My Why

Written by Jason Haines

“Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” -Matthew 10 5:7

I am just going to say it right up front, the reason that I got into Lean was because I wanted to provide a way to free up time for the people working for me, and myself, so that I could develop people for future positions in the company. What I’ve wanted to do all along is help people grow and become leaders. I see Lean as a way to create a future a way to help develop a workforce that is always striving to grow.

Through the years working in manufacturing and industrial areas I have met so many great people in both the frontline and the management areas. They all want to do a succeed while helping their organizations out, but they do not always see eye to eye, or they do but are communicating past each other. Now sometimes, I have encountered people who are only there for themselves and treat everyone they are around as a piece of dirt. Those people are the people who we must avoid, not always easy, but a must avoid and let go of gracefully or they will bring you down with them. But the people that are there to grow and do well for the organization are a pleasure to work with and these are the people that we want to grow and develop. These people will be your future leaders and ambassadors of the company.

Over the years I have worked alongside many talented people who excel in areas outside the jobs that they are doing currently doing. While getting to know these people through talking and chatting, I found they came from many backgrounds and places in life. Sometimes there are circumstances that are beyond their control that drove them into their current jobs, and if you start discussions with them and show interest, you may find your organizations future.

Too many times I have seen organizations go outside the company to hire a new leader, and after many of the talented people leave. When turnover happens, companies have lost a lot of valuable knowledge. Not only from the people who have left, but also the lack of knowledge from the ones that they just hired. These new hires need to be brought up to speed by the people who have the knowledge so they can perform their jobs successfully. When we hire employees from the outside, especially in positions that they need to fully understand the mechanics of the company, many of our veteran employees tend to dig in and or quit. This causes all types of problems within any organization. However, there are ways many companies could solve this problem and a big one of those is with Lean management where you go out and build relationships with your employees and get to know them.

Going to the Gemba is the ultimate form of respect for people. Seeing the problems from their point of view and helping them take care of those problems. When we are also out there, we will develop stronger relationship with our employees, and we may also find the future leaders that will help carry us forward. Now, I know I might upset a few leaders here, but when I say go to the Gemba I do not mean take and place the closest frontline leaders’ desk in the middle of the floor. You cannot act like this is respect for the people because they have easier access to them. I have witnessed this mentality and all the company really did was place the leader in the middle of the floor, at their desk, doing the same exact job as before with more distractions. This is not the way to move forward; you didn’t show any respect to the frontline leader or the employees who report to them. When I say go to the Gemba, I mean leave your work behind, or find someone else who can perform that job, and go out and work, help, talk, listen, teach, mentor, coach, and most of all build relationships with employees.

Building relationships is what it is all about, you get to know the employees job knowledge offering you insight on how to help them grow. Growing people is what is important because you never know when you might find a supervisor that everyone tells you isn’t going to make it and you start to get to know them, talk with them, and teach them the things you know. While doing this you realize that they have a knack for leadership and have held positions elsewhere in leadership roles. As you find this out you guide that person more and put them with one of your leaders to mentor and teach them more. Not only does this person become a supervisor but also is one of your champions working for you and will help with anything. I have had this luxury.

Former co-workers that I have helped to move to other positions in the company were people that I found that had a knack to be maintenance. In todays market these people are valuable and hard to find as the skilled labor market has been depleted and is only going to get worse with the baby boomers close to retirement. And this is where I see Lean helping, finding ways to eliminate unnecessary steps in the process so we can reduce the amount of work being done. This will lead to developing our current workforce in areas that they would be better suited for. These people who work for us want to do a good job but may not know how to grow with and for the organization. With Lean we can start to find ways to allow them to develop in other areas such as leadership or maintenance.

When we promote from within it empowers our people and gives them ownership into the organization. When our employees have ownership, they will help bring in future employees and treat them with dignity and respect. Too many times I have seen employees come into an organization and get insight from the floor on the negative company culture, and this just creates bad attitudes, bad workers, and high turnover.

With Lean we can develop plans and keep employees notified on the progress of themselves and the plan that they will be part of. We can make these plans to fit our facility and organization and show the employees that we are trying to help them be part of the future of the organization. Another thing that will help keep these employees is during downturns in the economy is to have minimal, if none, employee layoffs. To stop this, you must make sure to communicate with employees what is going on and how everything will affect them. Many times, employees and leaders alike make assumptions, and this is where a lot of bad attitudes and fear comes from. People making assumptions is never good for any organization or country.

There are so many possibilities with Lean and I think too often it is looked at to cut costs and not what it truly was meant for - to show respect to all the employees and all the people working for you. Lean is to represent all stakeholders in the company and not just the stockholders. It gives people the chance to be creative and see that there is a long-term vision for the company and that there is security in the vision for the people who work for the organization. Lastly, it helps people see that they are part of that vision and that the organization cares about them.

Helping grow your business through process improvement!!