Gresham's law for organization

I want to write this post for a long time ago, finally, I started it tonight.

Gresham's law is named after Sir Thomas Gresham who was an English financier in Tudor times. It is commonly stated as "Bad money drives out good.", says that any circulating currency consisting of both "good" and "bad" money (both forms required to be accepted at equal value under legal tender law) quickly becomes dominated by the "bad" money. This is because people spending money will hand over the "bad" coins rather than the "good" ones, keeping the "good" ones for themselves.

The principles of Gresham's Law can sometimes be applied to different fields of study. Gresham's Law generally speaks to any circumstance in which the "true" value of something is markedly different from the value people must accept, due to factors such as lack of information or governmental decree.

The most famous instant to explain the law by the market for second hand cars, lemon automobiles (analogous to bad currency) will drive out the good cars. The problem is one of asymmetry of information. Sellers have a strong financial incentive to pass all cars off as "good" cars, especially lemons. This makes it chancy to buy a good car at a fair price, as the buyer risks overpaying for a lemon. The result is that buyers will only pay the fair price of a lemon, so at least they won't be ripped off. High quality cars tend to be pushed out of the market, because there is no good way to establish that they really are worth more. The Market for Lemons is a work that examines this problem in more detail.

I need to highlight that the critical element for Gresham's law is "asymmetry of information". Let us change the scenario to our organization, think about if the senior management team only look at the financial data and report for the operation. They do not know how the team working on the process in order to achieve the goal, but they only listen to somebody they think can be trusted. The element of "asymmetry of information" would be effective and we can find the "bad GUY drives out good!" Some bad guys from the organization did nothing for contribution but play the political game all the day. The senior management did not know who get the job done. Afterward, many people joined the bad guys team and force all the good guys out of the organization. In other words, the good guys are always not willing to work with the bad. They will quit the team by their owned willing.

In our kaizen activities, we also needed to study and avoid the same issue. As a lean leader, they are needed to join the kaizen activities to understand who is the member really gave their effort to improve the situation. They are also needed to identify who are the guys only sitting in the team but gave no idea and suggestion. The management team need to identify it perfectly and give the right award to right people, otherwise, the kaizen would be stopped by wrong motivation because of asymmetry of information. This is part of the lean culture and Gresham's law is effective here too.

Joke of leadership

I read a funny story about the leadership, hope to share with my reader and think about what is going to tell us in this story.

There was a skipper sailing his merchantman on the sea for long distance trading. Suddenly, a corsair approached his merchantman and the pirates shouted the skipper to stop. I don't where is the location and it has not mentioned in the story. May be it was near Somali in many hundreds years before.

At that dangerous moment, the skipper asked his sailers to take a red shirt for him, he put on the red shirt and fighted with pirates bravely. Finally, the skipper led his sailers to repel the attack from pirate, saminlar story of American captain...but I don't know is that Philips wore a red shirt or not!

A moment later, the skipper sailed at the same sea area again. The pirates appeared again, this time, there were two corsairs approached and double numbers of pirates came to pillage the merchantman. The skipper did the same thing as last time, asked his sailers to take his red shirt. The skipper put on the red shirt and led to fighted with the pirate bravely. The miracle happened again, the pirates were repelled with full of anger.

One year later, the skipper sailed at the same sea area. However, the pirates were waiting there for the skipper for a long time with well preparation. This time, ten corsairs came to the merchantman and prepared for killing. The skipper asked his sailers to take something for him. It was a yellow trousers, not a red shirt! The sailers wondered that why take a yellow trousers instead of red shirt. They took the yellow trousers to the skipper and asked, "Captain...why not a red shirt this time?", the skipper said, "Red shirt was used to cover my blood, you guys can fight without fear for my wounds."

The story was end here, I believed that you knew why the skipper asked for a yellow trousers.

Let's think about it, if we are leading something, it is not good to let the team member knew you got a trouble. The trouble would come from hostility from other departments, the delay of schedule or you just complained from your boss. However, let your members know your "wounds" is totally not a good idea. The same stories are not less mentioned in Chinese history. Yes, the communication with your team is always important, but the most important of the leader is let the members to know only what they needed to know. The members are not needed the information which is affected their morale, and a good leader is needed to lead the team in avoiding the team attacked by fears. Moreover, you can not bring your fears to your team.

Think about you did good or not good when you faced the trouble!

Learning organization

Information from Wikipedia - learning organization

Motivation of learning organization came from the pressure. The companies are facing two ways of pressure, from internal and external. External pressure came from the business environment change and the innovation of technology. Internal pressure came from the issues of internal operation system and management methodology. To create a competitive advantage, companies need to be able to learn faster than their competitors and also develop a customer responsive culture. On the other hand, they need to correct their internal issues and elminate the wastes in their process. For this post, I would like to discuss more about the learning organization to face internal pressure, and this kind of culture is also part of the lean manuafcturing culture.

In order to form a learning organization, for all employee should promote their self-reflection. This is the basic element of learning organization. Similar to the lean spirit, everything needs continuous improvement, and the attitude of self-relfection is the part of the mindset of continuous improvement. We can do better! Ask youself, "where is the room for further improvement?" If we think everything is alright, is the best, there is no motivation for improvement anyway.

