just-In-Time (JIT) concept is the procurement and delivery of resources, (whether that be drugs, supplies, access to diagnostic equipment and information, or patients, doctors and staff) just exactly where it is needed, just exactly when it is needed, and just exactly in the amount needed. Nothing more and nothing less.

With respect to staff and personnel, the Just-In-Time idea is based, in part, on recognizing and respecting the unique value of everyone's time and skills; to only use them when, where and in the amount needed.

Standardized work

Standardized work is the mutually agreed upon method to do or handle a certain process or situation that helps insure quality, timeliness and safety, and gets everyone on the same page working in the same direction. It shows respect by involving staff in its definition and formal writing, and by eliminating ambiguity and the anxiety it causes to workers that come from policy and process chaos.

Kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese word that can be translated to mean “good change,” “change for the better,” or “continuous improvement.”

While improvements can be large, time consuming and expensive major changes, the most common are the small, daily, quick, inexpensive ideas submitted by staff that improve quality, flow, safety, value to the client and make work life just a little easier. Staff are on the frontline of our practices every minute of every day. They know, better than anyone, where and what the problems are. And, they probably know better how to remedy them than we owners and managers do.

Kaizen shows respect by recognizing what an asset our staff is, and allowing them to partner with us in improving the practice; to be engaged and be part of the solutions, rather than always being blamed for the problems.

5S

5S projects are the physical cleaning and reorganization of a particular room or area of the practice. It helps the staff to work with less clutter, frustration and confusion on a daily basis. It creates better flow within the hospital which increase value to clients; all ways of showing respect.

Go to gemba

"Genchi Genbutsu" (go and see) means that whenever there is a problem found, all relevant stakeholders (management and staff) should go to where the problem occurs (the “gemba”) and solve it together. It shows respect by recognizing that staff have valuable input to the situation.  

The Andon cord

On the Toyota production line, workers are provided with a mechanism to sound an alarm and ask for help anytime they find it necessary. The line stops if the problem is not quickly resolved. Toyota trains and trusts its employees to use the Andon cord when an issue of quality or safety is in question. It shows respect by creating a culture of safety and trust for anyone to speak up, even if they think there might possibly be an inkling of a concern.

It is my humble opinion that if veterinary staffs knew about and understood the Lean mindset and its worker-centric (and client-centric) philosophy, there would be such a grassroots revolution within the profession that owners, managers and corporation leadership would have no choice but to start thinking Lean within their practices. Maybe, we could start now and circumvent all of the "bloodshed."

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Training Within Industry: A Closer Look At the Job Instruction Course

With this post, I take a closer look at the Training Within Industry's Job Instruction course that I introduced in the post "The Origins of Lean Are Not All Japanese." One of the reasons, from a systems viewpoint, staff may not be performing well is inadequate training.

Job Instruction (JI) course

This course was designed to teach supervisors how to teach new workers. These people knew their jobs well and had a lot of experience, but many didn't understand how to teach someone else. This course showed them how to dissect the job into its individual steps and provided them with a standard way of instructing on a step-by-step basis. This was the nidus for Lean standardized work.

HOW TO GET READY
TO INSTRUCT

Have a Time Table--

   how much skill you expect him to have, by what date.

Break down the job—
   list important steps.
   pick out the key points. (Safety is always a key point.)

Have everything ready—
   the right equipment, materials and supplies.

Have the workplace properly arranged—
   just as the worker will be expected to keep it.

HOW TO INSTRUCT

Step  1—Prepare the worker
   Put him at ease.
   State the job and find out what he already knows about it.
   Get him interested in learning job.
   Place in correct position.

Step 2—Present the operation
   Tell, show and demonstrate one IMPORTANT STEP at a time.
   Stress each KEY POINT.
   Instruct clearly, completely and patiently, but no more than he can master.

Step 3—Try out performance
   Have him do the job—correct errors.
   Have him explain each KEY POINT to you as he does the job again.
   Make sure he understands.
   Continue until YOU know HE knows.

Step 4—Follow up
   Put him on his own.
   Designate to whom he goes for help.
   Encourage questions.
   Taper off extra coaching and close follow-up.

________________________________
If the Worker Hasn't Learned,
The Instructor Hasn't Taught.

Below is an example of the Job Instruction method of teaching a new student how to clean an endotracheal tube after it has been used following our standardized work for the activity.

At this point, you can have the student go through the process another time or, if you feel confident of his ability, allow him to work independently. Be sure to praise him for his attentiveness, and give him permission to reconnect with you at any time for any additional assistance he may need.

