A returning guest (episodes #30 and #38), Bob Emiliani is again featured in episode #48 of the LeanBlog Podcast.
Since the mid-1990s, Bob has focused on de-mystifying what he calls the “black art” of Lean leadership. In this conversation, he shares lessons from his Real Lean series of books, exploring:
- Why “Respect for People” is the often-misunderstood core of Lean
- How Lean leadership parallels — and avoids the mistakes of — scientific management
- Why sustainability remains the biggest challenge for Lean transformations
- The commitments managers must make to practice Lean as a true craft
Bob also previews the final volume of the Real Lean series, Learning the Craft of Lean Management, and reflects on the deeper role of history in shaping how organizations apply Lean today.
For earlier episodes, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple Podcasts.
Episode #48 Key Words and Links:
- What was your motivation for writing the Real Lean series of books?
- “Respect for People” principle… this principle has been his main focus since the mid-1990s, and was featured in Bob's 1998 paper titled “Lean Behaviors” and his 2003 book “Better Thinking, Better Results.”
- Scientific Management, Frederick Taylor, and Henry Ford
- Yes, there will be a fourth and final volume. It will come out in January 2009. It is subtitled: “Learning the Craft of Lean Management.”
Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to the Lean Blog Podcast. Visit our website at www.leanblog.org. Now, here's your host, Mark Graban.
Mark Graban:
Hi, this is Mark Graban. You're listening to episode number 48 of the Lean Blog Podcast for July 21, 2008. Our guest today is Bob Emiliani of the Center for Lean Business Management. You may remember Bob from episodes number 30 and 38 of the podcast. Today we're going to be talking about his series of books called Real Lean, volumes one, two, and three.
So I hope you enjoy what Bob has to talk about in regards to the “respect for people” principle and what I think is a really nice, complete view of the Lean management approach and the Toyota Production System. If you want to hear other podcasts with Bob or other guests, you can go to leanpodcast.org for a list of episodes. As always, thanks for listening.
Well, Bob, I want to welcome you back to the Lean Blog Podcast. Thanks for taking some time out today.
Bob Emiliani:
Thank you for having me.
Mark Graban:
Today we're going to be talking about your Real Lean series of books. I was wondering if you could start off by telling us what was your motivation for writing the series.
Bob Emiliani:
The motivation was customer feedback, plus concerns that I have about the widespread misunderstandings that people continue to have about Lean management. I look at some of the message boards and, of course, talk to a lot of people face-to-face and find that these misunderstandings are pervasive. And that concerns me because these misunderstandings then lead to misapplication of Lean management that results in less favorable outcomes, sometimes even really bad outcomes, in relation to the “respect for people” principle, where “people” means not just employees, but also customers and suppliers, investors, and communities.
The other thing is that there seems to be a lot of important and unanswered questions about Lean Management. I felt these questions were not being answered at all, or the answers were just long-winded or too hard to follow. They weren't specific or actionable.
Thirdly, I wanted to bring the “respect for people” principle into the conversation in a much, much bigger way. That principle has been my main focus since the mid-90s, and it was featured in my paper I wrote in 1998 called “Lean Behaviors” and in the book Better Thinking, Better Results that I wrote in 2003. The “respect for people” principle just needs much broader treatment than the narrow manager-employee relationship, which is what most people think of when it comes to respect for people. And then I also wanted to try to do this succinctly and inexpensively.
Each volume is a small 5-by-8-inch paperback book, less than 200 pages, that is only 15 bucks. And they're quick reads, but they're pretty substantial.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, I mean they're certainly great for being able to throw into the computer bag and tackle on a flight. Definitely, I think you hit the mark that way. To help get our listeners introduced to the series, what was the main focus of volume one?
Bob Emiliani:
The main focus was to help people better understand Lean management. So what I do in that volume is explain the purpose and advantage of Lean management, and also clarify many of the myths and misinformation that surround Lean management. Most of the questions that volume one addresses come from executives that I've worked with in the past, as well as my graduate students, most of whom work full-time in companies that are trying to implement Lean. So you get a nice window into the issues, concerns, and questions people have that way. Also, in 2004, I started to get very interested in the history and evolution of Lean management.
So volume one includes a couple of chapters that show how some of the ideas and practices that we think are new have actually been around for some time. And understanding the history and these long-forgotten perspectives are really informative in helping us understand where we are with Lean management today.
