DailyKaizen

As we move forward with our enterprise wide transformation there are so many new skills and capabilities that we will need to teach leadership across the organization. In order to prioritize and focus this year there are two main parts of our management system that we are focusing on improving our leadership development activities. The first is to institute a rigorous check and adjust system and the second is to teach leaders new ways to drive improvement. We have deployed a plan through the Hoshin system, but being the first year we know that many of our hypothesis will turn out to be incorrect. This is exactly why we decided to focus on these two critical areas. This way leaders are able to quickly identify the problems that we know will come up through the checking process and provide teams with new ways to adjust through the learnings from the improvement capabilities.

Underneath the checking system there is a very important capability and process that we are putting in place that many organizations call Gemba walks. At Group Health we refer to them as workplace rounds. Several leaders have been conducting gemba walks with great success for the last year, but this last week our CEO and several other members of the senior leadership team began these very important workplace checks. There are many reasons why we need to put this system in place and build this capability in our leaders. First and foremost, we need to change the behavior first in order to change the beliefs and thinking. This means focusing on how leaders spend their time and in this case getting leaders to deepen their understanding of the work processes, defects, root causes by going to the place where were takes place.

As many of you know a gemba walks serve many purposes. They allow leaders to audit the standards of the strategic plan to ensure that we are on target and if not, why not. They strengthen the discipline of the management system and build accountability up, down and across the organization. Finally, they allow leaders to play the role of teachers and connect associates work to the larger picture, advance teams thinking to the next level, drive daily accountability and help identify opportunities for improvement.

At first our focus will not be on the quality of the walks. Instead we will focus on the adherence to the schedule. In other words, we will focus on getting leaders into the rhythm of doing walks on a regular basis and with a standard process. This is the best way for them to learn, because without practice there is no way to get better. Over time, if they stay the course I believe gemba walks to be one of the best way for us to begin to shift the culture of the organization. Leading with your feet instead of your mouth is the best way to get people to follow and gemba walks go right to heart and soul!

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