The Bottleneck

I met Andrew Koenig, the CEO of CITY Furniture, at a virtual Lean conference during the pandemic. We immediately hit it off, and he invited me to help strengthen the Kaizen culture at his company.

For two years, I facilitated Kaizen events on a monthly basis. It never ceased to amaze me at the number of improvements and breakthroughs that could be accomplished in a company that has been living Lean and continuous improvement for many years. More than that, the energy of team members was inspiring and infectious. I was warmly greeted by associates on every trip and many of them proudly showed off prior improvements and how they were sustaining the gains from our Kaizen events.

Late in the first year of my support, I met with the COO, Will Conway, during our monthly review. He always told me I was too expensive, but what he told me next stopped me in my tracks.

“Adam,” he said, “I love the results your teams have been getting. The engagement and excitement is amazing. We want more of this, but we can’t afford to bring you here more often. You’re the bottleneck. Can you help us figure out a way to expand this work?”

This would be a challenge. I had more than 30 years of experience facilitating teams. I honed my craft through many experiments and mistakes. I get feedback about how my teams accomplish results more quickly than many of the other consultants I have followed. Somehow, I would have to put together all of my experience into a training program.

I said, “Will, this is quite a task you’re asking of me. But I feel it’s something I must take on. I owe it to you, your teams, and quite frankly to me. If I can somehow figure out how to upskill other facilitators, I will have something I can transfer to others so my approach can live on after I have stopped working. Challenge accepted!”

Over the next few weeks, I developed my Kaizen Facilitator Certification Program. It consists of these elements:

-        Kaizen Facilitation Prep Course

-        Participate as a Kaizen team member

-        Participate as a Kaizen team leader

-        Co-facilitate a Kaizen with me as the Lead Facilitator

-        Lead facilitate a Kaizen with me as the co-facilitator

I developed reviews for the candidates, to ensure that they were ready to move on to the next (or final) step. The ultimate goal would be to solo-facilitate a Kaizen event. I knew no matter how much training and support I gave, the candidates would still make mistakes. As long as they showed the desire and drive to learn from them and demonstrated the principles of facilitation, I was willing to move them to the next phase. I knew I couldn’t “rubber-stamp” anyone’s certification. This would damage their results and my reputation.

Will chose four high-potential candidates from across the company. All except one had been at least team members in prior Kaizens with me. The other candidate had facilitated Kaizen events prior to joining CITY Furniture, so everyone agreed she could skip the Kaizen team member and team leader steps.

During the three-day Kaizen Facilitation Prep Course, I demonstrated the principles and techniques of facilitation. I had each candidate practice everything I taught. Then, I sent them out to meet with sponsors to develop charters for upcoming Kaizens. Following this, they developed Kaizen event plans and learned specific tools to utilize, such as Value Stream Mapping and The Wheel of Sustainability. At the end of the course, we celebrated, and I was hopeful they were all prepared for their next steps.

Over the next eight months, I facilitated Kaizen events with each of the candidates separately and was impressed by how much they learned and incorporated into their approach to facilitation. I was thrilled when some of the candidates went “off-script” and created their own approach to what I taught them. Their confidence was growing and at the end of each review, we talked through what they learned and what they thought they could do better next time. Every one of them was ready to take the next step.

I held separate reviews with Will, so that he could ask me the more challenging questions about each candidate. He agreed all of them were ready to solo facilitate.

And that’s what they’ve been doing. I don’t get to facilitate any more CITY Furniture events. I have eliminated the “bottleneck” and worked myself out of a job, which also frees up my capacity to pursue new challenges. From time to time, I get a text or an email showing me some of the breakthroughs they have made since I have left. It makes me feel good that I have been able to help them grow their capability and capacity. I feel even better knowing the program I developed can be used to help others and that things are no longer dependent on me.