As explained in the earlier post referenced above, the three TWI J-courses had a major influence on several of key concepts of the Toyota Production System, namely Standardized Work, respect for workers and continuous Improvement. But, true to Toyota’s character, they took that information, put their own “flavoring" on it, and developed what Mike Rother calls Toyota Kata.

Kata comes from  the world of oriental, martial arts. It means “form.” There are two primary kata; Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata. I will look at Toyota Kata in the next post.

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The Origins of Lean are Not All Japanese

Over the past few years, while discussing what Lean is with people, I have had one or two of them make comments to the effect that they weren’t interested in learning about anything coming from Japan (or any other foreign country!).

Now, while it is true that Lean did come from Toyota via the Toyota Production System (TPS) and Toyota developed this in Japan, much of what originally went into it came from the good ole' U.S. of A.

There were four primary entities from the United States that had an influence on and are responsible for a very large part of what came to be TPS. They are:

1. Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company
2. W. Edwards Deming 
3. Training Within Industry (TWI)
4. 1950s U.S. grocery stores

Henry Ford

The first influence came from Henry Ford's idea of the assembly line and mass production, allowing the increased manufacturing of identical products by several orders of magnitude. 

These concepts included highly standardized parts, which also allowed for the quick replacement of defective parts with identical replacements, which saved time. But, the mindset was still based on inspecting and repairing defects after the fact instead of preventing defects, as Toyota had already been focusing on. 

Not to mention that most of these defects weren't caught until the whole auto had been built, so sometimes it was just as easy to scrap the car altogether. 

But, what the heck! America was victorious after the war and had plenty of returning workers and plentiful resources. What’s a few thousand defective products and the time and labor to fix the situation? Japan was a defeated country with a scarcity of resources, which required them to be more creative.

Toyota, as well as the rest of the world learned from Ford as he started the mass production assembly line. However, they would tweak it quite a bit in the years to come. And, others would learn that Lean applies in environments that are not moving assembly lines.

W. Edwards Deming 

In recent years, a Toyota executive said:

"There is not a day I don’t think about what Dr. Deming meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.”

W. Edwards Deming was an engineer, mathematical physicist, and statistician during the twentieth century, becoming one of the greatest quality gurus of all time. In 1947, Dr. Deming was asked by the United States to go to Japan to help with the census during the post war restoration efforts. While he was there in that capacity, he gave a series of lectures on quality and process control to the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers. They eagerly incorporated his material into their thinking. The Deming Prize is still given out in Japan for examples of the highest quality organizations.

The PDSA (or PDCA) cycle is also known as the Shewhart cycle (or the Deming cycle)

From Dr. Deming, Japan and Toyota learned about building quality into the product at the gemba, the PDCA cycle and systems thinking.

Training Within Industries (TWI)

When the United States decided to enter World War II, most all able bodied men were ushered into military service. This left a large deficit in the workforce population, especially at a time when the military industrial complex was gearing up. In order to replace this workforce, women were recruited to fill these positions. Think of “Rosie the Riveter.”

The problem, of course, was that these new hires had little to no training in industry. Because the need was so immediate, the war department started the Training Within Industry (TWI) program.

Training Within Industry was a predominately volunteer program to help get new workers up to speed as quickly as possible. Many of the TWI trainers were loaned to the project by manufacturers, which continued to pay their salaries.

No manufacturing company was forced to utilize the TWI program. They had to request TWI help, and many did. There were also cases where TWI was used in healthcare.

There were four training programs offered at different times called the Jobs programs. These included the Jobs Instruction (JI) course, the Jobs Methods (JM) course, the Jobs Relations (JR) and, later, the Jobs Safety (JS) course. 

The program was very successful and contributed greatly to the United States being among the victors. When the war was over and the United States was helping to rebuild Japan, the TWI programs were exported. Manufacturers, including Toyota, enthusiastically incorporated the concepts into their own cultures. There is still a copy of an original TWI manual in the Toyota company museum. 

Once the war was over, the War Department ended the TWI program, the men returned to their jobs, the industrial revolution was on its way, resources were plentiful, manufacturers didn't see the need of TWI in their companies and interest in TWI dwindled to almost nothing. In recent years, however, there has been a renewed excitement in the old programs and methods.

The TWI Job Instruction (JI) course
This course was designed to teach supervisors how to teach new workers. These people knew their jobs well and had a lot of experience, but many didn't understand how to teach someone else. This course showed them how to dissect the job into its individual steps and provided them with a standard way of instructing on a step-by-step basis. This was the nidus for TPS's standardized work.

