DailyKaizen

I relate to a lot of the points in this article on the Panta Rei blog, which I follow.

The ideas are especially pertinent to me as I help lead a rapid process improvement event for two of our specialty groups this week. As I mentioned earlier, we had site visitors on the first day of the event, and the goal was to demonstrate how these events work. I made a comment at lunch that supporting these require “active management/participation” by myself and the other leads. We are not able to just arrive and see how things flow based on the paradigms people are used to. I think that would not be respectful.

An analogy I think of from my distant past is the idea of a fusion nuclear reactor. These were dreamed up in the 80’s and it was theorized that no physical structure would be able to contain the core because it would get too hot. The idea was to use a supercharged magnetic field to keep the core contained. I think that our role is to be the supercharged magnetic field to keep the reactor of ideas going in the group (not for containment!). We listen to what’s needed, find out what can be done, and then listen some more. The motivation and ideas come within the participants, not from us, when this works well. And the reactor gets hotter and hotter and produces more energy…..