Mark Graban:
And what was the reaction that you got from people about the first volume?
Bob Emiliani:
Well, people liked that volume a whole lot. I mean, it really appears to have achieved its objective of helping people better understand Lean Management. So I'm happy about that.
Mark Graban:
So did that lead to the second volume, or was it part of the plan to have this whole series? Can you tell us about that and the second volume?
Bob Emiliani:
Yeah, it was part of a plan to have a series. And the second volume is focusing on the most critical issues that we face today as a Lean community and what some of the major opportunities are that we have in front of us. So volume two particularly tackles the issue of leadership. And we all know that 35 or more years after we first heard of Toyota's management practice, there are really surprisingly few companies that have been able to manage their business as Toyota does. And so the big question, of course, is why?
And what does leadership have to do with that? And how did we become so focused on Lean tools for so many years, and how badly has that hurt us? So trying to tackle some of these critical issues was a little bit difficult to start with. And so one of the questions I asked myself is, “Has anybody been down this path before?” And it turns out, there has.
The last great attempt to establish a completely new system of industrial management, aside from Henry Ford's management practice, was the early 1900s-era scientific management. And the proponents of scientific management created something called the Taylor Society in honor of Frederick Taylor, who was the hands-on manager who created scientific management. So one of the things that the Taylor Society thought it should do as part of its mission was to publish a lot of books and a journal about people's efforts to establish a scientific management system in companies of all sizes and in many different industries. So there's a tremendous record of documentation that describes the details of what people did and is extremely valuable for understanding what happened. And so when I found these old books and papers, I was just astonished by what I read.
The problems that the scientific management community experienced between the 1890s or so timeframe and 1940 are largely the same as what the Lean community has experienced since the early 1970s. And there certainly are some differences, there's no question about that. But it really is incredible how closely we in the Lean community have paralleled the scientific management community's experience so far. So over half of volume two is devoted to presenting the successes of the scientific management community, which are very few, and the failures, which are many. And placing that into today's context as, “What are our issues and challenges and how are they the same or different?” as well as some recommendations on what we can do to improve so we don't suffer the same fate as the scientific management folks.
So this stuff was a real revelation to me. And so for a few years now, I've been saying to the Lean community, “We need to understand the failures of what happened to the scientific management folks if we're to avoid repeating the same mistakes.” And so thankfully, some people are recognizing how important this branch of industrial management history is to what we're trying to accomplish in the Lean Community.
Mark Graban:
So what kind of feedback did you get from people about that book?
Bob Emiliani:
Well, it's a little bit different than volume one. You know, most people don't like to confront the ugly facts. So some people find it a bit of a tough read, but they also find it to be informative. I think the people who like volume two have the mindset that, “Well, you know, we got to confront the ugly facts if we're serious about improving.” And so to them, the book serves as more of a challenge and motivates them to think harder and try new things.
I think in my recognition and others who read the book, they realize that the Lean community, we have to put our heads together and identify the root causes of these common problems and identify practical countermeasures. We all put a lot of effort into trying to make Lean work. And I think reading volume two can be beneficial in that it can help people understand that we don't want all of our efforts to turn into nothing. As the saying goes, we're doomed to repeat history if we don't learn from it. So far, the Lean community has been indifferent to history. They think their experiences are unique, and they're really not.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, that's a good point. So volume three of the series, the most recent of the books, is just out. Can you tell us about volume three?
Bob Emiliani:
Yep, that's focused on this issue of how do you sustain Lean management. And I wanted to try and answer that question: how do you sustain Lean management? So like everybody else, I've been long perplexed why something that seems so easy to do is actually so very difficult to do. And I started formulating my approach to understanding this problem in, I think it was, 2005.
And you know, understanding this problem has roots in my own real-world application of Lean management in industry in the 90s, and then of course in the books and papers that I've written since then. So I've been working on this steadily for a couple of years. And what I ended up doing was explaining the sustainability problem in a totally different way. What I do is I dissect conventional management practice and show specifically which aspects of conventional management hinder managers' ability to become Lean leaders. And so I reveal these major obstacles, and the book identifies 14 key commitments that executives have to make in order to sustain the Lean management system.
Mark Graban:
It's funny how that number 14 comes up–Deming's 14 Points and the 14 principles of the Toyota Way. Is that just a coincidence that you have 14 key commitments?
