"Earn my respect before I give you my respect." This has long been the way most people in Western civilization views the idea of respect. We start with the first mindset shift of support vs. direction in the first chapter. Here we focus on the second mindset shift of what it means to Respect Every Individual. We will also discuss Hansei and develop this reflection on self and learn from our mistakes.

The next mindset shift is towards the idea that we must give respect to everyone. I've recently learned that telling stories will help solidify concepts, so let's try that here.

I recently learned how to do Lean Safety Gemba Walks. During the training, we were tasked with going to Gemba to put into action what we had learned. We formed small teams and my team went to the floor together to practice this skill. We approached an employee who was busy working one of our operations on the dock (or loading bays). We stopped him and introduced ourselves. At first, he was taken aback. He seemed to be surprised that someone was there to talk to him. We asked his name and he provided it (we will call him Robert here) but continued to work. It wasn't until we asked the next question that he turned to engage with us.

"When you go home each night what hurts?"

He turned from his work and gave us an odd look. "What do you mean?"

"Well we are learning a new method of finding out where our processes are causing safety issues for the people who do the work. So when you go home, what's sore? What aches? What's difficult for you in this operation?"

"Well I actually have a shoulder injury and that hurts everyday I go home."

"What in the things you do everyday might cause that?"

He looked at us again and smiled. Looking around us were dozens upon dozens of old material handling equipment. The equipment was like the one shown below - a wire container with caster wheels. Ours are over a couple hundred pounds, and the casters really aren't well maintained.

We laughed with him. "Wow, so you move all of these?"

"Yeah, all day. We get these wiretainers from trucks coming in and we have to unload and move them. Since we only have so many people working this tour (what we call a shift) there's only so many people pulling them with the mules." (We call powered industrial equipment that pull these containers mules in some parts of the company.) Looking around we saw trailers of these wiretainers waiting at the dock doors, and all along the dock were rows and rows of empty wiretainers waiting to be moved.

"That sounds like a lot of work for you to do each day. Do you mind if we watch you perform this operation and then talk to you about it?"

"Yeah I don't mind."

We watched him work for a while and noted how our processes were affecting his physical well-being. At times we saw him pull two of these containers at a time. Other times he pushed the container. Many times he would move them into a line ready for the mule to drag them elsewhere. We noted times where he was bending out of neutral position while he pulled and pushed the containers, and saw why his shoulder would be aching each day.

We came back to him and talked with him about what we observed.

"We want to share with you the different things we observed. As we go through this, let's talk about opportunities we might have to make this easier for you. Does that sound alright?"

"Sure, what did you see?" At this point we had already formed some relationship with him, getting to know his name and his struggles. He was already open to us and our intent, which seemed to make this sometimes uncomfortable part, well, easy.

"Well we noticed that sometimes you would pull a couple containers at a time. Pulling the containers put your shoulders out of neutral and seemed like it could be straining it. Why do you do the operation that way?"

"Well I've got to get all these containers moved, and sometimes it's just easier to move them like that to get the work done."

"What do you think could make this easier for you and still get them moved?"

He was standing comfortably with us. This was a sign that we had built, in that very little time, some trust with him.

"Maybe if we had something that could help me pull these things?" He asked a little unsure if he had a good answer.

"So, maybe something smaller than a mule but something that maybe is motorized to make this super easy?" We expanded on his idea and ended it as a question to get his input.

"Yeah, and if it's motorized, maybe I can hook up a few of them at a time and get them moved a lot faster too."

I want to end the story at this moment. Robert has shared an opportunity to improve, something he was not expecting, nor were we to be honest. He was smiling with us and we had an excitement talking with him.

At this point, I would like to introduce the concept of Hansei, or reflection. In order to learn we must reflect upon our experiences. There are many ways to reflect, but this is one I've been trying. It's the idea of addressing things that went well (positives), things that could improve (changes or deltas), and lessons we learned or takeaways we have from the experience. So let's do that now.

Positives

• Respect was so easy to give! We respectfully communicated with Robert and focused in on his struggles.

• Trust was built through the respect that was given both ways between the team and Robert.

• Giving respect enabled Robert to share his own ideas on how the process could be improved! Robert never had been part of a project, but today he changing his mindset to make improvements.

• When we asked if we could observe him working, Robert was more than willing for it to happen, and better yet, he was willing to hear what we had observed.

Changes/Improvements

• ​This was a lot of our team's first time engaging in this way with people, so we could have done a better job with the introductions. We just asked his name and introduced ourselves, but we could have spent a couple minutes getting to know Robert a little better. This would really solidify the mindset of respect.

• When working through opportunities we did just a quick brainstorm with Robert, but we sort of commandeered his idea. It would've been cool if we could have continued with more open ended questions to help Robert fill out the idea on his own.

• Our systems need to catch up. This method of using respect as a major principle for how we manage requires a change in the management system itself. We are enabling people to think of ways to improve the process, we just need to ensure we have got a way to make those improvements reality.

Lessons Learned / Takeaways

• The real lesson we learned was how the foundation of respect as the mindset enables us to engage with our people and show that we truly care for their well-being.

• It really isn't that hard. As humans we all have some value and it sure is nice to be seen that way. So often we seem to forget this and disrespect people's value, intelligence, and overall well-being.

• In this story, after talking with Robert we quickly started talking to more of his team members. We also talked about all the innovation that is around that we have no current way of developing. That led us to the question of "What if we had our engineering and development office here at Gemba engaging with the people that do the work?" We briefly imagined such a world where innovation occurred where the value was created, and how quickly we would see great improvements of our people and our process.

Respect, as Toyota and now hundreds if not thousands of companies have figured out, is the foundation of Lean. What's more is that Respect is a key principle to be that spark of your company, the spark that will ignite success and excitement for improving our work everyday!

Respect and Reflect my friends and we will continue on our journey together.