by Lee Fried, on 08 Aug 2007 07:16 am
The Journey
Take your friends to the Gemba with you
I thought I would piggyback off of Ted’s post from yesterday and tell my own Gemba story. Yesterday I had the pleasure of leading a tour of leaders from a Seattle coffee company through the Model Line area. Their goal was to see visual management systems in action and to share stories of implementation. It was fun to have these new friends join us, especially because they are in nearly the same place we are in their Lean transformation. It is amazing to me how the challenges in implementing Lean in a coffee company are almost exactly the same as implementing in a healthcare company. Once again confirmation that it is all about the people.
It was an honor to have a team come and visit us for this purpose since we are so new to this world ourselves. Over the last six months we have been developing and refining visual systems to support standard work, communication, leveling and problem solving. The staff and managers have worked hard on their systems and their work is beginning to show fruits of their labor. Having groups come visit, especially from companies held in high esteem is a great way to both recognize staff for their great work as well as to reinforce the work they are doing.
I love leading benchmarking groups, because it provides me an opportunity to see just how far teams have come in terms of the learning in such a short-time. As we moved from one team to the next we were met by staff that were excited to tell their before and after stories. In front of one our hejunika’s we encountered a staff person that was in the process of pulling his hourly work. I have known this person for over a year and in the past he was always reserved and shy. Without preparation or forewarning he excitedly agreed to walk us through the story of his team’s transformation as well as the improvement he was working on personally. The sophistication as well as the enthusiasm that he demonstrated made me walk out the door last night beaming with pride. While my friends on the tour would not have recognized this transformation it was a big deal to me.
Its great to have friends come to the Gemba!
on 09 Aug 2007 at 8:12 am 1.Colin Frolich said …
Lee,
Thanks so much for having us! I was blown away by how far you guys have come in 5 months, and gives me hope that our teams will help create and adpot the visual systems we are working on.
Again, thanks for your time and let’s keep in touch.
-Colin Frolich
on 16 Aug 2007 at 5:49 am 2.Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Management Improvement Carnival #17 said …
[...] Take your friends to the Gemba with you by Lee Fried - “Over the last six months we have been developing and refining visual systems to support standard work, communication, leveling and problem solving. The staff and managers have worked hard on their systems and their work is beginning to show fruits of their labor.” [...]