Lean Blog Audio: Practical Lean Thinking, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement

Blog post link Psychological Safety is not some nice-to-have touchy-feely concept. Psychological Safety means that you feel safe speaking up in the workplace. That could mean: Asking questions Pointing out problems Admitting mistakes Disagreeing with your manager Sharing ideas for improvement It's been pretty well proven that organizations with a higher level of Psychological Safety perform better. A lack of Psychological Safety in a factory can turn deadly. A lack of it has proven deadly in healthcare settings too, of course. If workers and engineers are punished for speaking up about quality problems in aerospace factories, that puts customers (and passengers) at great risk. When people are pressured into being silent, that's a management problem and a culture problem. I'm not blaming the individuals who keep quiet to save their jobs. I do admire those who take great professional and personal risk to speak up anyway. This WSJ article (which should be a free-reading link) talks at length about workers being punished at Spirit Aerosystems (a key Boeing supplier, formerly part of Boeing) for speaking up about quality concerns and problems. There's so much to potentially dig into regarding decisions made by past Boeing executives about spinning off factories or outsourcing work. But I'll keep this post focused on the psychological safety elements. I saw the punchline of this one story coming a mile away. It's not a funny situation, but I did literally laugh out loud: “At one point, Dean said, [Spirit] threw a pizza party for employees to celebrate a drop in the number of defects reported. Chatter at the party turned to how everyone knew that the defect numbers were down only because people were reporting fewer problems.” It's so predictable. It's happened before, and it will happen again. Dr. Deming wrote about this dynamic 40 years ago, with a story of a factory that offered an incentive for “zero injuries.” Guess what, people stopped reporting injuries, even though people could be seen walking around with arms in slings and such. Remember, including in healthcare, that “reported incidents” are not the same as “incidents,” especially when Psychological Safety is sorely lacking. In a true Lean Manufacturing environment, people are REWARDED for raising concerns and pointing out problems. We need more of that good Lean culture. Lives are at stake. More from the WSJ article about people being punished for putting quality first: The result, some current and former employees say: a factory where workers rush to meet unrealistic quotas and where pointing out problems is discouraged if not punished. Increasingly, they say, planes have been leaving Wichita with so-called escapements, or undetected defects.  “It is known at Spirit that if you make too much noise and cause too much trouble, you will be moved,” said Joshua Dean, a former Spirit quality auditor who says he was fired after flagging misdrilled holes in fuselages. “It doesn't mean you completely disregard stuff, but they don't want you to find everything and write it up.” And also: On the Spirit factory floor, some machinists building planes say their concerns about quality rarely get conveyed to more senior managers, and that quality inspectors fear retaliation if they point out too many problems.  Union representatives complained to leaders last fall that the company removed inspectors from line jobs and replaced them with contract workers after they flagged multiple defects. “This is leaving them with great quality and safety concerns,” one of the representatives wrote in an email to union officials. “Also feeling retaliated against for doing their jobs.”  That doesn't give me more confidence about flying on Boeing airplanes. I hope the culture at Airbus isn't as dysfunctional. ‘This Has Been Going on for Years.' Inside Boeing's Manufacturing Mess.

Blog post with more info and links Congratulations to my podcast(s) guests who were named to the Thinkers50 list of influential management thinkers! I am thrilled to extend my heartiest congratulations to a remarkable group of individuals who have recently graced the stages of my podcasts, “Lean Blog Interviews” and “My Favorite Mistake.” These brilliant minds have been recognized on the prestigious Thinkers50 list for their groundbreaking contributions to the field of management thinking. Each has shared their invaluable insights with us, and it's a true honor to see them receive this well-deserved accolade.⭐ Amy Edmondson (both podcasts)⭐ Erica Dhawan (MFM)⭐ Daniel Pink (both podcasts)⭐ Zeynep Ton (Lean podcast, twice)

Blog post with link to purchase and more I have a limited number of copies of my book Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More that are available for about half of the Amazon retail price — and this includes free shipping.

Blog post tl;dr summary: Karyn Ross enlightened me about World Kindness Day and provided invaluable feedback on my book, The Mistakes That Make Us. Her insights particularly helped me replace the term “grace” with “kindness,” enhancing the book's inclusivity. She also helped me better distinguish between being “nice” and “kind.”

Blog post A Question -- Email From a Listener: But I was prompted to think about this recently when I received an email from a podcast listener: "So I heard an interesting distinction between Gemba and Genba today. The M version is a place of work The N version is a place of investigation (used by Japanese police). So you go to the place of work before you go to the place of investigation." Hmmm. I had never heard that. So I thought I'd do a little research and check with friends who have varying levels of Japanese language skills.

The episode's blog post Leaders and organizations have a choice: 1) cultivate a culture of fear and punishment or 2) a culture of learning and innovation. That choice significantly affects happiness and performance at all levels within the organization. A culture of fear and punishment drives mistakes underground. An organization with a culture of fear cannot learn from mistakes because people don't feel safe admitting them. People who do admit mistakes to their manager aren't more virtuous or courageous; they likely are in circumstances where they are able to feel safe doing so. Instead of telling people to be brave, leaders must help people feel safer. Those who fail to learn from mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

Read the blog post In this episode, Mark recounts an unexpected ordeal in an Italian hospital after his mother-in-law broke her arm while on vacation. Faced with difficult choices about surgery and travel, the family navigates a foreign healthcare system. Amid the stress, a seemingly small act of kindness by a hospital staff member leaves a lasting impression, exemplifying universal compassion.

Direct blog post link It’s not unusual to see individuals get blamed for systemic errors and problems. Case in point, this article: Delta Air Flight Attendant Makes Expensive Mistake After Emergency Slide is Accidentally Deployed Shortly After Landing in Dublin It seems like a fact that the flight attendant deployed the slide. But is the mistake their fault?

To read the article and comment, click here or leanblog.org/audio340. This is an article that I wrote, published on the Quality Digest website. It begins: "I can’t count how many times during the past 20 years I’ve heard executives complain that their people aren’t enthusiastically participating in their lean program. Leaders lament that while the company has spent a small fortune to put everybody through continuous improvement training, hardly anybody submits ideas. The problem isn’t their employees; it’s a cultural problem and, therefore, a leadership problem."

Blog Post I was very excited to learn about an event that is being produced by GE, next Wednesday, September 6th, in New York City. I'm thrilled to have been invited to attend in person, along with other "Lean Influencers," including my friends Katie Anderson and Jamie V. Parker. We will be fortunate to be there in person to share highlights from the event via social media, blog posts, podcasts, and more -- on Wednesday and beyond. See the LinkedIn Event page: The Lean Mindset: The Pursuit of Progress