In the organization, we need to execute the policy deployment to align the goal of everybody. The learning organization can only exists when most of the people have the same vision and same objective for working. With this sense, they can share their knowledge and experiance supported by some knowledge management system in IT. Otherwise, all the effort we spent on improvement is only a short term solution. The only way to solve the internal problem is well implement the standardization, and the standardization is also a part of learning organization because the others can learn and study how to solve the old problem from the document of standardization.

With the self-relfection attitude and common vision of grow, the company needs some tools to dig out and solve the issue. It is a very important tools in lean concept for problem solving, do you remember? Yes, the 5 whys analysis. At this moment, we got the preliminary solution from 5 whys analysis, we also need the Deming cycle to make sure the follow up the actions and fine tune the answer according to the situation until the problem is solved in long term. They are always using the A3 report to summarize all the information, the report will be used as the material for standardization and training material for the organization.

In lean concept, the learning organization is more focusing on learning from the mistakes. The knowledge and experiance is generated from the problem we solved before. The most important elements of learning organization is self-reflection, 5 whys analysis, Deming cycle and policy deployment. If we miss anyone of these, the learning organization can not be well implement.

Let me know if you find I missed something, and welcome for any comments. Thanks!

Innovation and creative

Here is a great short movie!

We always reject some creative ideas during kaizen program because we are not sure is that work or not, but if we do not try the new idea, how do we know if it works or not? Just like the video shown above, the child looked like has a mental problem because it was only filled black color in his drawings. Once we puzzled some of the ideas together, we found it worked great.

Please do not reject the ideas from the others in improvement activities again, please!

Motivation needs theory in lean

David C. McClelland (麦克兰德), American David Clarence McClelland (1917-98) achieved his doctorate in psychology at Yale in 1941 and became professor at Wesleyan University. He then taught and lectured, including a spell at Harvard from 1956, where with colleagues for twenty years he studied particularly motivation and the achievement need. He began his McBer consultancy in 1963, helping industry assess and train staff, and later taught at Boston University, from 1987 until his death. McClelland is chiefly known for his work on achievement motivation, but his research interests extended to personality and consciousness.

David McClelland pioneered workplace motivational thinking, developing achievement-based motivational theory and models, and promoted improvements in employee assessment methods, advocating competency-based assessments and tests, arguing them to be better than traditional IQ and personality-based tests. His ideas have since been widely adopted in many organisations, and relate closely to the theory of Frederick Herzberg.

David McClelland is most noted for describing three types of motivational need, which he identified in his 1988 book, Human Motivation. He said that most people possess and exhibit a combination of these characteristics, bias to a particular motivational need, and this motivational or needs 'mix' consequently affects their behaviour and working/managing style.
David C McClelland's motivational needs theory,

Achievement motivation (n-ach)

Authority/power motivation (n-pow)

Affiliation motivation (n-affil)

David McClelland's needs-based motivational model These needs are found to varying degrees in all workers and managers, and this mix of motivational needs characterises a person's or manager's style and behaviour, both in terms of being motivated, and in the management and motivation others.

The need for achievement (n-ach) The n-ach person is 'achievement motivated' and therefore seeks achievement, attainment of realistic but challenging goals, and advancement in the job. There is a strong need for feedback as to achievement and progress, and a need for a sense of accomplishment. McClelland contrasted achievement-motivated people with gamblers, and dispelled a common pre-conception that n-ach 'achievement-motivated' people are big risk takers. On the contrary - typically, achievement-motivated individuals set goals which they can influence with their effort and ability, and as such the goal is considered to be achievable. This determined results-driven approach is almost invariably present in the character make-up of all successful business people and entrepreneurs. For the lean leaders with strong 'achievement motivation', they make the best leaders, but there can be a tendency to demand too much of their staff in the belief that they are all similarly and highly achievement-focused and results driven, which of course most people are not. On the other hand, they would like to use imperatively or compulsorily to lead the projects. Sometimes, they would even jump to the solution during the kaizen without any brain-storming discussion. Meditating myself, at the beginning stage of my leading of lean transformation, I made the same mistake as well.

The need for authority and power (n-pow) The n-pow person is 'authority motivated'. This driver produces a need to be influential, effective and to make an impact. There is a strong need to lead and for their ideas to prevail. There is also motivation and need towards increasing personal status and prestige. A strong n-pow 'authority-motivation' will produce a determined work ethic and commitment to the organisation, and while n-pow people are attracted to the leadership role, they may not possess the required flexibility and people-centred skills. Power motivation divided by two concept, individualistic power motivation and social power motivation. Because of the lean leader in individualistic power motivation tends to control the members in the team, the aggressive and trust in kaizen team was always be destroyed. Empowering members by the lean leaders with social power motivation can encourage and draw out the interesting of improvment.

