The Fundamentals of Go-Look-See

Go-See, Go-See-Understand, Genchi Gembutsu – these are all synonyms of what we in Novo Nordisk, call Go-Look-See. What is the elevator pitch of this concept? Where does it originate from? Why is it important? How should we do it? What can be challenges on the way to mastering it? These and other questions are what we discuss in our post today.

Before we dive any deeper, we invite you to do a small, yet really fun and powerful exercise. Don’t cheat and skip over it. You will thank us later ??

You will need someone to pair up with. Now unlock your phone and give it to that person. Puha this gets more and more interesting. The person with your phone asks you – the phone owner – questions regarding the phone, e.g. explain the content of Home Screen, name which apps you have, location of specific apps, background photo, etc. Make it challenging! Then you can swap phones and repeat the exercise.

The lesson we want you to learn the fun way is the difference between looking and actually seeing. Imagine something that you spend probably hours looking at every single day. How well do you think you know it, how well do you see it? Now think about your workplace, i.e. your shopfloor. Do you actually see it? It is so easy to dismiss doing Go-Look-See and think oh I actually know what the problem is, or I actually know what is not working, instead of actually going to the place, looking and seeing.

Looking is a passive verb, we might look but not actually see. There is a reason why it is called Go-Look-See. Key learning is that we might assume that something we spend a lot of time looking at, e.g. something as familiar as our phone, we know it so well. Reality is often different. Whenever somebody is resisting to do Go-Look-See challenge and ask them to hand you over their phone and do the exercise with them :)

What is Go-Look-See in a nutshell?

If we have a problem, we need to understand it. Go to and look at the location or process where there is a problem, see and understand it so you can solve it. It is about challenging our assumptions of thinking what we know. If we get really good at Go-Look-See, then we are already halfway in our Lean journey. Cool, right?

And one important disclaimer - shopfloor is literally where you work and we shouldn’t differentiate between production and office areas. So often our minds get blocked when people hear the word shopfloor.

Go-Look-See gives you an opportunity to open your eyes to everything around you. In essence it is taking away preconceived ideas that we always attribute to shopfloor and asking what else is out there. It is an opportunity to improve.

Like a horse on a race field, if you take the blinkers off, it will see the entire field.?

Where does Go-Look-See concept originate from?

Have you heard of Ohno’s circle? Taiichi Ohno (Toyota) used this method to coach his people to see. He drew a circle on the floor and ask them to stand there and observe and write down what they saw. He came back during the day multiple times and asked them multiple times what they saw, until he was happy with their responses.

How should we do Go-Look-See?

Here is a simple 3-step guide for you to follow:

1. Make time in your day to do it, to be present, in a timely manner;
2. Have no preconceived ideas;
3. Ask the basic questions – do we have a standard, is it adequate, is it being followed, what should be happening, what is actually happening.

Rule of thumb in terms of how many minutes to spend in the circle is just 5-10 minutes. Just stand, silently observe and list everything from outright ridiculous to the obvious. Everything is an opportunity to improve.

What can be challenges/obstacles on the way to mastering GLS practice?

1.????? Transparency of performance – i.e. hiding data. If we hide, we don’t see, we don’t talk about it, we don’t do Go-Look-See.

2.????? As a leader, you need to be humble. You need to delegate the responsibility of solving problems and providing solutions to your team. Food for thought for someone who is a very directive manager.

3.????? As an organisation, you need to teach and coach the basics of Lean, including problem solving to everyone. This will ensure that they have a common language and can support the problem-solving efforts.

In a year from now when I enter an area that has been working with Go-Look-See as a daily practice, what will I see or expect to see?

My performance is transparent, I should be able to see what my performance is at glance. My escalation process is in place and is followed. Leaders are visible all day and respectful and developing their organisation. If there is a problem, I go and see right away. There are scheduled time slots where we do Go-Look-See. All our employees are engaged in problem solving and they are empowered to provide solutions.

Lars Arnoldsen , CVP of Novo Nordisk’s manufacturing site in China, being a big fan of Go-Look-See, says: “Go-Look-See helps me to move from assumption and opinion to facts! Since it involves going to the location of the problem – observing the situation and gathering information, the method is essential in understanding an issue that might not be obvious from explanations in a distant meeting room. At the “crime scene” I can ask clarifying questions to better understand the situation.”

Wonderful Stine Christensen Klinger has kindly made the below visual one-pager summarising the key points of Go-Look-See. ?

Do you have any questions around the Go-Look-See concept? How do you practice Go-Look-See, what are your challenges, what are your examples? Let us know in the comments section. We would love to hear from you.

Next up we will explore the concept of Asking Why. Stay tuned for a new post coming in November.

Best, Kev Shapcott and Ani Movsisyan