Comments on: Mike Hoseus Webinar on Toyota Culture

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:37:56 +0000

Almost all of the non-clinical leaders in my org came out of top business schools straight into the executive suite and don't have a clue about what it is like to work in healthcare. Similarly I can't think of a senior nursing leader (and there are many) that has done patient care in the last 15 years.
So how do they lead improvement? They hire a bunch of consultants to come in and tell them how to do the job they should be doing if they weren't so detached from the operations they are supposed to be leading.

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By: Mark Welch

Mark Welch — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:04:28 +0000

A good question for the job candidate to ask the potential future employer during the interview process… "What will my training look like?"

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By: David

David — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:00:52 +0000

In many organizations, it seems that when a person becomes a first-level manager/supervisor, they are so inundated with paperwork (or "screenwork") that their primary function becomes feeding the administrative system rather than doing anything really related to the work. My perception is that this is particularly bad in retail chains.

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By: Mark Graban

Mark Graban — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:05:18 +0000

Thanks for the comment. I should have added in the post, but you just jogged my memory… when I was at GM, I was allowed to work on the engine assembly line for about 45 minutes one day.

This was done under very tight union rules and oversight… so here I was, putting parts on an engine with all of 30 seconds worth of training. I was terrible at the job.

In hindsight, they should have NEVER let me build real product without real training… but that's how it was done. Try to dumb the work down to a point where it could be taught (so they thought) in 30 seconds.

Not lean.

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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:45:06 +0000

This blows me away… When I started as an engineer in manufacturing, before I even heard of lean, on my first day I asked if I could work on the production floor for a couple of weeks to understand the processes. I was denied. "Just work with the people, observe, and find out what the issues are," I was told. Later, when quality issues arose and our quality standards weren't matching with what our CUSTOMERS wanted, I suggested we bring in some dealers whom we sold directly to, so we could provide some samples of parts we made so we could understand how they defined quality/value. These processes were related to visual/aesthetic criteria – attributes, not variables data – nothing that could be quantified very easily. And, this was in the days just before the worldwide web was launched, so digital photos and email weren't around yet. "We don't want to take the time to do that," I was told.

I'm told this former employer of mine has now embraced lean. I'd believe it only if I re-entered their walls and observed for a couple of weeks.

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