Sunday, January 27, 2008

Standard Work for Managers = Go to Gemba

As many times as I've heard it, as many times as I've said it to others, I still have to relearn the lesson. Over and over.

Get to the workplace. Look. Listen.

It seems the culture of our supposedly modern managerial world is so driven by meetings and emails and reports to read and papers to sign we squeeze out what is truly important and transforming.

It it me afresh this week as I attempted to build into my routine a regular walk-through of each of our production areas. I made it standard work for me, as a manager/leader.

Like most aspects of standard work, it was not hard to do. It seemed routine. Yet, when I did the standard work of walking, looking at certain workplaces, greeting people by name, listening to their observations, good things happened. Very good things happened.

Further, how bogus is it for me to expect our production team to follow standard work in their processes if I don't follow standard work in mine? Yeah, embarassingly bogus.

I remind myself. If you need reminding too, consider your self reminded.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reminder Joe.

I like the new look of the blog also.

Rajinder Singh said...

I never knew that this blog existed. I just started to Blog and named my Blog "Learning to Lean". learntolean.blogspot.com it is set in India and the experiences are Indian. But it is all about learning. Everyday is a day to learn. I feel strongly about some of the issue you write about. If you are okay, I'll try to comment on your blogs and give my Indian / Asian perspective.

Unknown said...

It is a lesson that should be learned by every manager, every supervisor, every day. The new look is great.

Bryan - www.trainingwithinindustry.net

sex shop said...

So, I do not really think this will work.