Training cards (as shown above and below) for each of the “J" courses were given to students to constantly refer to when dealing with their workers at their jobsite. This was necessary to protect the uniformity and integrity of the material throughout the project.

The TWI Job Methods (JM) course 

Job Methods taught how to improve the work being done. It was the impetus for kaizen or continuous improvement.

The TWI Job Relations (JR) course

The Job Relations course instructed supervisors how the deal with interpersonal relationships and conflicts. Toyota's commitment to the respect of workers and people came from this information.

These early concepts eventually evolved into Toyota's Improvement Kata and the Coaching  Kata. These are the standardized work of how managers and supervisors teach and mentor their direct reports.

1950s United States Grocery Stores 

Toyota executives who had come to the United States to observe and learn were intrigued by the way our grocery stores replenished their shelves at night with only those items that had sold that day. By the next morning, when the store reopened, the shelves were full for customers to purchase and the cycle repeated. 

Very little inventory was kept in the back of the store which cut down on costs to warehouse a large inventory and the capital tied up in that merchandise. All of this appealed to a small company in a small, recovering country. Just-In-Time thinking was born from this U.S. grocery store concept

While there is definitely an Eastern philosophical hue to the Toyota Production System, the roots of much of the mindset, especially what we would consider the major concepts, originated from the United States. But, keep in mind that Toyota is not the same as every Japanese company. They've worked hard to create a special culture -- they've been willing to learn from other countries. How about you?

leanpub.com/leanvets

https://www.measuresofsuccessbook.com

Thank you for stopping by. Comments always welcome.

A Lean Staff Meeting Micro-experiment

The Lean philosophy is built largely around the concept of problem solving and continuous improvement (kaizen) by involving the workers who do the work on the floor (gemba) day in and day out. The idea is to foster and coach (working together) problem solving with them (bottom up), rather than telling them what to do and how (top down). Kaizen is the essence of what we strive for when we build teams or imagine when we use the term “teamwork”. 

The results of all of this are:

1. Many vs. a few minds working to solve the problem.
2. Identifying more problems.
3. Better determination of the root cause(s) of the problem(s).
4. Fosters the Lean concept of a leader/manager being a teacher as well as a supervisor in problem solving.
5. Shifts some of the frustration of management off our "plate" (without losing responsibility).
6. By involving staff in this process, it shows that we value and respect their input.
7. Engages staff in the practice.
8. Increases their value to the practice. Their value appreciates over time.

So, with all of this in mind, try this micro-experiment with your employees (team) at your next staff meeting by taking a more Socratic approach to problem solving (teaching through questioning rather than lecturing).

The Micro-Experiment

• Chose or a elicit a small, non-crisis problem to work on.
• Communicate that this is a safe environment and a "Judgement free zone.” Everyone is intelligent and has ideas to contribute.
• Place three coins in front of you. You are allowed three declarative statements during the staff meeting. If you make such a statement, then remove a coin. All other statements need to be in the form of open-ended questions.
• Think in terms of system failures, not people failures.
• Ask lots of “Why?”s, “How?”s and “What makes you say/think that?”s, not “Who (is to blame)?”s
• No leading questions like “Don't you think it would be better to do _______?” You are not trying to 'manipulate' them into arriving at a solution you've already decided on or simply making it seem like they are participating. This is truly listening to their ideas and honestly involving them in finding possible solutions through concensus (nemawashi).
• Praise participation.

Remember back to when you were learning how to diagnose and what questions to ask and how? Formulating a list of deferential diagnoses and, then, trying to arrive at a definitive diagnosis. It is basically the same process that you are trying to teach your staff about, except instead of a pet with a problem, we are dealing with a practice system, process, flow, and/or communication problem.

It won't work perfectly the first time. This is completely different than how most staff meetings are conducted. Look for small successes and then build upon them. With enough coaching and practicing, one day your staff may identify a problem, find its root cause and decide, together, on a viable solution to try, collect the results and plan the next step with little more than oversight involvement from you. Can I get a “Hallelujah!”?

Let me know how it went. Did your staff surprise you with their deep understanding of the issues? Were they more creative than you expected? Did they have a more realistic perception of the actual problem and root causes than you? How difficult was it for you to teach by asking questions? What did you learn? What would you change the next time? Could you cut back to two coins? One?

Thanks for stopping by. Please tell your friends, staff and colleagues about the blog. Comments and questions always appreciated.

