at Nissan and it made a huge difference. It is not complicated, but you have to change the way you think about business. It also introduces pride in the way you work. The philosophy is do it right the first time and do it better the second time. It is quite amazing to see how the ordinary shop-floor worker can have a tremendous impact on the processes if he wants to, and if he is motivated to.
Another thing that I learnt from my Japanese colleagues is ‘seeing is believing’. I think that senior management have got to take personal responsibility when they introduce Kaizen to organisations. It cannot only be something you tell your supervisors to do. Senior management have to drive the philosophy themselves in order to get buy in from the shop floor. One of the big problems on the shop floor is that very often the staff are under-trained, under-skilled and they do not quite understand what the expectations are. It is not a matter of a carrot and a stick approach alone. There is a role for both, but until the people have been shown clearly how to adopt a different work approach, they will not do it effectively. It takes a lot of patience, and repetition, and patience and repetition, until it becomes a way of life for everyone in the organisation.
The Japanese counterparts also
introduced a process control programme called TRYZ. As part of the launch they had each and every executive director and middle manager in the organisation participate and play structured games based on the ideologies of process control. We had to construct simple components that were supplied to ‘customers’ in the production line. You were measured on it, you were timed on it and you had to perform satisfactorily. You felt very awkward if you were a senior manager and you did not perform as well
April 2012 | Management Today 17
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