The need for affiliation (n-affil) The n-affil person is 'affiliation motivated', and has a need for friendly relationships and is motivated towards interaction with other people. The affiliation driver produces motivation and need to be liked and held in popular regard. These people are team players. Mcclelland suggested that a strong n-affil 'affiliation-motivation' undermines a manager's objectivity, because of their need to be liked, and that this affects a manager's decision-making capability. At the same way, leading the lean transformation, we are no way to escape to challenge or be challenged. High affiliation leader would frustrate by this needs which can not be satisfied. Furthermore, because of they want to be liked by members, they cower to give their reasonable requests and challenge the team. Too high of this needs will cause the halt or slow down of lean transformation.

Not only talking about the lean leaders, basically, human being is full of these needs. The most important factor of success in lean transformation is well balancing the needs of motivation. Nobody can tell you what is the correct mix of needs, and you must build up a right mix according to the situation in different period of lean journey.

Leadership styles and lean

Daniel Goleman describes six leadership styles: Coercive, Authoritative, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting and Coaching. He asserts, "Leaders who have mastered four or more styles, especially the Authoritative, Democratic, Affiliative and Coaching styles, have the best climate and business performance.

COERCIVE LEADER always demands immediate compliance, they request their subordinates to do what they tell them. The subordinates are drove to achieve, initiative and self-control. The leadership style is suitable in a crisis, to kick start a turnaround, or with problem employees. For long term, it caused a negative morale and working atmosphere. Also, this kind of leadership would cause a high risk in business because the leader usually can not accept different idea or comment from the colleagues or underlings.

AUTHORITATIVE LEADER mobilizes people toward a vision, they always say "Come with me". They shown self-confidence, acted as change catalyst in revolution. When changes require a new vision, or when a clear direction is needed, authoritative leader is the best one to lead for changes. This kind of leadership is strongly positive in working atmosphere and their subordinates are willing to follow the leaders with confidence.

AFFILIATIVE LEADER creates harmony and builds emotional bonds. They are good in building relationships in working environment, also can setup a good communication channel between the subordinates. In the situation for healing rifts in a team or to motivate people during stressful circumstances, this kind of leader would be the best choice. This is also making a positive working climate.

DEMOCRATIC LEADER forges consensus through participation. We lalways hear the leader said "What do you think?". This kind of leader shown us collaboration, team leadership and also good in communication. In situation to build buy-in or consensus, or to get input from valuable employees, the leader becomes the motivator for the team. This is also making a positive working climate.

PACESETTING LEADER sets high standards for performance. Maxim from them is "Do as I do, or I am your model." They are conscientiousness, drive to achieve and initiative. To get quick results from a highly motivated and competent team is need the kind of leader. However, they would cause a negative working atmosphere for the team because lack of suggestion system and not encourage of comment from subordinates.

COACHING LEADER develops people for the future. We always hear they say "Try this." to encourage the others to strengthen. The leader is good in developing others, empathy and self-awareness. To help an employee improve performance or develop long-term strengths is suitable for this kind of leader. Positive working environment came from this kind of leadership.

The different characteristics of leadership are just like the different numbers of golf club. It is hard to say which kind of leadership is the best or worst. When we implement the lean transformation, we should select the suitable kind of leadership to lead the Kaizen according to the change of company culture. A trope in golf, during we just start to implement lean, we need the immediately culture change in a big jump. We need to use the coercive leadership to lead just like we use the club in number "0" for issueing ball to more than 200 yards. During the culture is improved, we need to motivate the member to improve by themselves. We can use coaching leadership to lead by encourage for trial, just like we use club of number "P" (putter) to put the ball close to the hole around 50 yards.

The important factor is how to select the suitable leadership style for different period and change selectively. In simply say, the different leadership styles like our set of golf club. Select the club in right time. How many clubs do you have right now? Or, actually you don't know what is the number of club you are using?

Aged employee? Senile employee?

First of all, I make a clear statement here,

Aged employee not equals to senile employee! We must say, aged employee equals to experienced employee!

Agree?

By my last business trip to HuaDong, I visited a wire manufacturing plant in Shanghai. I experienced a story and I want to share it with my reader. During the audit of the wire supplier, we walked thourgh her workshop area and the image of many old, dusted and outdated manufacturing machine get into my eyes. Afterward, we walked to the testing laboratory, much clean, well 5S working place seen there. And then, we went back to conference to have a conclusion of the audit. We stated what is the improvement actions should be in placed and give them some suggestions on quality and management system. The CEO of that supplier gave us a reply liked this, "although our machines are old (outdated), our employee are old (senile), but we appreciated your comments and it is truth that we need to improve the quality and management system.". At that moment, the aged employee looked so regret but I felt so disappointed by his reply.

On the way to Putong airport, it is around one hour of transportation, it is a chance for me to talk about my feedback about his reply in conference room because his "old" employee are not on car. It is the first time I discussed the lean concept to the people out of my current company. I summarized the conversation as below,

"In lean concept, the machine will depreciate all the time in every second but not for people. Employee is value-adding all the time! They absorb experience and solve problem during their working time. The experience never depreciates or lost, experience can combine with their knowledge to form a concrete power to improve their work. Yes, sometime, their knowledge would be updated or covered by new technology, but company must provide the chance to catch up the new technology by training or let them to join seminar for new knowledge. Keep them in a learning atmosphere is a very important factor of company success. Trunaround to machine, it is no way to value-add in its value, no matter how good for the preventive maintenance we provided, depreciation is still there. You must change your mind!"

