20 Years Of Lean Podcasting, Thanks to Norman Bodek

Twenty years ago, on July 16, 2006, the Lean Blog Podcast began with a conversation with Norman Bodek.

Norman was my friend and mentor–and the person who suggested that I start doing audio interviews in the first place. What began with his idea has now grown to 547 episodes.

To mark the podcast's 20th anniversary, this bonus episode revisits highlights from that original conversation. Norman discusses Quick and Easy Kaizen, employee suggestion systems, respect for people, and why managers should ask rather than tell.

He also shares examples from Toyota and Gulfstream showing how small ideas, when implemented and copied, can produce significant results.

Norman passed away in 2020, but his influence continues through the people he taught, the books he wrote and published, and the ideas he helped bring to a much wider audience.

Listen to the complete original episode at leanblog.org/1.

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Quick and Easy Kaizen

Norman opened that first episode by explaining why he believed Quick and Easy Kaizen was at the heart of the Toyota Production System:

One of the first distinctions Norman made was between kaizen and the intensive improvement workshops commonly called kaizen events or kaizen blitzes:

“They are distinctly different. Originally, it was called ‘Five Days and One Night.' I met Ohno's two chief assistants, Iwata and Nakao. They told me they were leaving Toyota and wanted to come to America to teach as consultants.”

“I brought them over, and they ran these events called ‘Five Days and One Night.' Then Bob Hall changed the name to ‘Kaizen Blitz,' and it's not appropriate because kaizen really is small, incremental improvements.”

“Kaizen Blitz is really kaikaku. Kaikaku means radical change. That's what a kaizen blitz is–a radical change.”

“Kaizen is small, continuous improvement, getting everyone in the company involved.”

The Purpose of an Employee Suggestion System

Norman traced employee suggestion systems back well before Toyota. But he emphasized that their original purpose was not merely to calculate savings. The purpose was to involve people directly in improving their own work:

“The suggestion system–I credit it to Kodak back in 1898. The first suggestion was, ‘Clean the windows.' It's a wonderful idea.”

“The purpose of a suggestion system was to get ideas, to get all the employees involved, to empower people, and to have them participate in a direct way in the organization.”

“I Can't Manage 1,800 Ideas”

Getting more ideas from employees sounds appealing until a manager assumes every idea must travel through management for approval.

Norman described one leader who immediately did the math and concluded that employee involvement would create an impossible administrative burden:

“I gave a lecture to a company in Oregon, and the manager had 900 people in the plant. I said, ‘In Japan, they get two ideas per month per employee.'”

“He said, ‘But I have 900 people. I can't manage 1,800 ideas.' And he wouldn't go forward.”

Norman believed the manager had misunderstood the system. Leaders did not need to personally process and manage every improvement:

“It was so silly because you don't manage it. People manage it themselves.”

“People come up with an idea, and they do it themselves.”

“It is a system. It's a process to stimulate and encourage everybody to participate in change and to use their creative ability.”

Norman connected that creative opportunity to how people experience their work:

“Most people have such boring, dead-end jobs in factories, and most people just hate to come to work.”

“When I ask audiences what day of the week they like, almost everybody says Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. It never really happens that somebody says, ‘I love Monday or Tuesday.'”

“They don't like working, yet most of your life is spent at work. The reason is because they don't have a creative opportunity at work.”

One Small Idea at Gulfstream

Norman's argument was not merely that small ideas help employees feel more involved. Small improvements can also produce significant, measurable results–especially when other employees are encouraged to copy them.

One of his favorite examples came from Gulfstream:

“I ran a two-day course with them, and now they're up to 1,000 ideas a month. They're getting one idea per employee per month.”

He described two employees assembling a wire harness for an airplane. Their part of the process took seven days, followed by four hours of testing:

“The way they checked it, they had to bend down under the panel. Visualize that the panel is the size of an airplane wing.”

“They would pull out these plugs–about 50 plugs–and connect them to the panel to check that their wiring was correct.”

After Norman encouraged employees to think about making their work easier, one employee suggested moving the connections:

“One woman came up with the idea: Instead of bending down, why can't we take all the plugs and connect them to the top of the panel?”

“So they put all the plugs on top of the panel. Now they could pull them very easily from the top and make the correct connections.”

