Look & Listen to the System

Systems are at the heart of all processes; we all work within systems. Systems form the culture of an organization. There is no getting away from them.

Frederick Winslow Taylor was among the first to explore waste in movement, one of the TIMWOODS eight wastes. It was reported he would spend his time on the floor, “going to the Gemba” which in Japanese translates “going to the place”, meaning going to the place where value is created. He would watch the system at work.  

If you are an organizational leader or CI lead, then you need to ‘go to the Gemba’. Often. I would walk the plant floor daily, first thing when I arrived each morning, then at some point during the day, and I would always be on the floor at least once or twice a month for the night shift.

Some of the greatest engagement with the frontline came on those Gemba walks. That is when I saw the system at work. Not only did I have opportunity to see the challenges within the system, the bottlenecks, the buildup of inventory, the empty containers that were supposed to have stuff in them, seeing the staff waiting for the work to come to them, and most importantly, in addition to seeing the system at work it was a time for the staff to let me know what was on their minds. That was the true value I got from these MBWA (Management By Walking Around)! Listening to the staff.

Once the staff got to know they could talk with me, that I would listen and then do what I could to address their concerns they would continue to come to me more often. That was how I felt about Continuous Improvement; Projects were great, and we did plenty of those, and many times my team and I would go onto the floor and engage the frontline in confirming the challenges/problems and what they felt needed to be done to correct them. But CI for me came when I talked with the staff.

I would look and listen.

If going to the Gemba (the look) is going to the where value is created, I would like to know what as single word for ‘listen to the front line’ is. Google Translates the English to Japanese as “最前線に耳を傾ける” but that does not seem to translate well into English with a single word like ‘Gemba’.

While going to the shop floor, and this is true in the transactional environment too, seeing the system at work is so critical to improvement, don’t forget there is tremendous value is listening too.