The CEO nodded! I don't know what will he do but it seen to me that he understood what I said.
In lean world, there are two most important spirits. "Continuous improvement" and "Respect to people". Without these, The "single piece flow", "standardization ", "eliminate wastes", ....etc are all bullshit!!!

Simple? but hard to do!

Lean in American way? in Japanese way?

Entended from my last post "The different between American and Japanese management styles", I want to talk more about the the differet of the way they consider in lean manufacturing as well as its implementation. Here is also a blog post from Steed Wei "Lean in American way, Lean in Japanese way" for your reference. The ways of thinking for lean manufacturing is also different as their management style.

The different ways of thinking in lean between Amercian and Japanese,

1. As other management tools, such as balance score card, American thinks that lean manufacturing concept is also a tools only. How do you treat your tools? Put them in a toolbox and seek them when you need? They are using lean as a tools to force their employee to change, force them to continuous improvement. There is no culture change involved in implementation. From the cradleland of lean, actually, Japanese does not know what is lean but they called that concept in "TPS" (Toyota production system). Japanese way of lean is a culture and it is important to spread the culture to everybody in company. They need the employee fully understand the lean concept as their original thinking. All the continuous improvement actions are issued from their wills, and no need to force by senior management. In my last trip to Japan, I asked the Japanese consultant that, "is that all the Japanese companies implement lean concept?" The consultant replied, "yes, all the companies here understand the lean concept, but they only apply parts of tools for their company. They only apply the tools they needed in necessary."

2. American way of lean is focusing on short term result. As they think that lean is tools, any kind of tools would give the return or payback to its value. They spent money on investment to get a lean leader and Kaizen promotion officer, they spent on training and the charge from external consultant. They always ask for return, "How much saving we can get annually?". They need a schedule of actions, and they also need a budget they can save. They will give up some long term project to improve because of its result is not significant in the financial report. Japanese thinks in the way that lean is their responsibility. No matter it is a project in long term or short term, if the project has the benefit to their company, they will implement and push the project. They would never ask for a budget plan for how much they can saving, but they will have a summary for how much they did save. The summary is a prove they are improving the process in right direction and to motivate the people to continuous.

3. American way of lean is focusing on the holistic change, not only the manufacturing process, the logistic flow, supply chain flow, information flow even the office are also considered to changed in one shoot. As the Japanese consultant replied, they are not implement the lean concept totally. They are only focusing the critical point of their company and apply lean concept to that area accordingly. As we know, Japanese culture is focusing on the detail, they apply the lean into the area and they continuous to improve until they felt it was perfect. Offcause, for Japanese culture, it has no sense of perfect, it only has better, and better.

Any more ideas from you?

Belief 2 - Flamingo 火烈鸟

On last week, I read a magazine and learned some knowledge of Flamingo. It was found that the migration of flamingo is interesting and shown us some ideas when we are facing the challenge of leading, or we can say the challenge of culture change in organization.

Flamingo is a gregarious wading birds in the genus. They are found in both the western hemisphere and in the eastern hemisphere, but are more numerous in the latter. Flamingo has white color originally and its red feather came from the mineral from its feeding. The migration of flamingo is not its habit periodically, it only migrates to other area when the food was shortage or mutation of its living area. Its migration is always started in the night to prevent the attacks from other accipiters.

The most interesting thing is its way how it starts the migration. The migration is usually started by one flamingo and it is always identified as the leader of the group. When the leader started to fly to other area in the first trial, there are only a few members to follow the action. There were only 5 to 10 flamingoes to follow and the leader will fly back to the base and take a rest. Afterward, the first tier of 10 flamingo starts the migration again. This time, they will fly many turns on its living base to attract more followers to join the tier, it may be 100 flamingoes to follow the action but 100 flamingoes were still the less portion of the group. Therefore, the second tier of 100 would back to the base. It is hard to say how many tiers can start the migration successfully, it started from 1 to 10, to 100, to 500, 2000, ... to all finally. We can find that if the number of bird in that tier exceed a certain portion or percentage of the group, all the group will start the migration.

In my point of view personally, the migration of flamingo is similar the way we implement the lean transformation. The leader starts to train the team and it will has some members found that it is meaningful and follow the way to do. After many improvement actions, some other members will find that worth to follow according to the result of improvement project and the number of follower will increase accordingly. When we are pushing the culture change, it needs a certain number of members to change and follow first. When it exceed the certain percentage, the culture will form in the organization. The problem is the leader has the passion enough to lead so many tiers until the culture is formed. It is the same way of how to start migration of flamingo. Why we give up the lean transformation when we faced the resistance of culture change? If you face the problem on the way in lean, let's tell your members for this story.

Belief 1 - Kong Zi 孔子

"Lun Yu" is a ancient book of China which wrote by "Kong Zi". He was the great teacher of all Chinese and his thinking influence all of us till now.
Here is a story in Lun Yu recorded a conversation between Kong Zi and his student,

Student asked, "Master, what are the core factors to establish a country?"

