I am part of a study group reading and discussing one chapter per week of Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way, a book that may be more appropriate in your lean transformations than The Toyota Way. Chasing the Rabbit and The Elegant Solution are some other top recommendations. Anyway, today we discussed Chapter 10: Two Way Communication and Visual Management. Wow, was I surprised! I know the importance of disciplined communication - I help construction project teams setup effective planning systems regularly - but Toyota is over the top. They have a well thought out way to communicate everything that is needed. And in true Toyota fashion, I am sure they are continually looking to be even more effective in their communication efforts.

Let me say a couple of main ideas from the chapter that hit home for me.

P. 290 - "one of the best ways to build trust is to actually listen to concerns and to address them as they are spoken."

Last weekend I went to Maine and I got to spend some time with my wonderful 5-year-old niece and my awesome 4-year-old nephew. Not only did I have a really great time with them, but I also learned a lot of lessons I could relate to my everyday life.

I was driving the car with both of the kids buckled in their car seats in the back. As we were driving along, we passed a big green tractor in a field, and my nephew asked a question about it. I forget what the specifics of the question, but remember it was a cut and dry, fact-based question. So I answered him. Then his sister said, “Stop teasing him, Aunt Becky! Or he’s gonna get real mad!”

I am writing a post describing my thoughts on my travel experience on a recent trip.  Hopefully I'll have this done tonight or tomorrow morning.

I hear this word a lot working with teams...hopefully. I just heard it in a check-in session of a design team I am coaching.  I find myself using it, but not as much as I had in the past.  It's a hard habit to break.  "Hopefully" is a hedge.  We use such words when making commitments to try to communicate that we really aren't sure about our ability to meet a commitment when we had said we would.  This affects the ability of individuals on the team to create flow in their own work because there now there is variability in the system, whether or not the commitment is fulfilled today or tomorrow.  This language also gives us the opportunity to succeed.  We all would rather succeed.  If we commit to today and do not fulfill the commitment, we failed.  If we expand the delivery window, we increase our opportunity to claim success, however we limit learning.

Let's be specific in our language and learn when things do not go as planned so that our teams can become more reliable.

Ever feel like you are handling a majority of problems, but aren't sure if you have them all? The project is tense; you and your team are highly skilled problem solvers. You support communication and have ad-hoc problem solving meetings frequently. During every planning meeting you do a round robin allowing everyone to say whatever they have to say.

Dealing with problems when you find them is good, BUT watch out for not seeing the flow of the work and the constraints that this may uncover. With a disciplined approach to planning, you can handle everyone's concerns and uncover constraints which would impede flow. 

 

So, a couple of months back I was reviewing Quick n’ Easy Kaizens with a small group of three accountants. Something pretty cool happened. The situation started with one of the accountants sharing her QnEK of posting the 5 most commonly used expense codes right on her cubicle 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. Now when they came to her desk, regardless of what she was doing, they could see the 5 codes right there in front of them.

The interesting thing to me is that it wasn’t till she shared her improvement with the others that they even realized this situation had any opportunity for improvement. It was something that neither of the others had ever given any thought to. The group talked about her improvement and discussed other improvements they could make to the situation. One of the others suggested emailing those 5 common codes around to everyone that used them. They talked about that idea for a while and continued building off of each other. After a few minutes of discussion, the third person in the group very excitedly shared that they could put those codes 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.

This situation represents one 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. They actually inspire and drive each other to continue stretching their minds for even better improvements. If these three people didn’t communicate about the situation and the improvements, minimal improvements would have been made. Through collaboration, this team found a way to reduce the defects in the incorrect processing in these reports for themselves, and they also found ways to eliminate unnecessary movement and reduce waiting for many others.

A Toyota executive* says that to be able to deal with issues, they first have to have a cordial environment. This for him is OASiS representing Ohayo (good morning), Arigato (thank you), Shitsurei-shimanshita (pardon me), and Sumimasen (excuse me; I'm sorry). Being polite are the first step in creating a culture that encourages open and collaborative communication. Especially with people on the front lines. Especially when we need them to say whatever they must to whoever in the organization. 

 

A colleague of mine (thanks Rebecca McCoy) suggested another acronym - GETS. Good morning, Excuse me, Thank you, Sorry. Anyway, the point isn't this sillyness. It's having a cordial environment.