The testing time fell from four hours to one:

“Instead of spending four hours, they did it in one hour.”

The improvement became far more valuable when it was copied throughout the facility:

“There were 40 panels in that plant. If you multiply it out, you get about 9,000 hours saved from that idea–because we encourage people to copy each other.”

Trusting People to Improve Their Work

Many traditional suggestion systems require employees to submit forms, wait for committees, and hope somebody eventually approves the idea.

Norman believed the process should be far simpler and grounded in trust:

“If I'm going to put a piece of Velcro on a little clicker, I don't have to ask my boss's permission.”

He connected that autonomy to the two pillars of the Toyota Production System:

“There are two things that made Toyota successful–two pillars.”

“One pillar is lean, the elimination of waste. The second pillar is respect for people.”

“Respect for people means you trust people.”

“If you set up a system like this, you trust people that they're going to do things right for the company. And if they don't, they're going to learn, just the way everybody else learns.”

Managers Should Ask, Not Tell

That trust also changed how Norman thought managers should lead. Toyota taught managers not simply to provide answers, but to ask questions and draw on what employees knew.

Norman was candid about his own mistakes as a company owner:

“I owned a company called Productivity, and I had about 127 people. I never asked.”

“I never asked anybody. I was the boss.”

“I must have been the smartest because I owned the company. That was my attitude.”

“I never asked. I just told.”

When an Incentive Works Exactly as Designed

Norman admired Toyota, but he never treated the company as infallible. He enjoyed telling a story about an incentive that worked exactly as designed–and not at all as intended:

“Toyota encouraged very small ideas. At first, I don't think they gave any money. Then they gave a little money. Then they made a mistake.”

“Somebody said, ‘Let's give $20 an idea.'”

Employees responded rationally to the new incentive:

“A couple of people got very clever. One man was so clever that he got himself a swimming pool for the summer on $20 an idea.”

“If I shuffled a piece of paper from one side of the desk to the other and said, ‘That's an idea,' then that got $20.”

Toyota stopped the payment, but Norman argued that the problem was the incentive–not the entire improvement system:

“You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. You don't get rid of a good system because you made a mistake with the $20 an idea.”

His proposed solution was straightforward:

“I would have simply said, ‘I'll only give $20 if it's worth $20.'”

“If it's not worth $20, pat them on the back, thank them for the idea, and put the idea into a hat. At the end of the month, maybe you have a drawing and give away two tickets for dinner somewhere.”

One Careless Response Can Shut Down Participation

Leaders often say they want people to speak up and contribute ideas. Employees pay more attention to what happens after they do.

Norman warned supervisors to be careful about how they respond:

“The role of the supervisor–they have to be very careful not to criticize.”

He described an employee who brought an idea to her supervisor after the company had asked everyone to contribute:

“This worker brings the idea to the supervisor. The supervisor looks at it and says, ‘You know, that's not exactly what we need.'”

Norman then asked what the employee would tell her co-workers after leaving the room.

My answer was that she would be discouraged–and that it might be the last idea she ever suggested.

Norman agreed:

“Absolutely. You're right, Mark. She said, ‘I'll never give him another idea.'”

Why Don't More Companies Do This?

Norman spent decades trying to convince leaders that the knowledge and creativity they needed were already inside their organizations.

His closing challenge from 20 years ago remains relevant:

“The funny thing is, this is so simple to do.”

“I'm working on a new book, trying to understand why we don't adopt this. Why don't we do simple things like this?”

Norman cited companies reporting millions of dollars in savings from employee ideas:

“Technicolor claimed they saved $8 million last year. That's the third year running. In three years, they saved $24 million from ideas from their employees.”

“The average in Japan is $4,000 per employee per year.”

“An automotive parts company in Michigan also claimed they were getting about $4,000 a year in savings per employee.”

His final question was characteristic of Norman–direct, practical, and rooted in his belief in people:

“Why aren't other companies doing it?”

“We're running to China to save money, and we can save a fortune by just asking our people to help.”

Norman's Continuing Influence

Norman's influence continues through the people he taught, the books he wrote and published, and the ideas he helped bring to a much wider audience.

I remain incredibly grateful that he encouraged me to start this podcast, agreed to become its first guest, and returned many times over the years.

To hear the full original conversation, visit leanblog.org/1.