I spent the last week at the Gemba at one of our processing sites. I've had many opportunities to learn, but for this post I want to bring up the importance of going to gemba as a leader. I also want to describe what it is like for teams who have a "gemba-based" leader, and what it's like for those that do not. I can tell you that there are nearly infinitely more positives to practice this leadership style than negatives, which make me wonder why it isn't a more practiced style of leadership. Go, See, Learn helps leaders fully understand the facts of the system. It is of utmost importance to understand the system as a whole. Showing Respect creates a culture of mutual trust and highly productive teams.
It is important to gain context to work. There's a mindset in traditional management that "data doesn't lie." Unfortunately it also means that how we interpret that data may be the lie. We often experience this every day, whether it is in polling data in political news (approval ratings perhaps), sport statistics (lowest passing yards in years), or in business (lowest ranking performance). Surely there must be some truth to this right? If you read Dr. Wheeler's books on variation, or even the more recent book by Mark Graban, Measures of Success, you will know that the process behavior chart (or control chart) provides at least some context in the data - variation over time. So this week, I went to what was considered to be a "low-performing" processing site according to site rankings. A heat map scorecard is being used to demonstrate how poorly it operates week over week - all in the red. If you were to control chart out the data, you would find that the the system looks stable - not great amount of variation around their mean. It's nowhere near the goal organization's goals, but just looking at the data in the way of a control chart helps to bring context. What this tells me is to look at the system itself. There's got to be things within the process that are causing lower performance, it requires process level changes. Process level changes require us to be at the place the process takes place, the gemba.
Go to the Gemba
If you are looking for process level changes, you must go and see the process. Management who spend their time in offices, looking at data without context, and away from the actual work will often not learn what is actually happening and will often succumb to letting assumptions drive decisions. The great benefit to becoming a "Gemba-based Leader" is that you always seek to learn about the context. Learning never stops and you never assume that "people just know what to do." Often we find that sometimes training is one of those things within the context at the gemba. For instance, if you see that people are doing the same job in many different ways, that adds to the variation in the result. So asking why multiple times, we would most likely find some problem within our training system. Moreover we might find that we have issues within our management system.
When I go to the gemba, I will look for context of what I am observing. To do this I split my observations into 3 general categories: Process, People, and Management System. I will pick one to focus on and work through each as I am on my Gemba Walk. I pick a spot within the process flow to do observations, and will engage with employees at that process to better understand what I am observing. On the process end I find instances where the flow gets interrupted, where potential defects occur, and gain more information about what is causing the variation. On the people side, I look for the engagement of employees in the work, how the process and management system affect their safety, and how well they are able to work successfully. On the management system side, I look for the evidence first that there is one, and how well we as a management team engage with our people to perform and improve the people and processes.
This style of leadership is much more engaging for the team. Instead of a telecom or email threads looking at data, you are out where the work is, where the context is, where the facts are happening right now. When you are where work is taking place you get to ask better questions, and get better answers. If you are a leader and think that you know what is happening by just looking at the data, you are wrong. That's all there is to it. Go to the gemba.
When you go and see together and learn together about what is currently happening, you not only build trust and teamwork, you are also getting to some actual improvement much quicker. Think about all the re-work that happens when we just look at the data and tell people what to do? How many times are we revisiting that problem? I bet if you took a clear look at what is happening you will find that it happens a lot. I constantly hear "haven't we solved this problem just a few weeks ago?" That's a tell-tale sign that there's not enough going to the gemba to learn about what is happening and understanding the true problem.
Show Respect
What happens when you go with your team to the gemba? Think about how your team thinks about your leadership. Do you simply "send the team out" to go solve the problem? Do they understand your expectations? Think about this for a moment. I often see managers sending out others to go out and see, then while that team is working on the gemba, the emails start coming. The team reports out to their managers and now the managers are asking more and more questions, giving more and more directions. "It's obvious you aren't looking. The data shows there's an issue there. Why else would the performance be low??" "You need to expose them. You need to show them their problems!" These are some typical emails you will see with the "stay in the office" manager. What do you think the team is thinking? Are those engaging emails? What behaviors are you, as the manager, wanting the team to model?
I'll tell the truth here. It's easy to do this in the moment if you are a manager. It's frustrating not knowing what is happening at the gemba. If you want to engender an environment of trust, you must find ways to show respect. Let's say for some reason you cannot make it to the gemba with your team. Guess what? We have technology! I have done Facetime gemba walks, it's quite an interesting way of communicating. At the very least, make the phone call to your team. Having as close to face to face, at the gemba conversations shows so much more respect than those emails.
Showing respect builds teams, builds trust, and creates the environment for high performance. When you are the gemba as a leader, everyone is watching you. How do you show respect at the gemba? Personally I think about all the behaviors I want people to show, and I do those behaviors. I want things to be clean and organized, so when I am walking the operation, I pick up trash if it's on the floor, I organize material if it's a little out of order, and I do this while staying engaged with people in the operation. I do not blame people, I do not punish them. I ask "what keeps us from keeping this organized?" Over the course of this week, as I walked, soon others who walked with me picked up the trash too. That is how you show respect, and demonstrate the behaviors you want to see. These behaviors cannot be modeled over email, it's only at the gemba, with your team, can these behaviors be displayed and learned.
(This is not my gemba, but it's clean because cleaning is the behavior that is modeled.)
The Challenge
If you felt challenged while reading this, or if you felt that maybe you are the email-type manager, you might need to do some self-reflection. A Lean Leader is one who is always trying to go to the gemba, who is leading by modeling the right behaviors, and making every opportunity a learning opportunity. The expected way of leading is to go see, ask why, show respect and engage everyone in the improvement of the work environment. This is truly the way to change the process that is creating the resulting data you see on the computer. Reflecting, I ask myself often if I am doing those things as a leader, if not then that's my problem. It's up to me to solve that problem for myself, as it is with every leader. As an organization, how long have you gone without the right style of leadership? Where has that gotten you over the long term? It's time for the change.
The vision of the future is one where all leaders are creating the constancy of purpose, engaging with cross-functional teams, making improvements together to the process. We do this in order to flow value to our customers without interruption. We respect our customers (internal and external) so much that we strive for excellence for them. We do not want to pass on bad quality, and we want to provide the highest value to them at the lowest possible cost. We want to have flow in our own work as well, "fix what bugs us" as is stated in 2 Second Lean, and develop every individual so they can make themselves better.
Most simply, go to gemba, see the facts for what they are, learn from the people about the process, and ultimately show respect to each other, your employees, and ultimately your customers by becoming a Gemba-based Leader.