A few years back, I was part of a leadership team that put together quarterly presentations for the executives. One of the sections we had to prepare was titled “reflections.” As a team, this was the only time that we would reflect on how we got where we were. Except most of us really didn’t reflect. One person on the team would take responsibility for preparing our “reflections.” When we presented, it was really just that one person’s reflection on the past quarter.

The first reason I smile is because the vision that comes to my mind is one of my dear colleagues would break out in his best Diana Ross impersonation singing “Reflections of, the way life used to be.” Even though he did this a dozen or so times before each quarterly meeting, it never failed to bring laughter about the team.

The second reason I smile is a little more reflective (if you will). As the years moved on and I began to learn about lean, the idea that our team only took the time to reflect four times a year (and in the fashion we did) seems ignorantly arrogant and quite foolish.

It’s also a gentle reminder that I can still be ignorantly arrogant and quite foolish when I forget to reflect as often as I should.

I was reviewing Quick n’ Easy Kaizens with a small group of three accountants a few months back. Something really interesting happened. The situation starts with one of the accountants sharing her QnEK of posting the 5 most commonly used expense codes right on her cubical wall. People were constantly coming up to her to ask her for them – interrupting her work or causing them to wait if she was on the phone or away from her desk.

The interesting thing to me was that it wasn’t until she shared her improvement with the others that they even realized this was a situation that had opportunity for improvement. The group talked discussed her improvement, and other improvements they could make to the situation. One of them suggested emailing those 5 common codes around to everyone that used them. This was good in the sense that the three of them were talking, and building off of each other. After a few minutes of discussion, the third person in the group very excitedly shared that those codes could go right on the expense reports. This would completely eliminate the need for anyone to look up the codes because they are right there, where the work happens.

I think this situation represents some of the hidden beauties of a good QnEK program. When people get in the mood of improving together, their ideas bounce off each other and grow from each other. If these three people didn’t communicate about the situation and the improvements, minimal improvements would have been made. Not only did the accounting department end up with more correct expense reports to process, but they were able to eliminate unnecessary movement, prevent defects and reduce waiting for many others.

When my husband came home, I was very excited to share my improvement with him. I was a little taken aback when he responded by suggesting that we separate the spices in the trays by the ones we use most often or alphabetically. It made perfect sense! Why hadn’t I thought of that? I was not very accustomed to somebody else making improvements to my improvements!

We wound up alphabetizing the spices. I quickly began to appreciate his idea built on mine. It is so much better to have multiple minds working to improve things. What one mind thinks of can be very different than what another mind thinks. The impact of the improvements built together is always much better than one!

Needless to say, we didn’t wind up with an indisputable story on the pyramids being built by slaves or by devout followers. But I did take away something very interesting from Hatem about how the relationship between the worker and the customer correlates to the quality and outcome of the product.

There are multiple levels of relationships people have with other people. The different relationships they have can (and generally do) have an impact on the product being built.

Typically, if someone is asked to build something for a friend, they will certainly put good efforts into it and attempt to make sure the product is of good quality. If they are to build the same thing for someone they love, they will likely put more energy and effort into the work and end up with something of even higher quality or better outcome. Additionally, they may not be asked to build, but rather build it voluntarily out of love for the other person. If they build something for someone they worship, the amount of concern, care and dedication going into the product will be unmatched. The driving force within will be stronger because they are fulfilling some aspect of the purpose of life.

How do we get the same quality product in commercial work where the workers are often disconnected from the end user? I think it all ties into one of the fundamental pillars of lean: respect for people. When we use a lean approach to design we involve the end user. The relationship is started. But do we achieve the same results that are achieved when something is being built for a god? What about in construction? What kind of relationship do the workers have with the end users? Is there any sense of obligation to do their best? Or just to do “good enough?” What about the workers that are in support roles – accounting, IT, HR, etc? The workers that don’t actually touch the final product, but support the building of it? What kind relationship do they have with the end user?

Respect for people is a behavior. When practiced widely in an organization, this behavior creates a culture that respects people. When an organization consistently behaves with the highest respect for others (including the end user), it will certainly be visible in the end product.

Sometimes, people are accustomed to making these types of small improvements. They are just not accustomed to recognizing that they do it. Once they begin to recognize these improvements, they can begin to document and share them. This leads to many other beneficiaries of the improvement as well as improvements on the improvement. This is when the power behind a QnEK program really shows!

Helping people to begin to recognize the improvements they make is enormously important. One of the most successful ways I’ve found to help do this is to actually sit with them while they work. Ask them why they do some of the things they do – and ask if they’ve always done it that way. (We aren’t talking about the people that say “I don’t know why I’m doing it, it’s just the way we’ve always done it.” That’s a different type of person that we’ll talk about another time). So as you sit with a person talking about what they are doing and why they are doing it, you are helping them connect the thought process of making small improvements to the actual improvements they are making. You are helping them to be able to make this connection in the future. As you are having this conversation with them, help them write it down, leading them with questions:

1. What was your situation before?
2. What is your improvement?
3. What is the effect of your change?

I would love to hear some other successful ways you may have been able to help people recognize their improvements – please post for all to share!

To get the full positive value from that change, it is necessary to reflect, along with others who are involved, to understand what happened that we weren’t expecting. Why did this happen? Why didn’t we know this was going to happen? What could we have done differently to get a better outcome? There are all sorts of questions we can use to learn about this. Use the new knowledge to adjust the change and make it one that is for the better. Additionally, we can use that knowledge in other places too.

If we don’t take the time to learn from changes that don’t meet our expectations, we’re shunning the opportunity to learn to a much more powerful degree!