A Lean Journey with The Sumo Wrestler

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<td width="50%" align="left" valign="top"><img class="picture" src="http://lss-academy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/sumo.jpg" alt="dr arul" width="300" height="180" /></td>
<td style="text-align: justify;" width="50%">The crunch on financial markets globally has prompted business leaders to effectively free up valuable cash that is often tied up with processes and activities that are not directly linked to customer's need and requirements. You could see that there is a demand for Lean Experts as these corporations begins their Lean Journey – perhaps the need to eliminate a history of Non Value Added work.
A Lean Journey – typically focuses on developing the ability of resources and internal experts to effectively identify the 7 Deadly Wastes or even Muda, Muri & Mura as well as undertake a thorough Value Analysis on every aspect of a process.</td>
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<td>Where does one start in an organization that has not done any lean improvements? Basic skills such as recognizing waste and walking the process to identify these wastes and generate ideas/solutions to eliminate them is one approach of embarking on a Lean Journey. Alternately, one could also consider developing a culture of 5S, reviewing workstations and shop-floors to ensure that unnecessary items, activities and wastes are not in the way of daily productivity.

There are many Lean Toolsets that are basic and could be introduced to an organization rapidly – the opinion is that there is no hard and fast rule to say that a specific set of tools are mandatory tools for beginners in a Lean Journey.

Lean Journey is like starting a franchise – the entry cost is low but the risks of failure is high, due to the fact that the goals can get off-sight due to the management that are concentrating on quick solutions that will free up cash flows in the near term.

The key point is – the journey still needs to begin with the management buy-in and all mid level managers and supervisors have their goals and objectives aligned towards the Lean Journey. A collective mindset to improve is essential. This would be the stepping stone towards a Lean Journey.</td>
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<td width="295" valign="top"><strong><span class="subtitie">The Monk and the Sumo Wrestler</span></strong>

Robin Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and came across something called "Kaizen". It is a typical terminology in the Lean Toolset. Business leaders who are novice to the Lean Toolset usually become intrigued at first at the thought that this was some sort of martial arts tactic from Japan, like sumo wrestling. They have not heard of it.

Strangely, Robin Sharma’s Chapter on Kaizen was a welcomed discovery. It had nothing to do with martial arts but it did have a "nine-foot-tall, nine-hundred pound Japanese sumo wrestler".
Here is what Sharma says on "Kaizen":

"…many centuries ago in the ancient East, the great teachers developed and refined a philosophy called kaizen. This Japanese word means constant and never-ending improvement. And it's the personal trademark of every man and woman who is living a soaring, fully awakened existence."

Kaizen is all about self-mastery. It is about building a strong character, a discipline filled with energy and optimistic thinking. Sharma quotes Epictutus who said, "No man is free who is not a master himself." How do you develop kaizen? The techniques include: Doing the things you fear and the 10 Ancient Rituals for Radiant Living. Want to know what it is? Read the book.

The wisdom of kaizen is: making self-mastery the DNA of life mastery.

What does this all have to do with the Lean Journey? Well, The Lean Journey includes kaizen of an albeit not too different kind. Kaizen aftter all is about "constant and never-ending improvement" which falls squarely into continuous improvement.

In the book, Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Business, Maasaaki Imai popularised the term. The concept is applicable to self-improvement and continuous improvement in any area of business. Much like Lean manufacturing, eliminating the waste and improving standardised activities and processes.

In Chinese, they say "gai shan", which means "change for the better" or "improve". "Gai" means "change" or "the action to correct" and "shan" means "good" or "benefit".

Essentially, to benefit – whether it is individual benefit or company benefit, or societal benefit, one needs to change. Kaizen is all about change. As Sharma puts it:

"Change is the most powerful force in our society today. Most people fear it, the wise embrace it. Zen tradition speaks of a beginner's mind: those who keep their minds open to new concepts – those whose cups are always empty – will always move to higher levels of achievement and fulfillment."</td>
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<td width="295" valign="top"><strong><span class="subtitie">Changing with The Lean Journey</span></strong>
Change is the most complex aspect of any Lean or Six Sigma deployment. Even leaders of continuous improvement programs behave is manner as such "change is essential and good as long as it doesn't affect me" This make adopting the Lean Journey into a transformation as the DNA of an organization is a challenge. It is because the self mastery is not considered as the foundation of life mastery from an organizational aspect.

It is challenge to change within an organization and there is an urge to reaffirm that phrase is so true. A recent experience with a Continuous Improvement leader began delightfully as he was very passionate about improvements, the techniques and tools that methodology such as lean and six sigma offers. He is a self thought practitioner however, during the course of discussions and conversations with him there are a sense of a closed perception towards having a Lean Journey coach to support his team of fresh practitioners to rapidly gain a level of mastery that is essential to sustain the journey.

That is a cup that is half full scenario – leaving this intelligent gentleman with little room to attempt a new concept of coaching the practitioners. The perception was that coaching is a requirement driven by consultants to ensure that projects generate savings that justify a lean six sigma program and the stakeholders are the management team that had engaged these consultants.

This is true to a certain extent – coaching of is essential – but purely from the point of developing the capability of the lean practitioners to utilize and familiarize themselves with the tools and techniques that will ensure a project thoroughly follows the Lean Toolsets and the methodology and the key metrics for the business are brought under control. Only then the savings will be achieved, the cash could be generated.

Without developing the capability there is very little else that could come out of a Lean Journey.

The cup has to be empty, to be filled up with new concepts, ideas and knowledge that would lead the practitioners to achieve results before the sponsors and stakeholders could harvest the success of the continuous improvement program from the top line returns or bottom line savings.

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