Kong Zi replied, "Army, food and belief!"
Student asked, "If we needed to ignore one factor, which is your choose?"

Kong Zi replied, "Army!"

Student asked, "If we needed to ignore one more factor, which is you choose?"

Kong Zi replied, "Food!", he explained. "Everybody will die from of old, nothing can be done without belief."

Yes, if everybody believe and trust their country, even no food and they are starving, even no amry and they are attacked by other civilization, the country still can be stable. Without their belief, even they have food and weapon, the people in that country attack each other for more fortune and power. The country is mess and all the citizen are unhappy.

Belief, also is a core factor of culture. It is existing in every company, even in lean manufacturing transformation. During implementation of lean manufacturing, even the result of improvement is not significant enough to shown all the members, if the people still trust the methodology can help them to improve, the implementation is continuously going on. In some companies, the belief of lean is not enough, even they have a little bit improvement in any kind of field, once they faced the problem or block, they will step backward and are going to give up. Culture change is so important of success in lean transformation. On the way for improving efficency, we should do something to improve the culture and enhance their belief of lean as well. Otherwise, the lean can not be sustained and it is the most common of failure of lean transformation.

Catholicness of lean

At recent moment, I get some information from website for electing the first company which is well implement lean manufacturing. Personally, I am not interesting the result of election because I am so sure that Toyota will be the first one. But, I am so interesting which are the competitive company. Please check the above company names.

To the moment, I was making a presentation for lean committee meeting, so I used the above info to have a culture promotion to all committee member. below is the main point of the presentation,

Including all companies in automotive industry, there are 10 companies related in those 25 companies. It is only 40%.

For the top 10 companies, it is only one company is making automotive.
Lean manufacuring is appling in different industries around 60%, although it was started by Toyota.
The industries covered such as electronics, food, funiture manufacturing, ...etc. We can find the catholicness of lean concept applied in diverse industries. Nowaday, lean is absolutely not only apply in automotive industry.

What is the main factor for apply lean concept to other industries?
Apply lean from
lean manufacturing, transforms to
Lean management, transforms to
Lean product development, transforms to
Lean supply chain, transforms to
Lean enterprise.

Whatever the stage you are, whatever the industry you are, eventually, we need --- Lean thinking!

Ensuring the Future of Food

Here are the content of the video for your reference.

Food is indispensable to our survivalbut today, it is undergoing great change,for example, let's take tempura soba.it's a traditional japanese cuisine.but 80% of the ingredients are now imported.Currently, japan only produces about 40% of the food it consumes.This is the lowest among all major developed nations,This is a result of the significant change in the japanese people's diet.

In the past, they ate more rice, fish, vegetables,so their diet was nutritionally well balanced.but nowadays they consume more meat, fat, and oil.lots of soy and cereal grains are needed to make feed and oil,so they are being imported in large quantities,and such a changed in the diet has disrupted the nutritional balance,giving way to a wide spectrum of health problems,furthermore, although japan imports a lot of food,it also disposes of more edible food than the entire world food aid.The decrease in demand for domestic agricultural produce leads directly to the decline in agricultural productivity.

Currently, japan is tacking issues such as aging farming population and increase in abandoned farmland.What's more, 70% of the land in japan is mountainous.This means that even if all the flat land were used only for farming,it would not be able to produce enough food within its own borders.Japan depends on a very small number of countries for the majority of the food it imports, therefore its food supply base is quite vulnerable.Moreover, the global food landscape is changing drastically.First of all, the global population is growing exponentially, and it is expected to maintain its upward trajectory in the future.Next, there's rapid economic growth in developing countries.The consumption of meat, fat, and oil increased, resulting in greater demand for soy and cereal grains.

We also face energy issues. Today, food or feed crops are being used to develop biofuels.and lastly, we are challenged with various environmental issues.The progression of global warming, climatic anomalies, and exhaustion of ground water are creating tougher farming conditions all around the world.In response to such global change,the food prices are rising sharply.so, what should be done to meet food security needs?first, each and every one of us should start thinking about the global food situation as our own problem and reexamine our lifestyles,for example, going back to the japanese diet involving mainly rice and domestic agricultural produce will lead to a better nutritional balance.and the food industry should provide what consumers seek and label them accordingly.

Moreover, farmers should efficiently use the limited agricultural resources, and offer safe and high quality produce which meet the needs of consumers and the food industry.The increase in the demand for domestic agricultural produce will drive agricultural development and enliven agricultural communities. As a result, our tables will be enriched with agricultural produce growth in our own countries.Japan, as the world's largest new food importer, will engage in all possible efforts to contribute to stabilization of demand and supply of food in the world market through increasing its own food self-sufficiency rate.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let us focus on the message from the video which are related to lean concept,

1. Pull from customer, pull the demand,

2. Elminate the waste of abandon farmland,

3. Create value for aged agricultural popullation,

4. Vision to make benefit for society.

We have to remind that the lean concept is came from Japan and we can find the concept implement everywhere even in public promotion.

