With all of that being said, I’d like to introduce a recurring episode I’m going to refer to as “Lean Epiphanies”.   I’m going to highlight some smaller points, quotes, or ideas that I have picked up in my ongoing studies or in my everyday life.  These are going to be those little “Aha” moments where you find a concept explained slightly differently than you’ve heard it before or small reminders of details of lean enterprises that suddenly click better than they have before.

One of those epiphanies came while reading the book “Toyota Kata” by Mike Rother.  Some others have written some very good reviews and I have no desire to match their words.  My only ‘review’ is to say that I can’t recommend the book highly enough.  While Rother is describing the Improvement Kata , he goes in to some detail on the planning of improvement and describing how to find the first step.  In discussing the delays associated with trying to find the biggest obstacle or the right place to start, he writes, “such delay is easy to avoid, because it matters more that you take a step than what that first step is.”  With that phrase, pieces of a Lean culture fell in to place in my brain more completely than ever before.  Framed against the background of a big picture Value Stream Mapping activity that I was working on at the time, the contrast of this phrase stunned me.  Not that the VSM wasn’t valuable, but I immediately started thinking about how many lost opportunities there were waiting for a clearer signal for what the biggest problems were.

Sure…I understood what Kaizen meant  and what it entailed.  Sure…I understood and had executed the what’s and how’s of PDCA cycles.  For the first time in my personal journey, I began to put those two pieces in context.  They weren’t just pieces of an executed Lean culture.  They were the culture.  If I had people willing to make small steps every day (Kaizen) and knew their business well enough to know where they should try to make changes and how to measure the impact (PDCA), any other pieces would fall in to place as solutions learned through this process.  The end result of those efforts would be orders of magnitude more “Lean” than all of the effort spent on tail-wagging-the-dog activities like premature Kanban boards and 5-S blitzes and so on.  This becomes the answer to the how question that hangs over every Lean effort.  I recognize that there are a some other aspects that are mandatory and I don’t mean to oversimplify.  But, for me, this changed the way I think about the Lean.

Epiphanies are by definition personal events, so I don’t expect that everyone (or even anyone) got the same inspiration from the original chapter or the original book.  But I do believe that these little nuggets are out there for everybody to find as long as we’re open to them.  I don’t expect that my epiphanies will become your epiphanies.  I just hope that as I add to this, you might be able to find some new moments that refresh your thoughts and your journey.

With this in mind, I have decided to add a new author and contributor to Beyond Lean.  Please welcome Joe Wilson to Beyond Lean.  He has been a guest blogger over the last year and now he will be a full time contributor.  Joe has written some great posts and brings a perspective that challenges my thinking and I hope he will do the same for you.  Below are a few of the posts from Joe this past year.

• Selling Lean to People Who Don’t Want It
• Serenity Now
• Pace Not Speed
• Lean and Guitar Building

This can give you a taste of what Joe will bring to Beyond Lean.  You can click on the tag Joe Wilson below to see all of his guest posts.

Tomorrow will be Joe’s first post at Beyond Lean as a full time contributor.  I, for one, am looking forward to it.

This year Beyond Lean is going to try an experiment.  In a few weeks, I will be posting blogs from 4 to 5 different people on the same lean topic.  Each day would be a new blog post from someone who you may recognize or you may not.  People working in industry trying to implement the concept and work with it.  Or consultants who teach the concepts to help others improve.

I would like your help in determining the first topic to cover in a week long series.  Please take a second to vote (or write in a vote) on a topic below.

Take Our Poll

Well the Pointy-Haired Boss is playing the game to perfection in this Dilbert Cartoon by Scott Adams.

My favorite part of the cartoon is the Pointy-Haired Boss saying, “If we reduce the training budget this year, we’ll get less next year.”

If I had a dollar for every time I have run up against that statement I would have enough to fund the Pointy-Haired Boss’ Contract Employee budget!

People shouldn’t be given less money just because they used less one year.  That may have been good for that year but it may not be even close to what is needed for the next year based on the current circumstances.

In the end, it all comes out of the same pocket.  Companies still don’t realize they are spending a lot of time managing minute details of their finances.  Sometimes it is just best to take a step back and take a look at a bigger picture.

I try to imagine my own finances.  There isn’t a detailed budget for every line item money could be spent on.  Groceries, gas, cable, electric, etc…  It is cut into bigger slices like Food/Entertainment.  That could be eating out, groceries, going to the movies, etc…  Each item is budgeted in detail.  It is known this is the amount and how it is spent among the line items can vary from month-to-month.

