Critical Thinking Exercises for Leadership – Volume 6 – Exercises 26-30

By Mark Preston

“Learning to See” should be a key focus for any organization trying to create a lean culture. Companies should not only focus on seeing what bad / waste looks like but also what great looks like. Leaders must begin thinking critically about affecting change by helping their emerging leaders and all team members “SEE”. As we continue to learn about critical thinking, focus on developing a learning culture in your organization that continues to learn to see and do something about what they see.

I have a list of 75 critical thinking exercises, and I will be discussing 5 every 2 weeks.

If you missed the first 25 exercises, please review my previous Lean Applications newsletters.

The First 20 Exercises:

1. Shadow / Emulate Lean Thinkers

2. What’s on Your Daily Leadership To-Do List?

3. Your Company Standards Should Be documented and clear to all team members.

4. Read Across (Yokoten)

5. See Flow

6. Seeing Waste

7. Distinguishing Normal

8. Who-What–When-Where-Why-How

9. Quick Response

10. The 4-step training process.

11. Audit Always

12. Standardize Solutions

13. Designate Early Warning Signals

14. Distinguish Between Human and Machine Work

15. Adopt JIT (Just in Time)

16. Know What’s Value Added

17. Don’t Let Problems Hide Behind Inventory

18. Respond to Reality

19. Flow Materials and Information in a pull processing system

20. Give Your Process a Heartbeat

21. Have a Flexible Worksite

22. Invest in Team Members

23. Never Implement Temporary Solutions

24. Mirror Single Piece Flow

25. Cost Shadows Motion

Let’s continue to understand Critical Thinking Exercises 26-30.

26. Time is a Powerful Measure

Time is the most powerful part of the equation when it comes to your company’s costs. As a customer myself, I want the product when I need it and not weeks later. I also want a product at the best price. Time to produce and deliver contributes to both of these values. The opposite is true when producing a product too quickly and sacrificing the value of Quality to the customer.

Old School Record Players are becoming a trend. There is an adjustment on many of the old school record players that allows you to speed the music up or slow the music down. It was fun to do this, but the music never sounded as good as when the record was traveling at the right speed. ?Production should flow to the beat of a steady rhythm that keeps everyone dancing. Every time that I hear the word expedite, I think of waste. One company that I worked with had positions called expeditors and I wondered if the people in those roles realized what expedite really meant. If there is no added fee for expediting, the customers will become trained to always want their product expedited. They will trust that if they do not expedite a product then it will not arrive when needed. This lack of trust comes in the form of the word expedite. Once the word expedite is clicked on the order it disturbs the rhythm of production. This can be seen in the form of air freight, overnight shipping, many other extra fees, and drama in the supply chain. These extra fees then either reduce your margin or get charged back to the customer at higher prices. ?Keep a steady rhythm and close comparison to lead time that is planned vs. actual lead time in your production and supply chain.

Does your operation and supply chain keep a steady beat?

27. Make Problems Visible Immediately

Building in the ability to isolate problems quickly, stop production, and apply a permanent fix is known as “abnormality control.” The best companies that I have seen continuously work on making problems visible “at a glance”. This can be seen in their visual metrics – Green is good, Red is bad. When I walk though disciplined companies and look at their Key Performance Indicators, Red will jump out at you. Red will make you stop and look for the root cause / countermeasure below the red. Visual Management without Action is only Wallpaper. It may look good to an outside eye, but it means nothing to the team that should be doing something about it. When touring a plant, I noticed the Key Performance Indicator Boards or Metric Boards were facing away from the cell and toward the Aisle Way. These boards also had no root cause Countermeasures. My question to the plant manger was, Is this board for the team in the cell or just for show in the aisleway. The main reason for Metrics or KPI Boards is to help the team see problems quickly and take action to eliminate those problems.

Are you hanging wallpaper or creating visual management geared toward improved actions?

28. Step Back from the Screens

While visual management systems are great, Genchi Genbutsu states that managing by charts and grafts does not respect the operator or importance of management. View the worksite and process through your own eyes. Genchi genbutsu?is also called?Gemba?attitude. Gemba is the Japanese term for "the place" (meaning “the place where work happens, or value is created). Since real value is created on the shop floor in manufacturing, it supports the philosophy that this is where managers need to spend their time. There are three reals in Gemba thinking. I use these when problem solving.

1.) The Real Place – go and see where the product is produced in the Gemba.

2.) The Real Thing – Hold the product and collect data from the actual problem.

3.) The Real Facts – gather information about the problem by asking: Who? What? When? Where? Why?, and How? Collecting data from walking and seeing the actual is the key to truly great root cause problem solving. “In God I trust, all others bring Data!”

Are you solving problems in your office or in the Gemba?

29. Never Fear Failure

Lexus said it best with their first motto, “The relentless pursuit of perfection.” Build your culture around the idea of trying, failing, and then trying again. One of my favorite companies is Cambridge Air Solutions. They have a great culture around their people and are always trying to improve. One example of this can be seen in this Justin Chair YouTube video: Cambridge Air Solutions | Justin's Chair Update (youtube.com). One idea started and grew into multiple ideas that created a great advantage for the company. Sometimes when you have an idea and start to you may uncover even more waste. You must start somewhere, and you can never stop improving. As leaders, never criticize employees for trying to improve. This will create a wall that is hard to break down. When I do Snake hunts in companies, I always seem to find something that looks like a Prison Shank. A piece of wood and blade that is duct tapped together. Rather than scolding the person for having such a tool, I praise them for being creative with what they had and either buy them the tool that they need or work with them to create an even better tool. Never criticize someone for being creative, especially if we did not provide them with the proper tools to do their job to begin with. Some of the reason many people fear failure is because leaders have built a culture that criticizes rather than rewards ingenuity. ?

As a leader, are you building walls or enhancing a culture of continuous improvement?

30. Delegate Authority to the Worksite

In a perfect system, authority is delegated to the worksite. However, you must first cultivate a “nervous system” at the worksite that’s prepared to respond to problems, using well-defined management protocols. This is developed through continued coaching, training, and defined processes. There are so many cases where the best operator is promoted to a leader over their colleagues and friends. The thinking is that because they are great at what they do currently, they can also lead others. Without continuous coaching, training, and discipline to processes, this usually ends badly. Leadership is developed over time. Leaders should always have good relationships with the people they lead but without discipline to process drama can creep in and chaos will take over. Trust must be in the forefront of becoming a great leader. Favoritism will break trust in others that you lead, and it may be difficult to be disciplined to processes that are set up. Emerging leaders need continued support and mentorship. ?

Are you developing leaders or simply promoting people to leadership positions?

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I hope these critical thinking exercises have helped you exercise your mind as a leader. In the next article, I will be discussing the next 5 Critical Thinking Exercises of the 75. These include – 31. Strive for Elegantly Simple, 32. Train People for Trustworthiness, 33. Set Standards, 34. Recognize and Resolve, 35. Foster a “Trusty” Group.

How can I help you?

I hope you enjoyed the article, and it brought a smile to your face. Please comment and share, I would like to hear your thoughts. Have a great week! Please reach out if you need help developing leadership and engagement at your company.

I specialize in:

• Lean Assessment and Lean Journey Development
• Problem Solving Workshops
• Strategic Planning Workshops
• Value Stream Mapping Workshops
• Rattlesnake Hunt Engagement
• Monthly Leadership Coaching
• Lean Certification

Have a great week!

Mark

Mark Preston

[email protected]

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