Archive for Lean
PDCA Cycle of Zingerman’s Deli
Posted by: | CommentsAt the 2011 ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Conference, one of the featured speakers was Ari Weinzweig, CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB) has annual sales approaching $40 million. ZingTrain, a consulting and training company that shares Zingerman’s approach to business with like-minded organizations from around the world, and offers a variety of management training seminars in Ann Arbor, as well as customized workshops and presentations at client sites.
Fellow Lean Blogger, Mark Graban wrote a recap Management Lessons from Zingerman’s CEO Ari Weinzweig of Ari’s talk. I encourage you to read it. What I wanted to share was my personal experience of Zingerman’s Deli. Besides the great food and great service and catalog littered with special gifts and even more unique food, Zingerman left a special mark on a venture into the retail business that my wife and I did for six years. It was Ari’s book,Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service, that provided our outline for the service that we would provide and train our staff. Below is a mind map of the initial outline that I constructed from the book.
The second mind-map is what I would call an ad-hoc representation of the Zingerman’s PDCA cycle: Define, Teach, Live, Measure, Reward. 
I find the Zingerman model an excellent guideline for our and other retail operations. In fact, very few things are difficult to do, it is just a matter of doing it.
P.S. I was unable to attend this conference as I was on the other side of the county in Orlando at the ISO9000 Lean and Six Sigma Conference.
Related Information:
Can the customer be front stage in your organization?
The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing
Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset
In love with your products more than your customers?
Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative
Posted by: | Comments“Man, they said we better Accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative Don’t mess with Mister In-Between No, do not mess with Mister In-Between Do you hear me, hmm? The music was written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and it was published in 1944.
You wonder why it has taken organizations this long to start considering this approach. My podcast guest, Sara Orem, co-author of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) expanded on this in the podcast:
Lions and tigers and bears. We lived in caves and there were wild animals and there were maybe not an ever present danger but there was an often present danger so we were wired to look for danger. The worrier in us will look for danger in the fact that we didn’t get a raise or we’ll look for danger in the fact that our significant other didn’t say good morning to us. We are negative beings and to some degree that’s also genetic.
Is that why problem solving is revered? And the feel good approach is not?
Sara L.Orem, Ph.D. has twenty years of management experience and fifteen years management consulting in and to major financial services companies in the U. S., Britain and Australia. Her current focus is on the development and use of positive methods including Appreciative Inquiry in coaching and group processes. Appreciative Coaching describes in detail the method Sara has developed for her coaching practice which serves women and men looking at self-started transitions.
P.S. My favorite rendition of the song mentioned above is a Bette Midler & Bing Crosby rendition. Don’t miss this! This is my feel good strategy part of the post!
Appreciative Inquiry (sometimes shortened to "AI") is primarily an organizational development method which seeks to engage all levels of an organization by taking an "asset-based approach." It starts with the belief that every organization, and every person in that organization, has positive aspects that can be built upon. It asks questions like “What’s working well?”, “What’s good about what you are currently doing?” David Cooperrider is generally credited with coining the term ‘Appreciative Inquiry’.
Related Information:
Getting Resistance to Appreciative Inquiry?
The Strength of an Architect is in their Collaborative Abilities
Lean Engagement Team Book Released
Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving
Connecting Continuous Improvement and Appreciative Inquiry
Posted by: | CommentsMy recent foray into Appreciative Inquiry was spawned by Ankit Patel, principal partner with The Lean Way Consulting firm. While doing some work with the Cleveland Clinic, he discovered Appreciative Inquiry and saw an opportunity to blend it with his work in Continuous Improvement. I found the work fascinating and this them is the subject of next weeks podcast. For an introduction you may want to listen my most recent podcast, Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative with Sara Orem, co-author of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change (Jossey-Bass Business & Management).
An excerpt from the upcoming podcast:
Joe: When you talk about problem solving, people think of it very much in linear terms. The things that I’ve read on Appreciative Inquiry, they’re talking about circular questions. Is there a difference in that thinking? Is there a basic difference between the two?
Ankit: I would say that traditional process improvement is a little bit slightly more linear, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. I think that’s actually a very needed skill set. I think where the AI process really excels is at non‑linear type, breakthrough type of issues. So if you want continuous improvement, traditional continuous improvement tools are great for that. If you want serious breakthrough types of initiatives, there are some tools in the continuous improvement belt that help with that. AI seems to work much, much better for that because of the non‑linear nature. It allows folks to break free of necessarily what they think is possible because it lets them just think bigger. So you do end up getting much, much larger types of initiatives.
So I’ll give you an example. Roadway Trucking. They did an Appreciative Inquiry, what they call, Summit. They actually had their own drivers come up with their initiative for a specific depot that could save $1 million. I think that was, if I’m correct, for Roadway Trucking, about 40 percent of a total revenue. It was an extremely aggressive goal, but they came up with that goal because of this whole process.
Now would they have achieved that otherwise? Possibly. It might have been an edict from the top down, but because they came up with it they were actually able to achieve it and get a lot of good cultural outcomes from that as well. People felt more empowered. People felt more engaged. You get less turnover from your folks. People are happier to be at work. It’s just a really, really neat way to approach any kind of problem or opportunity.
What I have found is that I am actually applying many of these methods through Lean and my continuous improvement efforts. I tis actually not that much of a shift. David Cooperrider, who is generally credited with coining the term Appreciative Inquiry had told Ankit that Toyota is currently using AI in their Hoshin Planning or Strategy Deployment efforts. Recently, I published my My Engagement Strategy – Appreciative Inquiry and discovered it was very Appreciative friendly.
The real attraction of AI to me is that it may provide a better way for cultural change. It may provide a stronger pathway in changing culture in a Lean Transformation. If you think we are already applying the best method or best path, I encourage you to participate in this LinkedIn discussion: When Lean fails, most people draw the wrong conclusion and assume it is Leadership. They blame leadership as being shortsighted. I think this view is not only wrong but it is dead wrong.
Related Information:
Getting Resistance to Appreciative Inquiry?
Lean Engagement Team Book Released
Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving
