Norman Bodek discusses ideas from his book How to Do Kaizen, including why real innovation starts with empowering every employee to be a problem solver. He also tackles a great question: what should a leader do when an employee's suggestion is “we should blow up the factory”?

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Norman Bodek, often called the “Godfather of Lean” in North America, joins me to discuss ideas from his book How to Do Kaizen: A New Path to Innovation — Empowering Everyone to Be a Problem Solver, co-authored with Bunji Ewa.

Norman shares what he's learned from decades of teaching Quick and Easy Kaizen — including an honest admission that his very first workshop was so bad four people asked for their money back. What kept him going was the results: organizations like Gulfstream went from one idea every two years per employee to 40 ideas per employee per year. Autoliv was generating 63 ideas per employee, with a goal of reaching 96.

We discuss why traditional suggestion boxes kill participation, why kaizen events alone aren't enough to sustain continuous improvement, and what it really means for every employee to own and implement their own ideas. Norman also contrasts his approach with Autoliv's model of dedicated specialists who implement worker ideas — and why he thinks that trade-off comes at a cost to employee skill-building.

The conversation ends with a memorable scenario: what should a supervisor do when an employee submits the idea “I want to blow up the plant”? Norman's answer is a masterclass in how leaders should respond to ideas — even outrageous ones — if they want to keep people engaged.

Topics in this episode include:

• Why Norman wrote How to Do Kaizen and his goal of making the concepts teachable
• Quick and Easy Kaizen: small, worker-driven improvements vs. large kaizen events
• Results at Gulfstream (40 ideas per employee) and Autoliv (63 ideas per employee, targeting 96)
• How Baptist Healthcare went from the lowest-rated hospital system in Florida to winning the Baldrige Prize
• The difference between workers implementing their own ideas vs. dedicated implementation specialists
• Why most managers are the real resistance to change — and how criticism kills idea systems
• The Jefferson/Boeing story: how one dismissive response stopped an employee from ever submitting again
• The “blow up the plant” idea and what it teaches about listening, respect, and going to see the problem together

About Norman Bodek

Norman Bodek founded Productivity Press and was responsible for bringing many foundational Lean and Toyota Production System books to English-speaking audiences. He is the author of several books, including How to Do Kaizen and All You Gotta Do Is Ask (with Chuck Yorke). Norman was inducted into the Industry Week Manufacturing Hall of Fame and received the Shingo Prize for his contributions to operational excellence.

This episode was recorded in March 2010, with Norman appearing from his office in Vancouver, WA.

For earlier episodes, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple Podcasts.e

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Norman Bodek on How to Do Kaizen: Empowering Everyone to Be a Problem Solver (Transcript)

Mark Graban: Hi, welcome to episode number 95 of the podcast for July 28th, 2010. My guest today is Norman Bodek. He's going to be talking about his most recent book, a relatively new book called How to Do Kaizen. This was originally released as a video podcast. So if you would like to watch Norman, it's video podcast number 11.

This is the first part of what will be multiple parts — Norman talking about his book. And stick around for the end of this podcast. Norman asks and kind of answers and poses, I think it's a rhetorical question, about employee ideas. What do you do if an employee's idea is, “We should blow up the factory”? Kind of a provocative question and scenario. I hope you'll enjoy that and the rest of what Norman has to say. Good to see you again, Norman.

Norman Bodek: Thank you, Mark. It's always a pleasure.

Why Norman Wrote How to Do Kaizen

Mark Graban: Thanks. So we're going to talk today about your new book, How to Do Kaizen. I was wondering if you can tell me, tell the listeners and viewers more about your new book.

Norman Bodek: Thank you for asking. What I wanted to do, you know, for the last 10 years or so, I've been very excited about the people side of Lean. I wrote a book, my first book, The Idea Generator, about 10 years ago. And then I decided to go out and learn how to teach the concepts.

I remember the first time I taught it in Portland, I had 24 students in the room. And I was so bad that four people asked for their money back. But I was really determined to learn how to teach it, and my goal was, and still is, to be the best in the world teaching this concept that I call Quick and Easy Kaizen, because it is marvelous to me.

It's marvelous. I mean, I go work with a company like Gulfstream, and they started off having one idea every two years from the average employee, and they got 40 ideas per employee last year. That's 40,000 ideas in their Mexicali plant. And now all of their plants throughout the world have Quick and Easy Kaizen programs.

So I'm excited about it, and everybody I work with has that kind of a track record once they understand how to break through the resistance. And that resistance, unfortunately, is mostly manager's resistance to change. A manager should lead change, but unfortunately, they're like everyone else — afraid of change.

Sharing Everything He Knows

So I've been teaching this, been very excited about it. And since I'm getting a little bit mature, a little bit on in age, I don't know how many years left, I want to put down everything that I do and really share it with other people so that they could pick up the book.

Now, I know just picking up a book is not that easy to apply. That's true. But if you pick up the book with study groups — you get five people, six people together, you read a chapter at a time, and then you just say to each other, “How do we apply it here in the company?” And then you've got five or six people to push each other to do this. Then there's a possibility.

So I tried to put in the book everything that I do when I teach, everything that I do when I keynote conferences. I've been very fortunate to keynote, I don't know, in the last few years, maybe 50 conferences without exaggeration. I was on a plane almost every week going somewhere. In fact, next week I'm going back to Orlando. I'm going to keynote a Six Sigma conference.

