Creating High Caliber Teams with low caliber simple tools

– expanding the lean work across the organization

A reflection by Job Pangilinan, Lean Transformation Leader

What was your experience with lean in your organization when you first heard a lean expert start the conversation on lean principles and theories, tools to apply, analysis, etc.? Repulsive, Obnoxious, Unpleasant to say the least? OR Fun, Engaging, Good to the last bite and Refreshing? Mixed reactions, I bet, because there are so many of us out there claiming to be experts and use different approaches, styles and tools.

A few days ago, I had this engaging conversation with a fellow practitioner and we were talking about a lean transformation leader’s desire to have high caliber team members to be successful in lean implementation across the organization. Other than the thought of a relentless identification and elimination of waste and the ever-growing and ever-changing need of every customers in whatever industry we are serving, my mind got stuck after our conversation and begun asking myself and wondering what it really takes to be considered a high caliber member of a lean team? What is the measurable standard? Is it the belt you wear? Is it your academic background? Is it the experience you gained through the years? Is it the number of projects you facilitated? Is it the number of failed or successful initiatives? My analytical mind can just keep on spinning like the “Windmills of Your Mind” song until I go deep into my inner self for a reflection.

Then, my reflection, while I was driving up hill Petrovitsky Ave., took me to my faith background as a Christian and asked – what took Jesus Christ to select the team of disciples he had that hundreds of years later would change the world and bring about the message of love for all mankind? If there is a part of you that feels uneasy to read the rest of my reflection due to a religious reference, I won’t even be slighted if you click out … not even a bit, that is fine. Honestly, I also feel uncomfortable sharing this but thought I could be a little bold every now and then and just be vulnerable and honest about my thoughts and reflections and wanting to share it to whoever finds value to it. Also, I think I am inspired by my faith-model to easily translate this to changing the world with Lean.

Then, I thought, these disciples were ordinary people – mostly fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot – and add my favorite apostle Paul who murdered many followers of Christ before his conversion. - yet the impact they made was a global phenomenon. Crazy and hard to conceive as my logical choice would be those who were the most educated and rich, perhaps of a high political influence and with the best and unblemished community reputation.

Deliver a simple message

If I could reflect of one thing that made Christianity work (it was not even branded then with any name – not even Christianity), it is the fact that Jesus made the message simple. The twelve (12) commandments and the hundreds of laws and rules during the old covenant was made simple with just two (2). First, Love your God with all your heart, soul and mind. Then, to love your neighbor as yourself. Simple message delivered and easy to understand.

How does this thought process and reflection apply to the highly technical part of Lean and the practices that Engineers and experts have gained through the years and which cover so many materials, research, and complex analysis? We have the works of W. Edwards Deming, Henry Ford, Taiichi Ohno, James P. Womack, Daniel Roos, and Daniel T. Jones, and hundreds more growing in learning and knowledge of Lean principles and philosophy all over the world? I am sure I missed some if not more as there are too many to mention that influenced our way of lean thinking then and now. How do you get all these brilliant minds together and deliver it to another level of interest? The challenge is how do you make the message simple or easy to digest?

  Ensure an Audience-centered message

When you deliver your lean message, who are your main audience – in which case, your customers? Isn’t it the ordinary people that do the work or are they the highly analytical experts in the organization? As far as my experience has taught me, the message belongs to the workers who are sorting the mail, the front desk staff, the janitor, the salesman, the baggage handler, the customer service agent, the flight attendant, the waiter, the flagger and any customer-facing workers you could think of. And since they are the ones that face the customers, they should know the customers best, thus, they should be your main audience.

The purpose is not to show how much you know – which is a self-centered purpose to impress, but to provide what your listeners can take away and personally connect and value. Which means the more you deliver a message they could understand and identify with, applying their standard and not yours, the more you’d get engagement and involvement. I do this by spending some time with them and knowing them more before I deliver my message. I try my best to listen to them first before I expect them to listen back to me. In one of my engagements, the participants came up with 103 wastes they wanted to eliminate, and then got them working on problem solving 25 of them. And this is because they identified themselves with the message and got themselves connected and engaged to think of ways to eliminate or reduce the waste.

With due respect to the academic world and I don’t know about you but I would not want to bore them with statistical terms, engineering lingos, which admittedly is not as exciting to talk about – though there may be another venue for these for another audience. My reflection takes me back to understanding why it was easier for people to embrace the Christian faith and it was because the gospel of salvation was made short and simple to the understanding of the masses and easy to apply in daily lives.

Then I find my parking space which ends my reflection. Then the song “Windmills of Your Mind” played again.

With this, I’ll leave it to the readers to keep on reflecting with me and think of how you will deliver a simple message that could be seen with the lens of your audience. Then, expect more  engagements and positive impact as your audience were able to connect to you through the simple message they can understand and apply.

I will end this reflection with recognizing three (3) people that I personally know made a simple message to the community they serve and certainly connected with their respective growing audiences:

 Brian Elms – a dynamic humorous and ‘rebel with a cause’ person using low caliber tools with his team Peak Academy that was able to save the City of Denver millions of dollars. He claims he only uses 5 simple tools to deploy experts. Watch out though… his charm is like the Pied Piper.

Chris Anibarro - of Impact Consultancy with his ‘Thought Revolution’, a Seattle local that left the corporate practice and started a mission of simplifying organizational strategy and making work life easier through the application of lean principles without the audience even knowing that they are already drinking the lean juice. His passion is a double portion of mine – or make it triple.

Renée Smith – leads the development of the Human Workplace community and of resources for leaders, teams, and Lean advisers.  Her team is exploring the way to eliminate fear in the workplace to create a high morale and productive public servants is by showing love and its derivative care, compassion and caring. Her presence and sincerity will melt your heart and is now reaching many corners of the world.

About the author:

Job Pangilinan - Job has over 10 years applying lean tools and principles in various industries – semiconductors, agro-industrial, legal profession, education, telecommunications, banking, airline, customer service and now with the affordable housing industry. He was an Engineer turned Lawyer before he migrated to the United States in 2003. His US career journey was like that of a grass hopper for 10 years – telemarketer, hotel front desk, community janitor, airline baggage handler, aircraft lavatory cleaner, property leasing consultant, real estate escrow, cell phone financial representative, volunteered for domestic violence and family legal clinic and public defenders (whew!).

He was then hired by King County Housing Authority in 2014 for their public housing and then section 8 program where he was able to focus his skills on improving processes. He partnered with Washington State DES on facilitating and implementing lean program. He is currently the ‘lean guy’ in Seattle Housing Authority and reaches out and partners with other Public Housing Authorities, government and non-profits in and out of state to promote lean transformation.

Being a trained classical and pop singer – Job enjoys singing with his Ukulele or singing tenor 1 with a chorale.

Disclaimer: The people I recognized above do not necessarily share the reflection I am making in this article nor any organizations I am affiliated with. The purpose of the reflection is to help illustrate a point and not to proselytize. I want to hear if sharing reflections like this is useful or interesting to the readership. I just thought it would be nice to share being human in our professional dealings too. As always, send me a private message so I can improve.