Lean | Six Sigma | QMS |

Lean Leaders Are Born, Not Made

2016-03-28T03:41:00.003-07:00

Yousuf is a young Lean leader in an organization which is planning to implement lean. After 2 years of persistent effort, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Though it was hard to get it but he was consistent and persistent in working towards it. Now people have started realizing the benefits of lean and management is happy with the lean transformation that has happened. CEO of the organization has praised him for his tremendous efforts despite resistance to change from every corner.

Yousuf's characteristics of being Self Motivated, Persistent, Courageous, Authentic, Upstanding and Respectful helped him in achieving this difficult task. These are few of many other characteristics that he posses, however these are the most critical ones without which he would have failed.

The most common challenges that lean leaders face while implementing lean is "Resistance to change", "Lack of bandwidth to take enough initiatives" and "Inability to show quick returns to management, hence lack of interest and support". These challenges are enough to create an atmosphere filled with frustration around Lean leader. People will often quit in this kind of atmosphere or least would not be able to give their 100 %.

In this article i would like to emphasize the most important trait of a successful lean leader, "Desire to change against all odds". Absence of this critical trait in lean leaders may prove to be fatal for lean initiative and may dampen management efforts of lean transformation. This trait is exclusive to handful of people. It's in their DNA. They are born problem solvers and have the desire to implement change.

However "Desire to change" alone will not help. There are certain enablers or sub-characteristics that helps a lean leader in achieving lean transformation by successfully leading and implementing change. The most critical one is "Self Motivation and Persistence". Lean leaders keep their spirit high all the time by following a Mantra of Self-Motivating themselves. Self-Motivation is the key enabler that doesn't allow the lean leader to lose focus and momentum. This makes them self-reliant and able to take responsibility. During the initial phase of lean implementation when the task is to take people and management on board or seek management buy-in by making them understand the benefits of lean

since it is an unknown territory for them , many lean efforts fails even before they kick-off. However a lean leader would not let a lean effort collapse at this stage if he remains self-motivated and persistent in his effort. This quality helps them during further phases of lean transformation when there is a resistance to change and lack of bandwidth to take enough initiatives.

Second most important enabler is "Authenticity". There is no doubt that authentic leaders are self-aware and genuine. Lean Leaders have a charisma characterized by high morale and ethical standards that builds people trust. They lead with their heart. Successful lean transformation is only possible through engagement of every individual in an organization and cultivating the thought that lean is everyone's responsibility. The challenge faced by lean leaders is that they are only facilitators with no authority over resources. In this situation the lean leader builds relationship on solid moral and ethical foundation. This helps them creating an environment of openness and trust and leveraging it for passing of knowledge. They teach and implement lean not by showing authoritarian behavior but by engaging people.

Next most important enabler is "Respect for people". Any program would fail if it does not consider the element of respecting people. Many would consider it a common sense but unfortunately too many people sometimes forget this basic human courtesy, especially in the workplace. Lean leaders shows this quality by giving people the responsibilities to make decision while executing lean projects.

The trait of "Desire to change" along with other three enablers as mentioned above are difficult to learn. They are rarely seen in an individual in appropriate proportion. It comes as a package in the persons DNA and that makes him a Leader Born, Not Made.

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Half Cooked Lean

2015-06-17T02:49:00.004-07:00

How will you react if you are served best quality rice - half cooked? How about wearing spectacles with glass only on one eye? You might be thinking why would someone do this when there is no gain, obviously you will not enjoy the rice and probably throw away the rest after sometime and in second case you might even damage your eyes. Ironically that's what happening to Lean in most of the organization these days. Lean is half cooked which is hurting them instead of benefiting.

Lean is used as marketing word to impress the customers and has become talk of the town, but a scant few organizations truly able to completely transform themselves. Imagine what would be the reaction of Toyota pioneers like Taiichi Ohno and Shingeo Shingo, had they make a visit to the organization who claims to be a Lean organization and not even 5S implemented inside organization. Many companies follow lean but they never truly embody it as part of their basic code.

I am not saying Lean is easy to adopt and practice but this is something which will not help if half done. Before an organization decides to LEANify itself, there has to be a (1) clarity of purpose (Strategic vision) , (2) buy-in from Top Leadership, (3) plan in place to ensure its success , and (4) enthusiastic team /change agents to cultivate lean in every corner of the organization.