What! No Research and Development Department!?!

Many of the major corporations in the world have a department they call "Research and Development" (R&D). These are the people responsible for innovating new products, improving previous products, fixing design defects, and adapting to new environments, including technological and economic; keeping the organization on the “cutting edge.”

Veterinary practices have an R&D group, also. We just don't recognize them as such.

I'm talking about our staff.  Our staff members know better than anyone what the problems are, where there is opportunity for new services or products, unmet client needs, wastes in our systems, etc.

They hear the comments made by clients that we are never aware of. They understand and recognize the gaps between our current state and our ideal state (True North) or the “cutting edge” of what's possible. And, they are willing and capable of partnering with us to correct those gaps, if we allow and empower them to do so.

When I first graduated from vet school and opened my practice, the business side of practice was coming into its own. One of the major subjects of management seminars at that time was to better delegate and leverage our staff members in our practices. It was like pulling teeth to get veterinarians to stop thinking they were the only ones that could pull blood samples, read a fecal exam or bandage a paw. The role of staff was to greet clients, restrain pets, clean cages and collect money.

These days, thankfully, we have evolved to delegating to staff almost everything in a veterinary practice except diagnosis, prescribing, surgery and... participating in identifying waste, innovating new products and service, meeting unmet client needs; to continuously improve, to become and stay ‘cutting edge.’

The concept of "kaizen" means partnering with staff (leveraging them) to continually improve value for the client, with value being defined from the client's point of view. It is part of the “bottom up” management philosophy of Lean (as opposed to the “top down” or “command and control” philosophy of contemporary Western management).

Vets and the "gurus" think they understand the terms 'teams', 'teamwork' and 'team building', but kaizen takes it to a whole new level. In kaizen, team means TEAM.

Isn't it time to take staff leveraging and delegation to the next level? Isn't it time to recognize and developed our potential "R&D" departments? Isn't it time to start developing a kaizen mindset and culture within our practices?  A culture that respects and recognizes the asset that our staff membrers represent, and, thereby engages them?

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Sayings of the Lean Fathers

Within the body of Jewish literature,  there is a book called "Pirke Avot", which means 'Sayings of the Fathers'. It is a collection of wisdom and quotes handed down from the ancient rabbis and the Jewish tradition. Taking that reference as a model, I decided to produce this "Sayings of the Lean Fathers." Enjoy!

Taiichi Ohno

(February 29, 1912 – May 28, 1990) was a Japanese industrial engineer and businessman. He is considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System, which became Lean Manufacturing in the U.S. He devised the seven wastes (or muda in Japanese) as part of this system. He wrote several books about the system, including Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production.   https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiichi_Ohno 

We are doomed to failure without a daily destruction of our various preconceptions.

Progress cannot be generated when we are satisfied with existing situations.

Start from need.

Having no problems is the biggest problem of all.

If you assume that things are all right the way they are, you can’t do Kaizen. So change something!

Ask 'why' five times about every matter.

Why not make work easier and more interesting, so people do not have to sweat? The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’, they go there to ‘think’.

Without standards, there can be no improvement.

Where there is no Standard there can be no Kaizen.

Standards should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves.

Make your workplace into showcase that can be understood by everyone at a glance. In terms of quality, it means to make the defects immediately apparent. In terms of quantity, it means that progress or delay, measured against the plan, is made immediately apparent. When this is done, problems can be discovered immediately, and everyone can initiate improvement plans.

The slower but consistent tortoise causes less waste and is more desirable than the speedy hare that races ahead and then stops occasionally to doze. The Toyota Production System can be realized only when all the workers become tortoises.

All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment a customer gives us an order to the point we collect the cash. And, we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value-added wastes.

Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month's manual should be out of date.

The more inventory a company has, the less likely they will have what they need.
We are doomed to failure without a daily destruction of our various preconceptions.

The key to the Toyota Way and what makes Toyota stand out is not any of the individual elements…But what is important is having all the elements together as a system. It must be practiced every day in a very consistent manner, not in spurts.

If you are going to do TPS you must do it all the way. You also need to change the way you think. You need to change how you look at things.

The only place that work and motion are the same thing is the zoo where people pay to see the animals move around.

People who can’t understand numbers are useless. The gemba where numbers are not visible is also bad. However,  people who only look at numbers are the worst of all.


