Do you want employees who buy in to being proactive, constantly improving, adding value?
If so, you’ll need to foster a culture of humility. Take it from Japanese factories–and medieval monks.
Humility is the secret weapon of innovation. The reasons are both spiritual and practical.
Let’s start with the Japanese. Specifically: Toyota.
“The workplace is a teacher.”
I saw a friend yesterday who had on a shirt that said “Kaizen Team.” When I did work for General Motors, we called it by the English translation: Continuous Improvement Team. Perhaps you’ve heard the terms Green Belt, or Six Sigma, or Lean. They are all getting at the Japanese concept of Kaizen, popularized and at least partly created by the Toyota Production System.
TPS is how Toyota won the ball game in the late ’80s and ’90s. The cars were of such high quality. And the teams that made them were so dedicated to continuously improving that quality by eliminating wasted time or materials from production. I live near Toyota’s biggest plant. I know people who work there. The buy-in is real.
And if TPS has a daddy, it is surely Taiichi Ohno. In his Ten Precepts, he laid down some of the philosophy that underpins what we now call lean production. Precept 3 applies here:
The workplace is a teacher. You can find answers only in the workplace.
What is the workplace? It is the gemba, a Japanese word meaning “actual place.” In other words, it’s the place where an organization creates value: in a service bay turning a wrench, on the factory floor building a car. A related word: gembutsu, or “actual place, actual thing.”
Ohno believed leaders needed to go and observe (even measure–even interview) where it happens:
The gemba and the gembutsu have the information. We must listen to them.
Former Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho explained how to do such on-site listening:
Go see, ask why, show respect.
Think about the perennial topic of this blog, coaching. Much of the value in coaching comes from people feeling heard. I can assure you that rural Kentuckians I have known who worked for Toyota embraced that level of respect and thrived under it.
“The Lord often reveals what is better to the younger.”
These concepts are similar to another birthplace of industry: the European monasteries of the Middle Ages. These communities covered Europe. You have perhaps heard that these scholars are responsible for saving much of Western Civilization’s literature and learning that was rediscovered in the Renaissance. We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for these monasteries.
But we don’t often think about how each of these communities had to support themselves. They studied the sciences. Improved technologies. Learned specialties. Divided up labor and roles.
It all helped them produce excess goods to sell to the outside world. It was in many ways the birth of capitalism.
And if Western monasteries have a daddy, it is surely St. Benedict of Nursia. His incredibly short book, the Rule, is the founding or source document for many of the monastic orders that came after his Benedictines.
What strikes me as I read it is the emphasis on humility. It is the title of chapter 7, one of the longest chapters. And the idea of obedience, setting a good example and listening suffuse much of the rest of the Rule.
He did not have a Toyota production floor, but the abbot was expected to gather input from all monks before making decisions. It’s important enough that he dedicates all of chapter 3 to the idea:
As often as anything important is to be done in the monastery, the abbot shall call the whole community together and himself explain what the business is; and after hearing the advice of the brothers, let him ponder it and follow what he judges the wiser course. The reason why we have said all should be called for counsel is that the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger.
The value of a monk’s input had nothing to do with age or seniority. In a similar sense, chapter 2 had already directed the abbot to “avoid all favoritism” and to not give a higher rank to a free man over a slave who becomes a monk. All were made in God’s image; all were valuable parts of the community.
On “less important” business, Benedict acknowledges that input may be needed from just the senior monks. But there must be input, he says, “… for as it is written: Do everything with counsel and you will not be sorry afterward.”
“Trying to keep America from committing suicide.”
The humble, listening approach, where each person is respected as a contributor–and expected to contribute. That Toyota had such success with this approach is no accident. The Japanese developed their kaizen culture from the ideas of W. Edward Deming. He was the statistician who helped develop Japanese industry after World War 2. He had helped American manufacturers during the war–but they rejected his ways afterward.
The Japanese, however, ran with it. To call him a “quality control expert” or even “the father of the quality movement” is to sell his work very short. It was a philosophy, a way of life.
Ohno had Ten Precepts. Benedict had his Rule. And Deming had 14 key principles. One that applies here:
Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
When asked late in life how he would be remembered, he answered, “I probably won’t even be remembered. … Well, maybe … as someone who spent his life trying to keep America from committing suicide.”
American suicide.
I have been spending time thinking about how my work is connected with American greatness, and how that is connected with the humility of monks and Toyota managers. I invite you to do the same.
Are you humbly listening to your people and observing where they are “making the donuts?”
How can you formalize that listening? Maybe you are a fan of MBWA. Can you incorporate the humility and respect needed to not only Manage By Walking Around but Listen as well? Perhaps all you need is a notepad and a time set aside daily or weekly to review the input. For a much deeper dive, see John Shook’s article on a gemba walk.
May we all add value “where it happens” today.