As I ready myself for a new mentoring relationship in a few weeks, I’ve been pondering roles and approaches. What will I do the same, what will I change as I help facilitate a new lean transformation?
My job, as teacher and coach, is to assist the organization make change. Their chosen strategy is to implement lean and six sigma. The knowledge transfer approach I prefer is see one, do one, teach one.
At first the apprentice just watches me do my thing – plan the calendar, roles, objectives; do the training, explain the principles, and run the events; check the metrics and take everyone’s pulse; act on what I see. Usually I don’t explain what I’m doing; I just run the kaizen event; form subs teams, hand out assignments, train-and-do.
After a time, the student is called upon to perform some of the routine activities, give some of the lessons, and apply some of the tougher tools. Then comes the day when the roles start to reverse; the student tries to run a kaizen and the teacher observes, intervening off-line, giving feedback quietly, and asking questions, checking comprehension. As confidence and experience grow the student becomes the teacher.
Asked the other day, “What’s the difference in your approach and Shingijutsu?” I was reminded of something James Womack once wrote. It's a lengthy, but insightful quote,
We’re now trying to write down all of the techniques you need to actually become lean. The Toyota teaching method is what we would call sensei-deshi, with the sensei being the great teacher and the deshi, the student. Basically, here’s how it works at Toyota: The kids get out of the university and join the company. Then they’re told, 'Okay, you know how to do math, and you know how to read. Forget all the rest of the crap. We hope you had a lot of party time because now you’re going to be working long hours for the next 40 years, and we will teach you what you need to know. We’ll start by having you stay right here and look around for waste—muda in Japanese— and we’ll be back in a few hours.' When the teacher comes back, he’ll ask the employee to tell him all about the waste he sees. It’s an empirical teaching method in which the sensei simply asks questions: 'What do you think about this operation?' 'Why aren’t you looking over here?' 'Over there?' 'Why is something happening this way?' They start with applications, and let you figure out the principles. Generally, the way we teach in the West is to start with principles, and then let the pupil to work out applications.
Which way is better?
This post was authored by Larry Loucka, a lean six sigma coach and Certified Supply Chain Professional. He has extensive industry experience in supplier development, global sourcing, logistics, outsourcing, warehousing, integrating MRP and Kanban, logistics network optimization and modeling, demand management, visual workplace, kaizen, quick changeover, operational analysis, supply chain strategy, and accelerated change management. Larry is the founder of, and principal contributor to, Lean Sigma Supply Chain Blog and is the principal of Resource Systems Group, LLC.
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