Many manufacturing companies today are reaching for ways to improve
and strengthen their competitiveness and financial performance in unfavorable
economic times. Lean manufacturing methodologies contain many solutions
for doing so, and many companies are embarking on the road to lean.
They learn about and start implementing the lean building blocks: workplace
organization and housekeeping (5S), batch reduction, standardized work,
quick changeover, cellular flow, and pull/kanban to name a few.
But in the course of implementing these lean tools, manufacturers often
discover that the hardest part is not the “technical” aspect
of lean, but rather the human side of lean. The inability to effectively
listen to each other, interacting without causing defensiveness, making
consensus decisions, resolving problems and conflicts, working in teams,
or even having a productive meeting, all get in the way of creating
and sustaining positive lean outcomes.
Prior to and/or in conjunction with rolling out specific training or
lean initiatives that are aimed at improving your business, you need
to ensure that your leaders and team members are equipped with fundamental
communication and collaboration skills. The Massachussetts MEP offers
training workshops that teach these essential skills: Team Involvement
Problem Solving (TIPS), Building A Successful Lean Team, and Leader
Effectiveness Training (L.E.T.).
Team Involvement Problem Solving (TIPS) provides practical skills
for solving problems in a cross functional team approach, and has been
designed to allow for participation of both management and shop floor
employees. It teaches an eight step, structured, root cause oriented
approach to permanently resolving problems. Other skills and techniques
taught include creative idea generation (divergent thinking), consensus
decision making (convergent thinking), and interactive skills for effective
problem solving meetings. The highlight of the workshop involves an
afternoon of simulated team based problem solving providing an opportunity
for all to practice what they’ve learned.
Building A Successful Lean Team provides participants with the
knowledge and facilitation techniques for incorporating and nurturing
the nine characteristics of highly successful work teams. The nine characteristics
help insure that your teams are all headed in the same direction, operating
under the same set of rules, accomplishing their goals, correcting problems,
and staying motivated.
Leader Effectiveness Training (L.E.T.) provides a research based
model of effective leadership created by the noted psychologist, Dr.
Thomas Gordon. It teaches a participative approach for leading and working
with people, and, most importantly, a set of collaborative communication
skills that enable participants to put the model into action. It works
in your relationships at home, too!
All of the skills taught in these workshops enable people to
work together more effectively as they pursue the implementation of
lean manufacturing. A mentor of mine, Dr. Bud Upshaw, once wrote, “It
is people who make organizational systems work, people who affect
and drive change, people who shape business outcomes when differences
and conflicts arise, people who work to insure high performance
and top quality.”
Don’t ignore the importance of the human side of lean and developing
real collaboration skills in your people. That’s what it takes!