If you find any observation from the video, please share with us!

Team Work - 团队合作乃成功的金钥匙

Teamwork is a key factor of success!

In formula 1 championship, we find an impressive activity in the racing. We saw that there are some mechanics working in pit to replace the tires and fueling for the racing car. The quick, skillful and planned actions always attract our sight. But, actually how can they do that in short time to complete the all complicated mission?

The car is guided into its pit by the 'lollypop man', named for the distinctive shape of the long 'stop/ first gear' sign he holds in front of the car. The car stops in a precise position and, if a tyre change is required, is immediately jacked up front and rear. Three mechanics are involved in changing a wheel, one removing and refitting the nut with a high-speed airgun, one removing the old wheel and one fitting the new one. At the same time two mechanics operate the heavy fuelling rig, which must be precisely slotted into the car before fuelling can start.

How long for the mechanics to complete the mission in average? 7 seconds.

Talk about teamwork for the mission, it including some factors as below,
1. A good organization. Every members has enough capability.
2. Well planning. Every step of action is well planned and scheduled.
3. Well training. Every step of action is needed fully practiced.

In modern industry, we needed good team to complete all activity in company. It is a very important key factor for success to improve the competitive ability. Can you find the good team work in your career?

在一级方程式赛车比赛中，我们发现一个令人深刻的印象，在紧张刺激的赛车赛场上, 一些赛车维修人员运用工作技巧替换轮胎，或者为赛车加油，这动作的敏捷性，灵活性，还有计划性总是深深吸引了我们的视线，其实，我们总是会在想，为什么他们能在如此短的时间内完成如此复杂的动作呢？

首先赛车被“棒棒糖人”引导进它的轨道，他在车前面指引和控制它到特别的停留处，赛车停留在一个精确的位置，如果需要更换轮胎，它会被千斤顶迅速的抬起前部或者后部，三个维修工人来合作更换轮胎，其中一个人用气枪很快的拧卸螺母，另一个人卸走废旧轮胎，然后最后一个人安装上新的轮胎，与此同时，两个工人开动笨重的加油机器，而在加油之前，这个加油机必须正好精确的导入连接到赛车。

所有维修人负一起完成这项任务平均需要花费多长时间？答案是7秒。

和我们的团队讨论了这个任务的完成，认为它包括了以下几个因素：

1. 一个优秀的组织，每一个成员必须拥有优秀的能力。

2. 良好的计划，任何一个步骤都必须经过良好的计划和安排。

3. 充足的培训，每一个娴熟的动作都需要事先充足的训练。

现代工业制造中，我们需要一个优秀的团队来合作完成公司任务，这是提高公司竞争能力的关键因素，在你的职业生涯中，你发现这样优秀的团队了吗？

How does one learn to be a lean leader?

To do:

1. Kick out the crutch. In order to develop as a lean leader you need to leave your comfort zone and it helps if you have something to force you out of that comfort zone.
2. Take on a new role that you are not really prepared for, sign up for a near-impossible challenge or remove whatever security blankets you have around your process.
3. Apply lean to your own work. Between what you learn and what you demonstrate, only by practicing lean on your own work will you become an effective lean leader.
4. You must be a learner first. Lean is about how an organization learns, but organizations are made up of people, so how people learn will drive the success of lean.
5. You must be the first for trial. No matter what was your position before the lean leader, work by yourself and no more order to the other during the kaizen event.
6. Regularly experiment and reflect on your own work. Systematically issue your report to all the peoples and ask for comment.
7. Engage people from where they are and help them move forward to their own idea of progress.

Not to do:

1. Don't stand in a field asking for everyone to join you.
2. Don't ask people to make an impossible leap. Take your knowledge, skill and vision from lean and help the person move forward from where they currently are.
3. Don't ask them to give up their own pursuits to join yours.

Selection of lean leader and KPO

At the beginning of January 2008, I have a chance to discuss with some friends for how to select a suitable candidate for lead leader and KPO in company. It was so surprise me that they have already started to implement lean manufacturing or lean enterprise but they still don’t understand a most basic concept of lean.

What was that? “RESPECT TO PEOPLE!”

When the productivity improved and the demand of manpower reduced, it doesn’t mean that we can layoff the worker or any employee. It gave a chance for the company to ramp up its sales amount without any facilities investment or additional manpower demand, in another words, use the same resource to grow up the business. How about if the employees know they will be fired after they improve the output? It is a totally incorrect concept!!!

On the other hand, during the lean manufacturing implement, it is similar to run a project and no doubt we need a strong leader to manage and coach the team to execute the improvement actions. Some guys thought they have budget and can get a “superman” outside to be the lean leader or KPO, afterward, everything will be alright. It also a serious mistake! As a lean leader, who needs to identify the opportunity of improvement in the production floor or company operation system. The most suitable solution is selecting the suitable guy and promotes him/her to be the leader or KPO internally. Off cause it has so many conditions required for the job, but, it is also an attitude of “respect the people”. Any company has room to be improved but it doesn’t mean nobody can improve the situation in the company. May be somebody in the company already has ideas how to improve but they finally understand they have no chance to lead the project. What will they do?