If any of the above mentioned elements is missing, Lean Transformation mission will lose its lustre and Half Cooked Lean will be the deliverable of whole exercise. In that case organizations would just end up copying others. There will not be any sustainable results but only superficial gains and deceiving progress.

There are organizations who want to Leanify themselves and have structured programs in place to train and coach its employees but fails to do so. The reason is Lean is forced upon the employees as a set of tools rather than as thinking. There is a popular misconception that lean is about tools such as 5S, Kaizen, VSM etc. This is one of the biggest reasons of Lean Transformation failure. However the truth is “Lean is a thinking”. As mentioned by James Womack in his book “Lean Thinking – Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation”

“Lean Thinking is Lean because it provides a way to do more and more with less and less – less human effort, less equipment, less time, and less space – while coming closer and closer to providing customers with exactly what they want.”

Lean thinking is based on certain basic fundamental assumptions and principles. To become truly effective at lean, organization must understand these fundamentals. Lean transformation will not be successful if we are not aware of Why we are doing this? What is the purpose?, What Lean can do to us ? and Why only Lean ?

To understand Lean completely we should start our program from the basics, basics of when Lean came into existence. We need to learn and understand the fundamentals and principles behind lean and grasp the approach of How Toyota evolved as a world best organization using Toyota Production System or Lean Manufacturing. That will help us in understanding What Lean can do.

There were no fancy names of Lean tools we used today, just the thinking, philosophy and fundamental assumptions behind this.

It is not about tools, it is about thinking..

Lean. Organization leadership should acquaint themselves with Five Principals of Lean before cascading down the concept to lower levels.

Five principles of Lean are :

Specify Value
Identify the value stream
Create Flow
Establish Pull
Seek Perfection

After organization leadership has complete understanding of Lean Principles, proper plan needs to be established to spread its awareness to all the employees. Leadership themselves should act as change agents at the initial stage and identify new enthusiastic team members who can take the concepts to every employee and even to organization suppliers.

Your Lean Transformation journey must begin with an understanding and acknowledgement of Lean’s true principle.

Lean should not be limited to the folks working in teams like Process Excellence, Operational Excellence and so on. It has to flow like blood in nerves of every employee, then only an organization can call Lean Transformation a success.

To ensure Lean Success and as an advocate of Lean, I must insist “We have to work hard passionately to spread awareness about basic fundamentals and principles of lean” rather than projecting them as set of assorted tools.

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ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) Exam Preparation

2015-05-27T04:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I have Passed the ASQ CSSBB exam.

In this post i am going to share my strategy for exam preparation. Before I start i would like to share that i am the admin of WhatsApp ASQ CSSBB Study Group and having 120+ aspirants, Black Belts, Master Black belts from across the globe. If you want to be a part of the group, mail me at er.zaid.2004@gmail.com

Preparing for ASQ CSSBB Exam :

Resources Used

1. ASQ Handbook by Kubaik

2. ASQ CSSBB Primer & Solution Text from Quality Council of Indiana

3. ASQ Question Bank purchased from ASQ website

4. QCI Question Bank CD questions

Duration – Approx. 8 Months

1. Complete study of QCI Primer

1.1. Solving Primer blue page Questions after every unit

1.2. Making notes

1.3. Studying from other resources & Internet for topics I didn't get clear understanding from Primer

1.4. Posting doubts in WhatsApp group

1.5. Attending Skype session by one of our group member

1.6. Studying Statistical Part from other books / Internet

2. Studying ASQ Handbook by Kubaik

3. Solving QCI Question Bank CD questions (1000)

4. Solving ASQ Question Bank purchased from ASQ website (Approx. 500)

5. Solving Questions available from Internet, Whatsapp group etc. (Approx. 300)

Step 1 to 5 took approx. 5-7 Months.

Last Month

6. Studied Primer Once again from start to finish along with solving blue page questions

7. Solved QCI question bank CD questions again

8. Solved ASQ Question Bank questions once again

9. Organized Notes

Last month I did approx. avg. 4 Hrs. / Day study and solved approx. 2300 Questions again (Primer, QCI CD, ASQ Question Bank, Sample Papers, WhatsApp) and whatever I could find from Internet.