So it's been a few weeks since I last shared my thoughts. I am currently in Los Angeles, CA helping out one of our sites during our Peak season. Peak is the time of year that, especially in shipping companies, processes (& people!) work at their most stressed. I was here a couple years ago helping the same site with some Kaizen projects. There definitely have been some great improvements, but you wouldn't know it seeing the stress that the team is under. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of a spark and I've witnessed what it's like when a spark catches fire within a team, and what happens to the spark when the system around them does not support their drive.
I took this photo on one of my recent trips. I looked out the window of the plane and saw that we were flying between two layers of clouds. I imagined that we were a stable process and those were our control limits. If we hit turbulence, our line would look shaky, and if we started to plummet through that lower bound of clouds, we were either landing (cross your fingers!) or something was totally awry. But what is most interesting to me is the peace I felt in that moment looking out the window. When you have a stable process, a stable environment, you feel at peace.
These last few weeks I met a manager (a spark for sure) that created a stable environment is one of the most hectic areas of a shipping plant - the dock (or shipping platform). His leadership style is disciplined and accountable to a process. He practices the skills needed to manage at Gemba, whether he was formally trained in this or not. He strives to live by the principles of humility and respect - and openly admits that sometimes he may let emotion get the best of him. This shows me that he has some ability to self-reflect. What I found most interesting with him is his mindset of support of the team, the process, and making things easier for everyone.
As part of how I go to Gemba, I find someone to walk with, to shadow. I ask a lot of questions to get an understanding of what they do. On my walk with Eric the dock manager, I asked what he struggles with each day. We saw the process, we saw the variation in the process flows, and we saw how he tried to bring us back to a standard - that is, back from gridlock and into a flow again. Along this walk (which I ended up doing a few nights), I watched how he interacted with his supervisors. Instead of just barking an order (which he did at times), he would provide the thinking behind it. When there was more time to make a move, he would ask his supervisors questions, what they saw and thought should be done. This part helped him see what they saw and gave him the opportunity to coach them. He supported their development, while also holding them accountable to a process. He would walk a certain route at different times of the night/morning and would easily interact with nearly all his employees during these walk routes. Each time he would pass his supervisors, he would check up on the process, try to find where they were struggling, and give them support. When product was stuck inside the workroom, he would go there and help communicate product moves with his dock supervisor. When a door going in was getting too congested, he helped find people to get the flow going again. His intensity to the process was admirable, and his attention to the support of his people was even more so.
What I noticed more was how those interactions changed the attitudes of his supervisors. There was so much interaction and learning going on each day you could easily see a difference in them versus some of the supervisors on the workroom floor that didn't get that type of interaction. Inside, some supervisors were largely ignored except when something was going wrong. During those times a manager might come up (or not) and tell them to do something. Many times the manager would just direct the employees instead of developing the supervisor in the process. Seeing how Eric's supervisors smiled, talked with people, and made decisions was amazing. Not all their decisions were correct, but Eric didn't reprimand them for it. He explained (rather sternly at times for sure - remember he knows he can be this way!) what those decisions meant to the overall process flows or the customer. Just seeing his supervisors making those decisions was completely different than some of the interactions we would see inside the building. Supervisors seemed afraid to make a call on almost anything. See inventory building up? Someone will come over to take care of it. Instead, if all of our managers saw themselves as support, this would be part of the overall process or Gemba walk. See inventory building up? Let's talk about why it is building and what we can do to ensure the flow of product continues. Without those interactions, there is no way you could expect your team to develop, there is no way other sparks will be made, and there is very little chance you will go home without a headache.
I commend Eric a lot for what he does, and challenge him to continue to improve himself and the team. Extend out that development to his peers - have them walk together with him. Show others how you develop people, let them show you how they do it too. Practice the learning method of "I do, we do, you do." By supporting each other we create stronger teams, create more stable and robust processes, and create a system of development and problem solving that will drive innovation forever. Thanks for letting me share this small story with you. I've got so many more - all because I too go to Gemba and practice the Gemba skills!
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