So that was the reason I wrote the book — to share everything that I know about the subject, with the real hope, Mark, that people will understand the power of this.

Baptist Healthcare: From Worst to First

You know, I like to tell the story of Baptist Healthcare Center, which is in your field, and how they were the lowest rated hospital system in all of the state of Florida. And then they installed an idea system, a suggestion system, or what I call Quick and Easy Kaizen, and quickly they rose from the worst hospital system to the best and won the Baldrige Prize.

Now, I'm sure they did other things, but the catalyst behind it was getting every employee involved in continuous improvement.

Why Kaizen Events Alone Aren't Enough

Mark Graban: Right.

Norman Bodek: You know, Mark, we talk about continuous improvement. We go out and run a Kaizen Blitz or we do a Six Sigma event, and they're wonderful, but they don't cause everybody to be involved on a continuous basis.

Autoliv: 63 Ideas Per Employee and Growing

When you come out, I hope you visit with me at Autoliv.

Mark Graban: Mm-hmm.

Norman Bodek: The visit is on Friday, the week of the Shingo Conference.

Mark Graban: Right.

Norman Bodek: In May, at the end of May. And Autoliv received 63 ideas per employee last year — 63. This year, their goal, believe it or not, is 96 improvement ideas per employee.

Mark Graban: 96 ideas. That's —

Norman Bodek: 96 improvement ideas. Right. They do a system much different than I've been teaching. I've been teaching fundamentally that to break the mold of the old suggestion system, instead of having the person come up with an idea and having somebody else implement it, when you come up with an idea, you identify a problem. You, the worker, are responsible for implementing your own idea. You do it.

Mark Graban: Yep.

Two Different Approaches to Implementing Ideas

Norman Bodek: Sometimes you need help, but that's only in a very small percentage of the time. You need somebody's help to implement because I'm encouraging people to look for very small little things to do, not the big things.

Autoliv has a different approach, and it's dynamite too. Autoliv has hired a group of specialists. They might have, I'm not sure what the count is, maybe 30 of them. And these specialists' full-time job is to implement the ideas that come from the workers. Now, this is a radically different approach, but for them it's gangbusters.

The only thing that I think I'm telling them that they should shift on — because I like the worker growing from their own idea. I like the worker building their own skills and capabilities from their own idea. So when these workers come up with ideas and somebody else implements them, they're learning how to identify problems, but they're not building their skills from their own ideas.

Co-Authoring with Bunji Ewa

So I have the privilege of working with Bunji Ewa, my co-author. Bunji is the president of the HR Association in Japan. He's written over 20 books on the subject. He's the prime teacher in the Far East, and he gave me this privilege to co-author this book with him. Included in the book, I have over a hundred examples, pictures, and various kaizen examples that people can look at.

And then of course, if they can break the resistance and just get started — and it's easy to get started. I mean, I wrote a book with Chuck York called All You Gotta Do Is Ask, and that's it. All you do is ask people for two ideas or one idea per week, just to look around their work area and let them do it.

Every Idea Is a Good Idea

Mark Graban: Right.

Norman Bodek: But the big thing to recognize is that every idea is a good idea. That's hard. Because most managers look at an idea and then they begin to criticize. And you criticize and you kill the system. They have to look at every idea with a new framework — that every idea is wonderful.

“I Want to Blow Up the Plant”

I give the example: one worker says, “I want to blow up the plant.” Now they bring that, they submit that to the supervisor, because this is the system. You come up with an idea, you identify a problem, you come up with an idea, and then you go to the supervisor. We are not saying people can implement ideas without any checks and balances.

Mark Graban: Yeah.

Norman Bodek: So they go to the supervisor, and the supervisor looks at this and it says, “I want to blow up the plant.” Now what's the supervisor going to do?

Mark Graban: Call the police?

What Happens When You Kill an Idea

Norman Bodek: Well, the police — it reminds me when I taught a company called Jefferson. Jefferson is a division of Boeing. They make the maps for the pilots in the world. And there, the first person that came up with the first idea went to the supervisor and walks out of the room. And they talked to an associate of theirs and they say, “You know, I just spoke to my supervisor, and she said to me that my idea is not exactly what they're looking for.”

So she turned to her friend and she said, “You know, I'm never going to submit an idea again.” Because it's very easy to kill it. It's like a baby or a little plant, you know? It's very easy to kill it.

Mark Graban: Yeah.

Norman Bodek: So nurture is what you want to do. And to get started, you might get a lot of crazy ideas, and that's okay.

Mark Graban: Yeah.

Responding to the “Blow Up the Plant” Idea

Norman Bodek: You just say to the person, “That's a wonderful idea.” And in this instance, “You want to blow up the plant” — you don't even say why. You just say to the person, “Let's look at the problem together.” Then you go out and look at the problem, and the worker is going to show you something that maybe stinks. You know what I mean? Something really bad in the plant. They don't know what to do to get rid of it, and the role of the supervisor or the manager is to look at it and respect the worker that it's a real problem for them.

Mark Graban: Yeah, so I'm going to have to stop you for time, but we'll start our next podcast with further discussion of that “blow up the plant” idea. We'll make people come back and watch the next one. So thanks again, Norman.

Norman Bodek: Thank you very much, Mark, for having me.