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From Russia with Love: The Spirit of Kaizen Lives in All of Us

A Russian ceilings manufacturing plant asked me to help them facilitate their strategic road map in 2017. This was an activity they did annually since the plant opened in 2015. I had been to Russia one time before, during construction of the plant, so I had some experience travelling there and working with the people. This time, I would be coaching their continuous improvement leader in how to organize and facilitate this important session.

I met the continuous improvement leader on Sunday afternoon at the plant. My goal was to prepare him for what was about to happen and give him some tips on engaging the workforce and getting quick results during the session. It turns out that he was somewhat familiar with the techniques I was teaching, but frustrated by the culture of the leadership team. I assured him we would be able to break through and get strong engagement and quick results, but didn’t really know what I would be up against. In Russia, if someone at a higher level is speaking, someone at a lower level did not. Things also took longer to accomplish than what I was used to, so this was going to be a challenge.

We agreed we would use a modified Value Stream Mapping approach to develop the strategic road map. Rather than going into great detail when mapping the process, we would stay at a high level, but still have the team map the current state and identify opportunities for improvement.

On Day 1 of the session, I found myself in a large room of 30 team members and 7 interpreters. Each interpreter was paired with an English-speaking participant. The interpreter spoke into a microphone and the English was relayed to a headset. Amazingly, there was only a 1 – 2 second delay from the time someone spoke in Russian, to the time I heard the English translation in my ear.  It was hard to concentrate at first, but in just a few hours I was able to find a comfortable rhythm as I facilitated the team.

After introductions and Voice of the Customer, we took a Gemba walk of the process on the factory floor. I advised all team members to take sticky notes with them, so they could write down their ideas in real time and not have to remember them. These ideas would form the basis of the improvement efforts we would be mapping out later in the session.

When we got back to the meeting room, we mapped the current process on a wall. We used sticky notes, and I encouraged all team members to write process steps and waiting steps on their sticky notes and then place them on the wall where they thought they should go. If there was an error or a better way to write the step, I asked the team members to go up to the wall and replace the original sticky note and place it in the more appropriate place on the wall. When we exhausted all of the steps, I asked the team to review the map and make sure they believed they had the correct steps and sequence. If someone didn’t go up to the wall, I encouraged them to verify things were accurate, or at least close to accurate.

Next, I asked the team members to look at the steps and put a mark on the ones they felt caused the most problems or pain to them. Once we saw the steps with the most marks on them, I encouraged the team to come up with ideas that could solve that problem, writing their ideas on different-colored sticky notes. After all ideas were written, it was time to share the ideas and make sure that everyone on the team, from line operators to the plant manager, had an equal voice. This was accomplished was by going around the room, one person at a time, one idea at a time. When an idea was shared, we put the sticky note on a large sheet of flipchart paper for everyone to see. When we exhausted all of the ideas in the room, I encouraged all team members to look at the many flipchart pages with ideas, find their 5 favorite ideas, and place a mark on each one. The sticky notes with the most marks were the highest priority ideas for the team to pursue.

Once we determined the highest priority ideas to work on, we broke the team into sub-teams of 3 or 4. The sub-teams were tasked to work on each of the high priority ideas and build them out into future work for the plant. One of the sub-teams was assigned a project with $800,000 annual savings. After an hour and a half, I asked each sub-team to report on their progress, and the rest of the team was to provide support and feedback. The sub-team with the $800,000 idea hadn’t made any substantial progress. After all sub-teams reported on their progress, I decided to spend time with the $800,000 team and took the continuous improvement leader with me.

When I asked what was going on, the team members told me they thought their idea was a good one, but it would never be approved by upper management. When I asked why they thought this way, they said that because no one from upper management was in the session, they wouldn’t understand the idea and wouldn’t support their efforts. I asked them if they could phone the appropriate person in upper management to give them a better understanding of the idea. They were uncomfortable with my suggestion.

I stopped by the plant manager’s office and talked with him about the situation. He informed me a high-level executive was at the plant, but not in the session, and she was working on another project for the company at the time. I asked him if he thought we could get a few minutes with the executive. He gave me one of those looks I tend to get from my wife when I say something she doesn’t like.  I decided to spring into action anyway.

I asked the sub-team and the continuous improvement leader to come with me. We were going to get an immediate answer to our question. We walked over to the office the visiting executive was using and waited outside the door. She was on the phone. The sub-team wanted to walk away, but I wouldn’t let them. The executive looked up from her call and saw us waiting outside. Instead of waving us in, she looked back down and continued her call. Once again, the sub-team wanted to leave, but I wouldn’t let them. The executive looked up again, saw us still standing there, hesitated, and then motioned for us to come into the office. This was our opportunity!

Being the outsider, I felt it would be easier for me to explain the situation. I apologized for the interruption, thanked her for inviting us into the office, and explained what we were doing. I then asked if she had a few minutes to spend with us to review the $800,000 idea. She said, “I’m really busy right now.” Then, thinking better of it, she said, “I can give you a couple of minutes, then I need to get back to what I am doing.” We thanked her again and I asked one of the sub-team members explain the idea to her. As he explained, I could see the executive getting interested in the idea and even offering advice on how to make the idea better. Fifteen minutes later, she told the team they had her full support and they should pursue this fantastic idea. We thanked her for her time, told her she had the spirit of Kaizen in her, and left so that she could go back to work. Later, she came to visit the sub-team to see how they were progressing on the idea. The enthusiasm of the sub-team spilled over to other team members and before too long, many additional ideas were being developed to make the plant safer and more productive.

By the end of the session, the plant had a strategic roadmap designed to help it meet its goals for the next 3 years. The teams remarked they had never been in a session where everyone was given equal voice and where so much had been accomplished in such a short amount of time. It turns out that the only thing in their way was their thinking. We also discovered that no matter your cultural background, the spirit of Kaizen can live in you!