I just uploaded my GTD documents (mostly in french, sorry) on Slideshare here: My GTD documents on SlideShare.
You’ll be able to find:
Enjoy!
Have you notice how TWI J programs are strength-based? Maybe I’ll elaborate in another post 
Here are the cards: all TWI cards, redone by myself.
In that LinkedIn discussion, the TWI programs have been used with great results (both bottom line AND, more improtantly to me, with respect to the people side of the work). Furthermore, here are three nice questions Mark Warren provided as a sort of quick coaching process to introduce the J programs. Thanks Mark!
The act of going to the work is a “Learning to See” exercise to get people in the habit of looking for problems. Then asking a few questions.
J’ai pu récupérer, grâce à de multiples contacts, des documents, diffusables, du TWI en Français.
Je les ai déposés sur le site du TWI en français de Télécoms ParisTech. Il s’agit de documents des mines domaniales de potasse d’Alsace datés de 1966.
J’en ai aussi profité pour déposer mes informations quant aux pistes que j’ai suivies pour récupérer des informations sur ce qui existait dans le domaine. Allez voir l’adresse ci-dessous.
Et si jamais vous pouvez passer à Roubaix aux Archives nationales du travail, faites moi signe, je vous expliquerai comment faire des copies du Manuel de Formation Pratique des Chefs qui s’y trouve !
Merci à Michel, Franck, le Monsieur du BGRM et à Mark Warren pour leur aide précieuse !
Now, thinking about it, how long have companies been trying to replicate Toyota? That’s easy fact to find: get the publication date of “The machine that changed the world” from Womack, Jones & Roos: 1991.
2012-1991=21.
It’s been 21 years that people try to teach Lean. And few succeed. Yet the teaching and education business is longer than that. Should we have known a bullet-proof way of teaching, we’d know by then, don’t you think?
So, instead of trying to find the root cause of why Lean teaching fails (besides, it doesn’t really fail: it’s just that knowledge learned that way cannot be put into motion), let’s turn to what works instead. What do successful Lean coaches tell us about turning a company Lean? It simple, and I guess anyone in the Lean business knows it:
現地現物 !
Or, as I read elsewhere:
Go to the real place, look at the process, talk to the people.
Trying to teach as systemic a thing as Lean is very difficult. Every single tool or practice is connected to every other one: Just in Time helps with flow, but also raises problems (that the purpose, by the way!), so you can see them, but you’d need visual performance management board as well, which means you need to learn and practice Five Why’s root cause analyses, Pareto, and Ishikawa. So, you’d discover that your training is lame (Job Instruction!), your batches are too big and because your die changeovers are too long, so you must SMED them, and so on.
So, when someone’s trying to teach Lean, they’re mainly trying to have some square pegs forced into round holes. The peg being the Lean material, and the hole being the people’s brain they’re trying to indoctrinate. People will have a hard time making sense of their knowledge with what they have in production. Teaching them is also mostly diverting their mind from where the true work needs to be done: the floor (gemba).
So between using new and non-practical knowledge or continuing to do what they’ve already done (and that they perfectly know how to do from their perspective), what do you think they will do? They will continue to do business as usual of course!
Should we stop teaching Lean? No, of course, otherwise we’d be short of Lean experts someday. But what’s important is that the ones having Lean knowledge don’t try to push it onto people (besides, pushing isn’t the best Lean practice, by the way), but they must try to have people pull knowledge. And not pulling knowledge from the mind of their Lean consultant, but from their own! Which means the Lean consultant must change job and become a Lean coach. The role of a coach being that of a guide that doesn’t give solutions, but helps and encourages on the path to understanding. Of course, the Lean knowledge of the coach is useful: it helps him/her to ask the good questions at the most efficient moment so that the people can discover and learn Leanin the context of their own work.
Here’s one example of what I meant by the diatribe above: http://theleanedge.org/?p=3875. Michael Ballé’s one of the most respected Lean coach on the planet, but it took me quite some years to fully understand what he meant by repeatedly and bluntly telling people (like myself!) to go back to the gemba and work there. But for people like me that are more interested in learning than in producing, that wasn’t pleasant a discourse as I wanted it to be.
Now I know how I can have learning AND teaching at the same time: by going to the gemba and patiently and relentlessly showing the direction of Lean to people, but by coaching them to discover what would work best for them, in their own context. Hopefully, I have different tools in my toolbox to help me along the way, like Appreciative Inquiry to work out with people why do they do what they do, Solution Focus to help them remember what do they do that already works for them from a Lean perspective or Systems Thinking to nudge them into considering the whole system rather than just their silo and have them get out of their own way to truly build that systemic way of the company by 1) going to the real place, 2) looking at the process and 3) talkig to the (other) people.
Hey!
