The Gemba Walk is a powerful way to build standard work into our leadership activities.  It is about getting out of the office and into the process with our people, to help them discover issues and fix them.  It becomes a valuable mechanism for staying in touch with our managers and team leaders, and keeping in touch with the real operational issues in our business.

Why do we need to build Gemba walks into our daily routine?

• We can use the Gemba Walk to reiterate our vision for the organisation and make sure we are doing the “right things - right”.  There is no better way to reinforce our vision than repeated face to face dialogue.

• We can break down the barriers between management and the teams and improve communication channels throughout the operation.  Often, team leaders and team members will be reluctant to raise issues for fear of being “wrong”.

• The Gemba Walk helps us build relationships with our team leaders by getting to know them better and helping them improve their processes.  This is fundamental to improving teamwork and the effectiveness of our teams.

• We can help people discover opportunities for improvement by asking questions and listening to the answers.  In this way we can offer real support, encouragement and praise.

• It becomes a mechanism for “catching” people doing the right things and allows us to recognise people for the good work that they do.  We can use the Gemba Walk to improve morale by actively showing respect for people.

• Our visibility shows that we care about how things are going, and want to support the teams to set targets and improve performance. When we show interest in certain aspects of the operation the teams will usually also take an interest.

How do we do Gemba Walks?

• Make it a daily routine and have a set time. Avoid letting other meetings or issues interfere with this routine if possible.

• Choose your Gemba walk participants carefully.  Have a briefing session before and after the walk to prepare and debrief.

• Ask questions and listen attentively. Avoid the temptation to offer solutions - this is disrespectful to our people because it does not help them solve their own issues for themselves.

• Set the example of how we want our team leaders to behave with their people. We should be encouraging our team leaders to mirror our behaviour with their teams.

• We are looking to increase ownership so be careful that by doing the Gemba Walk we do not erode the ownership.  Use the Gemba Walk as a mechanism to empower people to solve their own problems.  Ultimately we are looking to have teams solving problems of which we are not aware.

• Use the opportunity to reinforce the importance of the appropriate Lean tools such as 7 wastes and VSM.

• Structure your questions so that they draw out ideas for improvement of the process.  It is often useful to have a “standard” set of question to ask.

• Use the Gemba Walk as an opportunity to share what you are learning about the processes.

• It is useful to have a theme for each walk, so that there is a focus eg safety, 5S or performance measurement.

• Maintain a sense of “pace” during the walk.  This not to be seen as just a casual chat.

• Make sure we take care of problems straight away.  There should be a sense of urgency about our improvement activities.

• Take the opportunity to praise people and give people positive feedback where it is due.

• Be careful about being the management police.  This process is about building trust and relationships.

• Look for what disrupts the workflow with a focus on waste between the process steps.

• Use the walk to help identify where mistakes could be made in the process, and encourage people to implement solutions that prevent mistakes.

• Use the walk to identify all waste streams and rework loops, along with ways to reduce these.

• Use the walk to identify whether the metrics being used are effective measures that help highlight causes of problems.

This week I include an extract from a recent newsletter by Jim Womack as he discusses the role of the Lean manager as a “problem solver” and how the manager should develop a Lean mindset.

At Efficiency Works in our work with management teams of organisations on the Lean journey we are constantly seeking to find the critical ingredients for the successful execution of Lean. There is no doubt that energetic management support is one critical ingredient for success. When management support is missing the Lean initiatives are often seen by the employees as just another “thing” that we are doing to reduce costs.

But is energetic management support enough to create a culture that thrives on “enquiry” and “experimentation”?

Now over to Jim Womack ……

What do I mean by a lean state of mind?

First, the lean manager eagerly embraces the role of problem solver. This means going to see the actual situation, asking about the performance issue, seeking the root cause, and showing respect for lower-level managers and for colleagues at the same organizational level by asking hard questions until good answers emerge. It’s this critical, probing state of mind that permits lean tools to be put to good use as the lean manager applies the right tool for the specific problem and does this in context on the gemba rather than in the abstract in some conference room. Empty ritual is replaced with a rigorous thought process that engages employees and pulls forward their best abilities.

Second, the lean manager realizes that no manager at a higher level can or should solve a problem at a lower level. (And one of the worst abuses of lean tools lies in trying to do just this.) Instead, the higher-level manager can assign responsibility to a manager at a lower level to tackle the problem through a continuing dialogue, both with the higher-level manager and with everyone actually touching the process causing the problem. The lean law of organizational life is that problems can only be solved where they live, in conversation with the people whose current actions are contributing to the problem. But this requires support, encouragement, and, yes, relentless pressure, from the higher-level lean manager.

Third, the lean manager believes that all problem solving is about experimentation by means of Plan Do Check Act. No one can know the answer before experiments are conducted and the many experiments that fail will yield valuable learning that can be applied to the next round of experiments.

Finally, the lean manager knows that no problem is ever solved forever. Indeed, the introduction of a promising countermeasure is sure to create new problems at some other point in the organization. This is not bad. It is good, provided the critical, probing mind of the lean manager keeps on the case in pursuit of perfection.

In short the traditional manager is usually passive, going through rituals and applying standard remedies to unique problems. By contrast, inside the mind of the lean manager lies a restless desire to continually rethink the organization’s problems, probe their root causes, and lead experiments to find the best currently known countermeasures. When this lean mindset is coupled with the proper lean tools amazing things are continually possible.

Next week we will discuss how to use the “Gemba Walk” to help us improve our Lean state of mind as part of our management standard work.