Taiichi Ohno. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved June 16, 2017, from AZQuotes.com Web site: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/731341
https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/optimaltransformation/a-collection-of-quotes-from-taiichi-ohno
Https//www.inspiringquotes.us/author/2150-taaichi-ohno

W. Edwards Deming

(October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical physics, he helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the U.S. Department of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In his book, The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education, Deming championed the work of Walter Shewhart, including statistical process control, operational definitions, and what Deming called the "Shewhart Cycle" which had evolved into PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act). This was in response to the growing popularity of PDCA, which Deming viewed as tampering with the meaning of Shewhart's original work. Deming is best known for his work in Japan after WWII, particularly his work with the leaders of Japanese industry.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

People are entitled to joy in work.

Management by results -- like driving a car by looking in rear view mirror.

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.

The greatest waste in America is failure to use the abilities of people.

The moral is that it is necessary to innovate, to predict needs of the customer, give him more. He that innovates and is lucky will take the market.

The consumer is the most important point on the production-line.

Export anything to a friendly country except American management.

Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.

A bad system will beat a good person every time.

To manage one must lead. To lead, one must understand the work that he and his people are responsible for.

Does experience help? No! Not if we are doing the wrong things.

The supposition is prevalent the world over that there would be no problems in production or service if only our production workers would do their jobs in the way that they were taught. Pleasant dreams. The workers are handicapped by the system, and the system belongs to the management.

Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.

A leader is a coach, not a judge.

Pay is not a motivator.

The merit rating nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, [and] nourishes rivalry and politics. It leaves people bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior. It is unfair, as it ascribes to the people in a group differences that may be caused totally by the system that they work in.

Quality is made in the board room. A worker can deliver lower quality, but she cannot deliver quality better than the system allows.

http://quotes.deming.org/authors/W._Edwards_Deming

Shigeo Shingo

 (1909 - 1990), born in Saga City, Japan, was a Japanese industrial engineer who is considered as the world’s leading expert on manufacturing practices and the Toyota Production System.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeo_Shingo

Lean is a way of thinking- not a list of things to do.

The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.

Are you too busy for improvement? Frequently, I am rebuffed by people who say they are too busy and have no time for such activities. I make it a point to respond by telling people, look, you’ll stop being busy either when you die or when the company goes bankrupt.

Unless you change direction, you will end up where you are headed.

We have to grasp not only the Know-How but also 'Know Why', if we want to master the Toyota Production System.

Those who are not dissatisfied will never make any progress.

There are four purposes of improvement: easier, better, faster, and cheaper. These four goals appear in the order of priority.

A relentless barrage of 'why’s' is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often.

Shigeo Shingo. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved June 18, 2017, from AZQuotes.com Web site: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/731329

Masaaki Imai

(born, 1930) is a Japanese organizational theorist and management consultant, known for his work on quality management, specifically on Kaizen.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaaki_Imai

The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.

The Kaizen Philosophy assumes that our way of life - be it our working life, our social life, or our home life - deserves to be constantly improved.

It is impossible to improve any process until it is standardized. If the process is shifting from here to there, then any improvement will just be one more variation that is occasionally used and mostly ignored. One must standardize, and thus stabilize the process, before continuous improvement can be made.

Progress is impossible without the ability to admit mistakes.

The standard is not written on the stone. The definition of the standard is that it is the best way to do the job for now. It should be regarded as a next step to make further improvement.

Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement. For these reasons, standards are the basis for both maintenance and improvement.

Kaizen means ongoing improvement involving everybody, without spending much money.

I believe that management should focus on two particular areas. One is Gemba (shop floor) and the other is customer (not the shareholder).

You can't do kaizen just once or twice and expect immediate results. You have to be in it for the long haul.

All of management's efforts for Kaizen boil down to two words: customer satisfaction.

I have a theory that among the large Western companies (mostly American) the higher an executive is promoted, the more wisdom is lost and by the time he or she reaches the top becomes a complete idiot. Certainly they do not deserve the outrageous salary.

Japanese management practices succeed simply because they are good management practices. This success has little to do with cultural factors. And the lack of cultural bias means that these practices can be - and are - just as successfully employed elsewhere.

Kaizen is like a hotbed that nurtures small and ongoing changes, while innovation is like magma that appears in abrupt eruptions from time to time.

Under the lean system, any tools which are required for solving problems are used.

Masaaki Imai. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved June 18, 2017, from AZQuotes.com Web site: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1555116

Final Thoughts

Can you recognize some themes here? Do any of this quotes resonate with you? Maybe one or more hits a little closer to home?! Which ones are you going to take with you and/or share with others? Did any challenge your previous mindset?


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