Why can’t companies say this is how much will be spent on Research and Development.  R&D can decide if that is on salaries, contractors, equipment, etc…  But what the money they have is all the money they have so use it wisely.

Be smart with the money and always manage costs appropriately.  In the end, what is best for the company needs to be done before anything else.  In Dilbert’s case, it is paying the contract employee.

It was very difficult to blackout the sites on WordPress.com so this is my blackout for SOPA today.

A video with more info.

So why stop reading books on the subject this year?

Not because of burn out or because I want to stop learning.  On the contrary, I want to learn but by putting more of what I have read into practice.

I have used some of what I have read over the years when the time was right, but recently I seem to have read so much especially about leadership and lean that I am jumping from on thing to another without giving anything a serious try.  This year is going to be dedicated to trying to put some of what I have learned about into practice without diluting it with more information.

I plan on continuing to read blogs and non-fictional and a few fictional books this year, but my lean book reading will be on hold.

My learning is going to come from doing.  I will have to dig back through some of my books to refresh myself and I am looking forward to that.  I am looking forward to the challenge and seeing the results.

Is there anything from your past reading that you want to learn more about?

Sometimes the language of lean can frustrate people and cause people not to want to participate.  Then a situation comes up making it necessary to change.  This would be a good time to help the person but do it without using the lean language and continue to support the new actions.

For instance, you may have been trying to get someone to understand 5S, but they don’t want to hear about sort, straighten, shine, set, and standardize.  One day the person is so frustrated with the work area they decide to clean it up.  When doing so they ask themselves questions like, “How often do I use this?” and “Do I need this much of this?”

These are all questions we would ask in relation to 5S, but if you tell the person “See you are doing 5S.” you can shut them down immediately.  Keep encouraging them without using any of the 5S language and ask more questions that will help them with their goal.

The objective of lean implementers is not to get everyone to speak lean but to act with lean principles and behaviors in mind.  In order to do this, sometimes patience is needed.  Wait for the opportunity that will drive the person to take action and create change.  When that happens take full advantage of it to reinforce the behaviors.

New followers of the blog can use this as an opportunity to read posts they might have not seen in the past.  While, long time followers can use this as an opportunity to re-read some of the top viewed posts.

This post will count down the 10th thru 6th most viewed posts of 2011.  Enjoy!

5.  Comparing Lean Principles to the 14 Toyota Principles (July 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #2 – The first part of a three part series where I compared the lean principles I learned from the Lean Learning Center to the Toyota Principles.  This post covers the first five Toyota Principles.

4.  Seth Godin and Failing Better (April 2011) – This post dives into a post from Seth Godin talking about how to fail so you learn faster and use that to your advantage.

3.  Sportscenter Has Killed U.S. Manufacturing (June 2011) – Manufacturing is fundamental.  The U.S. has lost it’s sights on the fundamentals and is just worried about the flashy.  The U.s. needs to get back to the fundamentals in order to get back on top.

2.  Why Are Lean People Seen As Lean People? (February 2011) – Exploring the question as to why lean people are not seen as more than just lean experts.  Looking at a process from end-to-end seems like a good business practice no matter what the role.

AND……

1.  5S in the Office (September 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #1 – Most viewed post for two straight years now.  A look at using 5S in the office.  What is going too far and how to use 5S in the office properly.

I look forward to more posts in 2012!

Top 6 – 10 of 2011

New followers of the blog can use this as an opportunity to read posts they might have not seen in the past.  While, long time followers can use this as an opportunity to re-read some of the top viewed posts.

This post will count down the 10th thru 6th most viewed posts of 2011.  Enjoy!

10. Dilbert Leading Transformation (July 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #3 – The Pointy-Haired Boss wants clear responsibilities and employee engagement.

9.   Adding Inventory…A Good Thing? (March 2011) -  Sometimes adding inventory might be the right thing to do based on your business. Take time to understand your business and its needs before deciding.

8.  Making Leader Standard Work Visual (June 2011) – An example of a visual board from a group I worked with.  The board makes the tasks and if they were completed by the managers visual.

7.  Beyond Lean Joins Twitter (February 2011) – Beyond Lean announces the venture out onto Twitter.

6.  Redbox Produced in the U.S. Using Lean (October 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #5 – News article about Redbox manufacturing using Lean to produce the Redbox dispensers close to it’s customers in the U.S.

My next post will count down the Top 5 viewed posts of 2011.