DailyKaizen

I thought I would spend some time today telling the story of the VP who has been my client for the last year.  We have been through a lot of learning together and he is a good friend and mentor.   I hope sharing the story will give hope to others that are working in organizations trying to gain executive support.  I am going to try and be as honest as possible and hopefully this does not turn out either critical or fluffy.  I am not sure if he will read this posting, but if he does I hope he comments. 

I decided to write this entry after I overheard a couple of front line staff talking about him the other day who did not know who I was.    The conversation went like this:

‘I did not used to like ____ (the VP)very much, he always acted like he knew everything.  I always thought he cared more for the claims departments and did not pay any attention to us.  I was really surprised a couple of months ago when he came to our area and started asking us questions about our work.  I figured something must be up, but he was asking good questions.  I was even more surprised when he showed up again and remembered almost everything we told him and then started asking more questions about our improvement.  Last week when he came by the entire team was so excited to show him how far we have come.  I really like him now.’

Our paths crossed about a year and a half ago when I assigned to a project that was primarily in the VPs area.  The project was being pushed from top down and the VP acted like most would in a similar situation and was not very engaged at first.  I am very persistent and nagged him (with help) to become more involved.  Over time the VP warmed up to our approach and began to take interest in learning more about Lean.  What stared as a trickle of interested turned into a waterfall as the VP began to ask for more and more books to read as well as becoming more and more involved in the details of our project.

After about four or five months I had to start getting out of his way, which I often had a hard time doing.  I was playing the role of the teacher, but was only months ahead of my student.  And boy had he become a student of Lean and spent a lot of time reflecting on his own management practices as well as the systems he had created within the organization.  He realized that he was in fact responsible and that if things were ever really going to change he would have to change first.  Thus, the concept of the Model Line (with others help) was born.   

Over the last eight months we have driven ahead with a goal of changing the culture and nothing has changed more then the VP himself.  Like an ungraceful Art Byrne marching into Wiremold our VP has dedicated every single hour of his day to changing the culture of his organization and helping those around him learn.  I can give you countless examples of when the VP has stumbled, demonstrated poor judgement, reverted back to old ways and made other blunders.   Yet, each time he has recognized his mistakes, dusted himself off and stepped back onto the path he has set for himself.  His lack of experience has not slowed him down at all and he is focused on learning by doing.  He is on his horse, intends to ride it and whats more important is that almost everyone in his organization will follow him anywhere!  The change in him is incredible by all measures.  For example, a year ago the VP spend 90+% of his time away from the Gemba in meetings.  Now he spends probably less then 40%.  Every week is visiting teams, teaching and helping them improve.   His energy and efforts are paying off and teams are really starting to respond as demonstrated in the opening discussion I overheard.

Anyway this is a kudos to our VP.  Now I can only hope I can find more of him, because pretty soon he won’t need me any longer.   

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