I give you some conditions to select for lead leader or KPO as below,
1. Aggressive for working,

2. Willing to change,

3. Well understand the company operation system or procedures,

4. Well understand the weakness of company,

5. Technical background,

6. Honorable in contribution for company,

7. Well communication skill.

Why we need a technical people to lead the lean transformation? As a technical guy myself, I am not going to promote the people in professional of technical. In lean implementation, we always start the improvement from workshop, especially in manufacturing process improvement. Therefore, we need the technical guy lead the lean in the first stage. Afterward, all the people in the company can find the improvement result easily, in other words, it is one kind of lean culture promotion. That's why I strongly recommend we need a technical guy to lead in the beginning stage.

Actually, I am sure that the suitable person existed in every company and the problem is the senior management is willing to search or not! They respect their employees or not?

Lean manufacturing is popular!

From industryweek: Ranking Continuous Improvement Methods

Nowaday, the lean manufacturing is used to be continuous improvement method so popular. If we included the ranking of "Lean and six sigma" and "Toyota production system" to lean manufacturing, we can say more than half of the companies are using "Lean" mothod!

Visiting of Snow Brand Milk Products 2

Mar 7,2008, Steed, Andy (my partners of lean implementation) and me visited a milk products company in Japan. The company located in Yokohama of Japan with historical operation. Before we arrived the factory, the guide of the visiting explained a little bit of the background and news of the company.

Personally, I felt that the visiting for this company is not related to lean manufacturing. Also, I believed that trip is arrange by the tourist agency or Japan government by the relationship of benefit. However, after the visiting, I still found something useful for the lean implementation, even lean thinking. Simply say, I got some thinking of the attitude to face the problem.

The web-link od Snow Brand http://www.snowbrand.co.jp/ (this is more details for the company and absolutely not a advertisment.

According to introduction of the guides, we understood Snow Brand faced two serious problem before and the affection still existing right now,

1. year 2000, the milk they produced caused more than 10000 people food poisoning. Nobody explain what is the root cause and as my understanding, it may be caused by human mistake in process or maintenance. The result is the company stop producing milk.

2. year 2002, there was a affiliated company of Snow Brand sold a beef with incorrect labelling. The marked the beef was domestic goods but actually it was imported. The domestic produced beef was much expensive and better than imported. The problem was affecting her honesty and the image of brand name.

Once we sat in the conference room, the guide of the company introduced the problem they have before. I can say the they faced the problem nakedly in front of us. One of my colleague asked a question, "why you not consider to quit the market and use another brand to operate?", the answer was, "we liked to face and solve the problem! it was agreed by all employee in the company." Wow, what kind brave attitude they had in front of trouble?

It is a culture different between China and Japan. Japanese encourage brave, enjoy challenge and they never give up. For Chinese, they more prefer to escape. When we hold the kaizen projects, how many time we heard the member to give themselve a excause to stop the improvement action? "It can't be worked!", "if we did that, there is another problem on...", ...etc. The point of your member wanted to tell you is that, we do not like to face the problem. All of this, it is the attitude problem and culture problem.

I am sure that if the situation of Snow Brand happen in China, the company will stop for a moment to change it brand name and start to product again in short moment. Actually, the critical problem of quality is stll not fixed. The story would be happened again and again.
For improvement project, the most important thing, is the attitude of facing problem.

1. Brave to face problem, (it proves the value of you to exist)

2. Enjoy the challenge, (it helps you to grow up)

3. Never give up, (It is the main factor of success, no matter how much you pay on the job, once you start to think to give up, you lost everything you have paid.)

The visiting of Snow Brand looks no relation to lean, we can not find any lean concept in such material and process flow. However, we found a important and useful attitude for everything you want to success. It is a good lesson for me.

And finally, I bought one to share with my sons, so far so good...

Visiting of Snow Brand Milk Products 1

This is the article which wrote by my partner, Andy Song. Good for your reference.

***** *****
我们在日本考察的最后一个企业是雪印乳业.因为雪印是从事食品生产的企业.和我们的行业根本搭不上边儿,当时心里就特别纳闷,组织方怎么安排我们去参观他们呢?

去雪印的路上,组织方就介绍:‘今天去参观的企业很特别,这种公司是从1925年开始的生产的,而且在整个日本信誉极好.是乳品业的王牌企业.但这家公司在2000年的夏天发生了一件让全日本震惊的大事:‘日本各地相继出现顾客因饮用雪印乳业公司大阪工厂(也就是此次参观的工厂)生产的低脂肪牛奶及牛奶饮料而发生中毒事件,中毒人数超过１.４万人.’使得雪印关闭4家制造工厂,公司大幅裁员.

到雪印后,发了一些关于雪印的简介.接着雪印公司的领导---工场厂(相当于国内工厂的厂长)对公司简介讲解.作完公司介绍后说:“我们公司在2000年发生一起让公司信誉大受损失的事件---顾客饮用本公司生产的牛奶及牛奶饮料发生中毒,导致公司失去消费者信任、公司严重亏损.制造工厂关闭,大幅裁减员工…”当时听到这儿就懵了,那有这样对客人介绍公司的,我们中国不是有句俗语叫---家丑不可外扬,对我们这些去考察、参观、学习的企业来说就更加不能如此表白.