There’s that discussion that seems to be really promising (or at least energizing) about what we could do to disseminate Appreciative Inquiry ideas to the whole Planet Earth.
I just extended the ideas to strength approaches.
What else?
Please join in and participate here!
I’m just sharing this regarding a modern implementation of TWI: Using iPads, QR scans, Sharepoint and Infopath to implement TWI | Michel Baudin’s Blog.
I guess we’re mid-course between playing and working…
Lego knew that already with their Lego Serious Play stuff.
Here’s a great piece of work from Art Smalley regarding the notion of “standards” at Toyota. Well, anything Art writes is good anyway, but this one unveils some confusion that might exist between the different concepts of “standards” and how and when each of them change.
Art Smalley: Standardized Confusion » The Lean Edge.
Readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of Training Within Industry programs. They were at the roots of Lean, along with other things. Although we usually talk of Job Methods as the ancestor of Kaizen, I would like to make a small focus today on Job Relations and how it is sound advice when it comes to change management.
The JR cover page states the following about the purpose of the program:
The Training Within Industry program of Job Relations was developed in order to provide management with a tool whereby supervisors could acquire skill of leadership.
Now, reading the associated card, one can see the following notices:
A supervisor gets results through people.
and
People must be treated as individuals.
I’m not going to review the whole program or card, but would like to stress how JR could make for a good training for any change agent, especially managers when then need to lead a change on their perimeter.
First, there are some fundamental points stressed in JR as how to behave with people and maintain good relations. Two are worth stressing in the context of change:
Tell people in advance about changes that will affect them
Tell them WHY if possible
Get them to accept change
Make best use of each person's ability
Look for ability not now being used
Never stand in a person's way
How often are we seeing changes that are not told in advance and where the affected persons’ ability are not used in the change? I don’t see these two points as being separated, but as working together.
Indeed, it’s been recognized over and over that people are less likely to resist change when they understand the reasons behind it and they get a change to participate in it (by using their abilities).
By keeping the JR card with you and studying it thoroughly, you increase your chances of managing your people respectfully.
The first step of the JR method is about “getting the facts”. Late Lean literature talks of “grasping the situation”, which is very similar, if not identical.
Worth mentioning though is the “Get opinions and feelings” item. From a systems thinking point of view, it’s good as it fosters different perspectives on the situation. Now, this item is not detailed on the card, but it’s the only one being given a list of key points on how to achieve it, if you do the hard work of reading the sessions outline (synthesis available in session V):
How to get opinions and feelings
How’s this for a “manager as coach” behavior? How often have you encountered a manager that really listens to you that way?
Step 3 is interesting here for the two following points:
Are you going to handle this yourself?
Do you need help in handling?
What’s important here to me is when these two points of the method are combined with the preceding two fundamental points mentioned above. Indeed, a manager or change leader should not fear from getting help from the very people who are going to be impacted by the change. By reflecting in how s/he could get help from the people, by using their ability, he considerably augments the chances of the change going well.
Seeking help and involving others is not a sign of failure, but of sound responsibility.
(From a systems thinking point of view again, it helps achieve requisite variety with respect to the change perimeter).
I hope to have shown how the use of TWI Job Relations method can help in leading change. Of course, this is a bit slower than traditional “command and control” way of managing change, but I bet the JR way has a lot more long-term beneficial consequences than the traditional way.
TWI programs session manuals can be downloaded for instance from http://www.trainingwithinindustry.net/.
Currently re-reading TWI‘s “how to get continuing results”, I stumbled upon this paragraph:
To get appropriate action on this fundamental [Assign Responsibility for Getting Continuing Results], the TWI representative might get a decision by raising such questions as these:
(a) “How do you now inform your executive and supervisory organization of a new responsibility – or a new policy – or a new requirement? What change have you had recently where you had to get detailed information across to your supervisors (such as new procedures under your wage agreement, or change of manufacturing method, or change in production methods)? How did you get the results you wanted?
(b) “Will a similar procedure be adequate to get continued results in the case of JI, JM or JR?”
The new responsibilities mentioned above are the following ones:
The sponsoring executive must make it clear to the members of the executive and supervisory staff that they are responsible for results. To get continuing results, each executive and supervisor must:
- use the plan himself.
- provide assistance to those who report to him.
- require results of those who report to him.
Question (a) is clearly a “what works here?” question in a typical Solution Focus approach. Then it is inquired with question (b) whether this approach could be used for getting continuing use of the methods.
It’s marvelous that in 1944 already, TWI knew that it’s better for change management to build on current practices rather than create something new.
It’s also interesting to note that the “continuing use” of the J programs was supposed to be done through 1) coaching and 2) coaching from line management (not dedicated coaches).
How are you assuring continuing use of your Lean programs? Is it building on current managerial practices?