Daily Kaizen

I am reading a great book right now about the Revolutionary War.  In the book it discusses the different approaches taken by the American and British generals in the southern campaign.  The British had almost every advantage in terms of resources, military training, etc.  Yet, the Americans ended up winning the field and as a result the war.  Why?  The book argues that one of the most important reasons was the untraditional approach the generals took to leadership.  Unlike the British leadership who refused to share their strategy and tactics with lower level ranks the Americans focused on teaching every solider the battle plan for the day.  It was mandated by General Greene who allowed even the privates to push back on tactics (something unheard in the military of the day).  As a result, every American solider knew the reason “why” they were being asked to do something.  Thus when the British charged; for the first time in the war the militia held their ground until they got two shots off.  Why, because they knew what the entire plan and they knew standing behind them was the regulars who were ready to support them as they fell back. 

I believe there is a lot to learn from the American generals. Yet, it is a much harder approach to follow.  It requires a faith in the ability of team members, a willingness to share power (through information) and a requirement that leadership is capable of explaining and effectively promoting the reason why.  Taking the time to engage the organization in a continuous conversation about the “why” is the most powerful change management strategy that leadership can deploy.  So many organizations that skip this step end up making the improvement about the tools and methods and eventually fail. 

Each and every time I go to the gemba and stand in front of a visual system the first question I ask to the teams is “so what?”  Why is this important?  It does not take long to understand how well the connections have been made and thus judge the team’s engagement.  Can the team describe the connection of the daily improvements to improving the customer outcomes, the business outcomes and their own experience as a team member?  When the connection is effectively made it is amazing how powerful the impact can be.  One team described to me how the use of a checklist had reduced defects by 50%.  When I asked why it was important they showed me how many patients were still alive as a result.  The manager had taken the time to bring everyone into the plan.  Powerful!

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Hello everyone.  I am back after an amazing five weeks off for paternity leave.  My wife and I welcomed a healthy daughter, Aleah Fried to this world on May 24^th (and just so everyone knows the care we received at Group Health was amazing!).

I am excited to be back to work, but would be lying if I said it has been easy.  Over the last five or six years I have not needed to be very efficient at managing my time.  Each and every day I make choices that result in wasted time and efficiency, many due to the fact that I am undisciplined.  As a result, I have gotten used to working most nights and at least one day during the weekend.  Coming back to work I am committed to trying to get much of this time back so that I can spend it with my family.  More importantly, I want to be present when I am at home.   At the same time I believe that I owe it to the organization to provide as much or more value as before I left. 

I clearly have a problem that I must solve.  I must find a way to do more in less time.  In other words I need to be more efficient with the time I am at work so that less work needs to be completed at home.  So in order to understand the problem and begin to create strategies to reach this goal I need understand how I currently spend my time.  Having been out for five weeks I have a great opportunity to capture this data as well as be more deliberate about the choices I make about how I spend my time.  This is because I have a huge email backlog and much of my calendar is not yet booked by the usual 7-8 hours of meetings.  Managing emails and participating in meetings are by far the two most time consuming activities I engage in each day and are often the reason I am unable to get done my other work, which I bring home. 

•  Email: as I worked down my backlog I decided to capture some data.  What I found might not be surprising to many of you, but it became very clear to me how much time I waste each day.  On average I spend approximately 90 minutes a day reading or responding to an average of 81 daily emails.  I estimated that over 70% of emails I receive lead to no action.  Most of them are cc’s that continue needlessly or are group emails for work/teams I am no longer associated with.  I have known for a long time I am getting these unnecessary emails, but have never done something about it.  I never realized how many minutes it take to manage this work and am taking action now to get off group lists, pick up the phone, etc.
•  Meetings: I am sure everyone has participated in many meetings where at the conclusion you are unaware of why you were there and what value you added.  Often the meetings lack purpose, could have been managed more efficiently, or simply you were not the right person to participate.  Now that I am back I am starting to receive a lot of meeting notices.  More than a third so far I believe either should not happen or I am the wrong person to participate.  I have also learned that many of these meetings are being generated in response to direction I providing clients or consultants that is unclear.  Where is the past I would just go along I am going to now try and be much more disciplined about what meetings I attend and why. 

My final action is to bring back a practice that I started several years ago, but somewhere lost along the line.  When I first started doing consulting work a mentor of my recommended to me (in response to me being overwhelmed) that at the start of each week I write down the three things I need to get done that week and that the start of each day I write down the three things I must get done that day.  I would then manage my week and day in order to ensure that those things got done no matter what.  This simple system helped me stay focused and it felt good to see that I was actually making progress. 

Overall, as I have reflected, collected data and decided on actions it became clear that there is not a simple solution to being more efficient.  Time is mostly wasted in small increments that add up very quickly.  Being disciplined is the best countermeasure I can take.  And the payoff is huge!