而接下来的讲述更加意外:‘公司经历了此次事件后濒临倒闭,公司董事长在日本媒体(电视)对日本所有人公开道歉.并且公司高层领导和员工集体讨论是否继续将雪印这个品牌保留下去,经过激烈的讨论.公司员工强烈要求保留雪印品牌,就这样雪印上下一致决定继续使用此品牌,接着雪印公司请著名专家、普通的消费者,连同本公司自己的技术骨干组成一个团队.共同寻找发生问题的根源,解决发生问题的原因.并且为了防止类似问题再次发生,公司将生产产品的所有流程(除了部分保密外)放在公司网页上,并组成团队定期检讨.接收消费者建议,就这样一直坚持改善下去,经过将近7年的奋斗,雪印逐渐在消费者心目中取得信任.赢得失事前客户源的30%.今后雪印一直持续改善下去,最终取得消费者的信赖.’

我们作为一个旁观者,一个毫不知情的参观者,雪印在对待问题的态度着实让我们感动,就象雪印工场厂说的:’我们在以前犯了错误,并且为此付出沉重的代价.我们要做的不是逃避问题,而是勇敢的面对问题.解决问题.为了雪印在以后的成长路上不会再犯同样的错误,我们将发生的这起事件当作我们公司的座右铭.让每一个雪印的员工都铭记于心.’这正如我们经常说的---知耻而后勇.

反观在我们的工作中、在生活中同样也面对这种问题,在我们这个社会中的企业也经常发生如此错误,当我们出现这些问题,我们的企业出现这种错误.我们是如何去对待去处理的呢?是否象雪印一样,勇敢的去面对问题,最终解决问题,和长期预防类似问题再次发生呢?

小时候老师教导我们,犯了错误并可怕,可怕是我们不去寻找犯错误的原因.可怕的是我们不去面对问题、逃避问题.继续让这种错误再次发生.

Attitude decide everything

Long time ago, this is the most impressive event which I want to share with you. It is sometime about China soccer...
The last China national soccer team coach Bora Milutinovic said, "Attitude decide everything!", it means that positive attitude provides positive performance and negative attitude provides negative result! During the period Mr. Milutinovic was busying to prepare the training for China national soccer team in world cup, at that moment, all China are not optimized our team can attend the final stage of world cup. Some team players and reporters asked him that “if we draw the match in next round, your class will be dismissed. What do you think?” The magic coach was so surprised that why Chinese people and team always came out a negative for thinking and passive in attitude. He questioned, “Why you guys always issued some passive question without any constructive?”
“Attitude decided everything” became golden words of magic coach and I always used it for my self and suggested to my close friend.
For the implement of lean manufacturing, the members of program always did the same just like the reporter for sports. They would say, “The actions will cause a problem for what, I think it will not work…” something like that. At that moment, we always remind the golden words!
In China, you can find banner anywhere shown a passive thinking, like what you did wrong, what kind punishment you got. I believed it is a traditional culture but I believed that it is the time we improve it.
Off cause, my point of view, Mr. Milutinovic is not only a great coach of soccer; he is also coach for me altougth I am not professional soccer players...

-----------------------------------------------------
态度决定一切
很久以来，我就想和大家分享一件令我感触很深的事件，它是关于中国足球的……
前任中国国家足球队教练博拉·米卢蒂诺维奇说过：“态度决定一切”。它的意思是说，积极的态度引领积极的表现，消极的态度导致消极的结果。在任期间，米卢先生一直致力于国家队备战世界杯的训练。当时，中国人都不看好我们的国家队能参加世界杯的决赛，一些球员和记者问他，“如果我们在下一场输掉了比赛，您的游戏就会结束，您有什么想法？”这位神奇足球教练对国人持有如此消极和被动的态度感到不可思议，他质疑道：“为什么你们这些家伙总是散布一些消极而毫无建设性的言论呢？”, “为什麽不往好的方向去想? 赢了这一仗, 下一仗将面对什麽样的对手, 以什麽策略取胜?”
“态度决定一切”成为神奇足球的金玉良言，而我也一直把它作为我的座右铭，并以此鼓励我的朋友们。
在精益生产执行的过程中，我们团队的成员有时候出现一些消极言论，就和那些看热闹的记者如出一辙。例如“这次行动将导致一些什么问题，我认为我们不应该去做…..”，这样的时候，我们经常提醒和警醒自己的就是这句金玉良言——态度决定一切。这句话是我和我们的团队在前进中保持不懈追求的动力。
在中国，到处可以看到一些消极警告的标语，比如如果你做错什么，将会得到什么惩罚之类的, 全是消极及负面的思想. 我觉得这是国人传统的习惯性思维，而现在就是我们改变它的时机。
当然，我个人认为，米卢先生不仅仅是一个优秀的足球教练，虽然我不是一个职业足球队员，但他也是我的教练和老师。他教会我们一句让我们受益终生的工作思路——态度决定一切！