The Tribal Knowledge Paradigm started with Mabel and so she is an important person in the evolution of the War on Waste. This story began twenty-five years ago, as I stood in front of a group of employees who had been forced to attend a class I had been contracted to deliver. It was a training program that introduced a small manufacturing company to the principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS). In essence, I was teaching a method for identifying and eliminating waste in business processes. Today we call these programs Lean Manufacturing.
To illustrate my thoughts about how this system should be applied to American industry, I had prepared over 160 slides, including charts, graphs, illustrations, text and checklists. I was to show these slides in conjunction with a series of interactive lectures scheduled to run for ten weeks at the rate of three one-hour sessions per week. As with all of my projects, the entire company was required to attend—everyone from the custodial personnel to the CEO.
On this first day of class I had a rude awakening. I introduced myself and moved right into my presentation, feeling pretty good about the way things were going. I was on the fourth slide and I noticed a raised hand at the back of the room. “Yes?” I said, wondering what could be confusing this early in the presentation.
“My name is Mabel,” she said, “and I have a problem.” Mabel was a middle-aged production worker who’d labored on the assembly line for over twenty years. “I can’t understand your slides,” she said. I asked her why not, expecting a smart-assed answer and thinking wearily to myself that there was always one in every group. Her answer astounded me: “I can’t read,” she said.
So I tried to clarify what she had said, “do you mean you can’t see my slides clearly?”
“No,” she said, “I am illiterate. I can’t read.”
I was blown away. The whole four months’ worth of material I had prepared would be of no value to her—nor to anyone else that couldn’t read. I had assumed reading was a basic skill, forgetting that some production and line workers don’t have much more than an elementary-school education. Yet they all needed to learn the skills outlined in this new management system.
How would I keep Mabel up to speed with the rest of the class? I didn’t want to single her out any more than she already was; yet it was imperative that I communicate to this class in a way the rest of the classes would find compelling and appropriate. I had very little time to decide: forty pairs of eyes rested on me, waiting for my next move.
And the War on Waste emerged.
I appealed to their individualism by opening up the lecture to the employees and posing a question: did they know of any wasteful processes currently in place at the company? My question was greeted with hearty laughter: talking about how messed up the company is has to be every employee’s favorite pastime. But before the conversation could deteriorate into a negative, company-bashing free-for-all—because that’s what it was quickly becoming—I outlined a few rules. I call this “chalking the field” which is defining the boundaries of the discussion.
We would identify a wasteful process and make an early attempt at finding the root cause of the problem. I told them not to worry about what anyone else would think about the idea and not to blame anyone for the inefficient process in place. I wanted them to concentrate on thinking of the best way to solve the problem. The removal of blame allowed the full force of employee individualism: when you identify a waste, you experience the strength of individual thinking. And because Mabel spoke English and had ideas, she became involved in the process.
Hands shot up faster than I could call on people. People from every corner of the room were sharing their thoughts about things that just weren’t working right in the company:
- Poor lighting in the production area caused workers to make mistakes.
- Disorganized machine tools and fixtures wasted a lot of time.
- Inventory not there when it is needed for an assembly wasted more time.
- Poorly designed packaging wasted employee time because all four sides of the packing boxes took a long time to tape.
- Expensive Styrofoam coffee cups were used in the coffee room.
The list developed over a couple of days until we had about forty-five different items to think about for this group. I listed each item on a flip chart, using pictures and simple diagrams whenever possible.
I was thrilled by the enthusiasm I was seeing. All the ideas weren’t big money makers but the enthusiasm was intoxicating. While I always tried to make my lectures interesting, I’d never experienced participation on this level. But it made perfect sense: these people spent their lives in the trenches, working with these inefficient processes day after day until I imagined some of them wanted to scream out of sheer frustration. They’d never before been asked to voice their opinions, but here, finally, someone was asking them what was wrong with the company. What a rush!
And Mabel was the impetus for the War on Waste methodology that evolved.
You can read more about the War on Waste and how it works in the book that I have written about entitled “The Tribal Knowledge Paradox.” It is selling as an ebook at the websites noted below.
The Tribal Knowledge Paradox (Amazon);
and;
The Tribal Knowledge Paradox (B&N).
It is selling for $8.99 on both sites and is available now.
The soft cover copy is available at the websites:
Create Space (an Amazon Subsidiary) at:
The Tribal Knowledge Paradox (Create Space);
or at Amazon:
The Tribal Knowledge Paradox (Amazon).
It is selling for $20 on both sites and is available now.
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