“Julie, we’ve reached the third ‘P’ of the Toyota Way pyramid, People and Partners, but we’re not going to stop here. We’re going all the way to the top.”
“We’re already pretty high. I hope we can make it to the summit without the Old Man’s heart giving out.”
“Old Man? Heart? Is there somebody else up here with us?”
“Well finally we’re here at the top. Wow! This is really high; I can see all the way to Darboy. Liker’s book says that the summit of the pyramid represents the fourth ‘P’, Problem Solving. But why, Curmudge, did we climb right past the third ‘P’, People and Partners?”
“I knew you’d ask. Because people are at the heart of Toyota’s problem-solving process, I didn’t feel that we could address the two topics separately. You recall back in August when we pointed out that respect for people was one of the main principles of Lean?”
“Of course. Who can forget the ‘no lay-off’ policy? That’s certainly a part of Toyota’s third ‘P’, but how does this relate to the fourth ‘P’, Problem Solving?”
“Traditional American management has been hierarchical, command-and-control, but Toyota’s management system—which we now call Lean—is participative. At Toyota, a leader is a teacher. When a problem arises, the management folks go to gemba and collaborate with the workers to find a solution. They question the workers repeatedly to find the root cause and then use Deming cycles to test their hypotheses. Sometimes the questioning gets pretty intense, and the workers have to convince the leaders that their ideas are valid.”
“Curmudge, that may work at Toyota, but American workers might find these question-and-answer confrontations very foreign and downright uncomfortable.”
“It might sound foreign, but the questioning process is just the Socratic Method. It’s been around for a couple of thousand years. It must have worked well, because although the Greeks weren’t building cars, they sure built temples and amphitheaters to last a long time. I’ll bet that once American workers realize how much their bosses value their insights, they will think that the Socratic Method is the best thing out of Greece since pizza.”
“Get with it Old Guy. Pizza is from Italy, not Greece.”
“At least I know where the important things, like baklava and ouzou, come from. By the way, I hope you realize that you and I used a form of the Socratic Method last week. It was The Five Why’s that we employed to identify the reason that Lean tools alone were insufficient for developing a Lean culture.”
“I think I get it, Curmudge. The Socratic Method ties the respect-for-people concept to problem solving. The give-and-take between managers and workers using the Socratic Method develops profound mutual respect. By having management’s confidence in their ability to control and correct their processes, the Toyota workers acquire a sense of ownership. Everyone knows that ownership is a powerful driver of quality.”
“That’s it, Julie. As Liker says, from executives to shop floor workers, ‘Toyota challenges people to use their initiative and creativity to experiment and learn.’ But that doesn’t happen overnight; it takes years of training and experience, and above all, the right people. Lean must become a culture; it’s not a quick fix.”
“All of that sounds great for making cars, but what about health care? How can we apply in the hospital what we have just learned?”
“I promise that we will tackle that soon. First, there are several more Japanese problem-solving concepts that we need to Americanize. We’ll continue with the fourth ‘P’ in our next conversation.”
“Okay, Curmudge, but let’s get off this pyramid for awhile. It’s windy up here.”
“We can either slide down or we can rappel. Did you bring a rope?”
Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon
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