Bob Emiliani:
Yeah, it's just a coincidence. I didn't plan it that way, it just came out that way.
Mark Graban:
So I'm not into numerology, I don't know if many Lean people are, what the significance of 14 is, but there we have it. I wanted to ask again, in terms of reactions to the book, you really don't pull many punches in the book as far as trying to diagnose what's wrong with some of the prevailing traditional management systems and approaches and behaviors. What kind of reaction have you gotten to this one?
Bob Emiliani:
Well, it is very direct, that's for sure, but so far the people who read it don't seem to be too put off by that. What they tell me is that nobody's looking at the sustainability problem as I have presented it, so it's really a new perspective. They also tell me that it has a lot of surprises and even jarring insights and really challenges people's thinking. Another thing they say is that people really need to understand the sustainability problem as I presented it because it really is digging in the right direction and that people need to think about sustainability as I've presented it if they expect to make any headway. My observation is that people's longstanding comprehension of what it takes to make Lean sustainable is just not at all sufficient to make any substantive long-term progress.
They need to obtain a much more expansive view of the problem, which is what volume three does. And that's going to make for better root cause analyses that will point the way to practical countermeasures.
Mark Graban:
And so we're through three books in the series. You're also working on volume four. So I wonder if you can give us a preview about what you'll cover there and what the timing for that release will be.
Bob Emiliani:
Yep, this will be the fourth and final volume of the series. It will come out in January 2009. It is subtitled Learning the Craft of Lean Management. And the purpose of this volume is to bring Lean management full circle. As everybody knows, Lean is part of the evolution and the establishment of management principles and practices that were created to move away from craft production into mass production and beyond, beyond the need to rely on scale.
And so I wanted to devote a volume that highlighted how Lean management itself is a craft. Very few people understand it in that context, including the best Lean practitioners and the best Lean thinkers. So viewing Lean management as a craft really creates a much different impression on what Lean leaders or potential Lean leaders need to do. And it informs them that the learning must be much broader and deeper than they might have imagined. And this also intersects with the sustainability problem discussed in volume three.
Mark Graban:
So it sounds like you're saying one of the root causes of problems with Lean sustainability is not a matter of people at the frontline level of the organization not understanding the tools or how to implement, you know, just pick a few–Kanban and 5S. It's not that level of technical knowledge, but it's more of management understanding of the real root causes of why organizations not just maybe struggle with Lean, but why the business might be struggling in general. Is that fair to say?
Bob Emiliani:
That's correct. Well, it's a management system, and therefore to operate that management system correctly, the managers have to practice managing at a level of craft that they're not yet at and don't quite understand or see it that way. And if they did, I think then they would have a much better chance of having some success.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, yeah. We need to try to, I guess, change existing practices or maybe try to work on the next generation of MBA students or both and try to change some of those mindsets, I guess.
Bob Emiliani:
Yeah.
Mark Graban:
So other than writing the books, what are some of the things that you're working on or will be working on in the future, Bob?
Bob Emiliani:
Well, kind of what I've been doing: more leadership training, more speaking engagements. I do a fair amount of speaking at corporate meetings and so forth. And of course, I teach full-time now since I left industry in 1999. So I teach graduates and undergraduates at Connecticut State University. But there is another book that's going to come out, and that will be a surprise.
Basically, I'm going to be publishing a special reprint edition of a long-forgotten, obscure book that I'm going to offer the Foreword for. And the Foreword will explain the significance of the book and put it into historical context. But it's really a classic book, and it's one that rivals Ohno's Toyota Production System book. I think people are going to be amazed when they read it. Look for that probably around mid-2009.
Mark Graban:
Okay. And you can't give us any more of a tease? I guess we'll just have to stay tuned, or hopefully when you're ready to announce what that is, we can talk about it here on the podcast.
Bob Emiliani:
Absolutely. I would enjoy doing that.
Mark Graban:
Okay, so I guess we'll just have to stay tuned and look forward to that. But I certainly want to thank you for your time today talking about the Real Lean series. I've enjoyed the books. In fact, I talk about throwing the book in the computer bag. I plan on finishing the rest of volume three on my next flight and digging into that. But I definitely recommend the books to the listeners and invite people to go buy those. I'll have links to Bob's website and more information about how and where you can purchase the books if you go to leanpodcast.org and look for the show notes for this episode. Hopefully the listeners can go take advantage of that.
Bob Emiliani:
Thank you, Mark.
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