PS—A great resource on this subject is the blog timebackmanagement.com

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Group Health had an amazing opportunity a couple of weeks ago to learn from Sensei Imai thanks to the Kaizen Institute.  Joan DeClaire a senior communication manager from Group Health Research Institute attended and wrote this blog to share her reflections.  Thanks to Joan and the folks from Kaizen Institute. 

Because Group Health Research Institute Director of Operations Helga Ding had a conflict, I got to attend a “Knowledge Forum” hosted by Group Health’s Improvement Promotion Office a few weeks ago. The guest speaker was Japanese Lean expert Masaaki Imai, founder of the Kaizen Institute and author of the first book on Lean management.

At age 81, Mr. Imai is known as “the father of continuous improvement.”  At age 55, I often feel like its rebellious stepchild. Maybe that’s why Helga pegged me for this event. I’m not the most Lean-leaning manager at the Institute. Nor am I anti-Lean. It’s just that I manage a small communications team that’s constantly chasing deadlines. Who’s got time to continuously improve? But I do continuously crave sushi, and this was an after-work event with appetizers. So I schlepped down to GHQ, hoping for wasabi and fresh tuna.

Michael Erikson, interim executive vice president of the Group Division Practice, kicked off the event with an overview of Group Health’s “Lean journey,” which began in Laboratory Services in 2004. Next, the Health Plan Division embraced Lean before it spread through Primary Care. In fact, Lean was a big part of Group Health’s success at expanding the patient-centered medical home to all 26 of it medical centers, Michael said.

Then he introduced the guest speaker, using words like “master” and “sensei” (Japanese for teacher). Wearing gray pinstripes and a dignified smile, Mr. Imai set out to describe several high-level precepts of Lean thinking.  He didn’t say a thing about visual trackers or the size of A-3 paper stock. There was not a white board or yellow sticky pad in sight. But there was something quite familiar to me about his presentation.  It reminded me of lessons in “mindfulness”—a philosophy that I’ve been studying outside of work for the past five years or so. The connection between Lean and mindfulness may be old news to many of you. But Helga asked me to share my impressions, so here are my take-aways:

• See change as a good thing. Mr. Imai explained that the word “kaizen” (used interchangeably with “continuous improvement”) comes from “kai,” which means change, and “zen,” which means good.  “The Kaizen spirit encourages thinking about how to change, rather than why it can’t be done.”
• Don’t wait for the perfect solution.  This reminds me to let go of the illusion that I can make everything flawless.  If I seek perfection, I’ll feel overwhelmed. Better to do what’s actually possible to bring about positive change right here, right now.  Said Mr. Imai, “Seek improvements right away, even if you’re only 50 percent on target.”
• Ask “why” five times. This helps get to the root cause of problems, Mr. Imai said. And, of course, I’m thinking, “Five times? That’s a lot of thinking!” But such persistence and commitment could allow me to see things as they really are. Am I really ready for such clarity on the job? Are my co-workers? What about our bosses? “Wisdom comes from facing hardship,” said Mr. Imai.
• When you solve one problem, you will see ten more.  And this is a good thing because….?  Oh, right.  Because it might actually help me find more solutions!
• Use Lean to go green. “Because Lean uses less space, less equipment, fewer people, and less time to produce maximum output, it’s a way to be nice to the good old earth,” said Mr. Imai. It may also lead to kindness for my good old staff. “If you don’t want to work weekends and holidays to meet your goals, do Kaizen,” he said.  Many Americans don’t appreciate this, he added.  They believe we need more money, more time, more resources, and more staff to solve our problems. “If you have no money, use your brain,” said Mr. Imai. “And if you have no brain, sweat it out!”
• Be present with your co-workers and staff. The Leanophiles say, “Go to the Gemba,”—a Japanese word that means “the real place.” “The most sacred place in management is the Gemba,” said Mr. Imai. “This is where value is created.” In fact, Japanese police detectives call the crime scene a “Gemba.” Mr. Imai asked, “Did you ever see Colombo sitting at his desk waiting for a report?”  Of course not. He needed to see the reality of the work before him with his own eyes.
• Practice Lean every day. “Kaizen is everyday improvement, everybody improvement, everywhere improvement,” Mr. Imai said. Everything in the Gemba deteriorates if you don’t pay attention, he added. Even sustaining the current status requires effort.  But if you pay attention daily, your efforts naturally become part of long-term improvement.
• “Seek the wisdom of ten people rather than the knowledge of one.” That was one of my favorite quotes. I suppose everybody who accepts Lean management finds their own reason to value it. And maybe if we share our perspectives with each other, we’ll all become a little wiser.

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