This is the second
installment of my favorite management blogs as part of John Hunter’s 2012 Curious Cat
Management Blog Carnival.
John Shook is one of the
most recognized names in lean thinking.
John spent 11 years at Toyota,
and has authored (or co-authored) several books on the Toyota Production
System. He is currently Chairman and CEO
of the Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org)
and maintains a blog on the site entitled John
Schook’s eLetters, where he has been posting since 2008.
In Encouraging Signs of
Leadership, John addresses the complexities of leading a lean journey. An organization is a system and
transformation needs to take place on many dimensions. Change must be driven on the system, not the components
of the system.
In the post, Shook writes
that, “Leadership is integrated into the
work and not overlaid onto it. And yet
many prevailing conceptions of leadership fail to grasp this simple but
essential truth.”
In another post (Learning Lean –
Collaboratively), Shook writes on my favorite lean topic: learning. Lean practitioners are obsessed with learning
but, as Shook writes, learning does not happen just because one wants it
to. It results from the application of
tools and methods that enable a PDCA mindset.
Through PDCA, mechanisms like standardized work, kata, kaizen, and
hoshin kanri all enable learning to occur faster.
In So What Are You Going
To Do About It? (I love the title) Shook addresses the changes taking place
in the world and the resulting impact they are having on business. By once again returning to the idea of
appreciating the system, he talks about the importance of understanding and
improving the value stream as the way to deal with these large-scale
changes. By addressing problems in
isolation, we’re doing nothing more than pushing costs from one part of the
value stream to another.
W. Edwards Deming used to
say that the system is as large as we’re able to manage. I think the complexities and interactions in
today’s world require us to see the system as much larger than was required in
years past. Understanding the supply
chain, company processes, distribution, and customer tiers, although complex,
is necessary for the long-term success of any organization.
Although Shook tends to push products and services of the Lean Enterprise Institute in many of his blogs, one can gain a wealth of information by merely reading and reflecting on his posts. Focused directly on the application of lean, the influence of Deming is very evident.
Additional information about the Curious Cat Annual Management Blog Carnival is available at http://management.curiouscatblog.net/category/carnival/.
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