A Consortium of Problem Solvers Podcast of Len Bertain's Audio Books

 SUMMARY (The 90 Day Schedule)How to  win the War on Waste in 90 days? Having read the book, you can now ask me again: “How can I win the War on Waste in 90 Days?”First of all, you sign up with me.[1]  Or do it on your own with a consulting phone support from me.  Or you just do it and if you get in trouble, call me.It really is pretty easy to do.I also have training manuals that you can buy to follow the program.Calendar    Action to be Accomplished.Day 1         Just get started on an 8 week program (4 days a week)Class Day 1 - During these  first 16 workdays each team goes thru the War on Waste 6 steps.  It isn't a lot of time but it is enough time.  It isn't about being precise; it is totally about making your point.Day 29       Presentations to management:Class Day 17 (Note that the Calendar day is a running clock, while class day is only while an employee is in class)  - All participating employees make their presentations to the CEO or local managing director.Just listen to the rest of the process and you will appreciate how direct and simple this whole process is.  Just focus.  Best, Len[1] Len Bertain, Bertain Consulting Group, len@bertain.com, Cell: 510-520-8011.

The 7 things listed below are items that you need to do to make the War on Waste work successfully.Begin the 6 Steps of the War on Waste! Of course, that is what this whole process is about.   Start it up and stand back.  This is really a fun process.Use the tools of the War on Waste. Tools of the War on Waste were explained throughout the book. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 describe a number of tools that we use extensively as we deliver the War on Waste. Check in often with each team personally. Do this before they do their presentations. You need time to digest their suggestion and maybe even to think of things to make their project work better and more cost effectively.dPush the teams. People who have done the War on Waste with my remote support have all said that they didn't push the teams hard enough to get their projects ready for the presentation day. Integrate your Mission Statement. You want to follow the guide defined in the process. Each idea needs to be weighed against the Mission Statement. Integrate 5/67 tThinking into your daily routine. We absolutely believe that the 5/67 Rule is an important tool to be used in key management decisions. Understand what I wrote about it earlier and take it seriously. Set up the TKC. As I noted earlier, I don't care what you call it but set up a center where ideas can be collected. The concepts that are described in Chapter 9 may help you set it up. Just do it. I hope you find this book of value, but I still have one more task to do, and that is to show you the time line of How You Win the War on Waste in 90 Days.

10.  FAQs Have you ever done a company like ours?This is one of the most interesting questions that I get asked.  The answer is pretty easy.  Probably not or if I did one like yours, it still wasn't yours.  And that doesn't matter a bit.The War on Waste is about fixing a company's processes.  It doesn't make any difference what business you are in, the first question that we ask in the program is, “What do you do here to make money?”That is what determines waste in the company.  If for instance you are a bank or finance company, this is not an easy answer.  Do you make it only when you take in savings of your customers and invest them?  Or are there other things that you do?  So getting clear on this is the very first thing you do in the War on Waste.  Once you know how the company makes money, then the whole process flows from there.Other questions: When can I ever do the War on Waste?How much does it cost?Of course there are a hundred questions that we get asked but the bottom line is the target of 50 to 1 for small companies and 100 to 1 for large companies worth it.  If we can do that all day long, the War on Waste is a good deal.

9.  The TKC The War on Waste creates the ideas and a process to get ideas into play.  But it still requires a formal process to get new ideas into the system.  Once the War on Waste is completed, the company still wants new ideas to continue.  When the War on Waste is over, the implemented ideas need to be tracked.  That is achieved with the Tribal Knowledge Council, the subject of this chapter.The TKC is the control point for the input of all ideas.  Its purpose is to be the clearing-house for change and new ideas.  It serves as a touchstone for the CEO and his Executive team.  They use it to keep track of ideas as they move through the system. It is not managed as much as it is a monitor.  It is an automated function with a dashboard.  The dashboard tracks the progress of results.A word of caution here: this council has no direct authority.  Nor should it.  It merely facilitates the process of putting ideas into play.  If authority is given, it will create two problems.  One, it will conflict with line management authority.  And two, it will create an artificial elite status.  This will dampen participation.Just a note: I wrote this book 10 years ago and had not gotten my on-line business going.  With the on-line business, there is a demand for an opportunity to participate in the program and so the management of the ideas using the TKC is no longer required.  The system morphs in response to new ideas and continuously does so.  It has been an amazing process.  Try it out: email me at len@copsolvers.com.  Best, Len

8.  Strategy  This is not a chapter to compete with other treatises on strategy.  There are a number of great tomes on the subject.  This chapter is merely to place it in context within the War on Waste.  The War on Waste led to the idea that strategy became aligned with process in the program.  We referenced Michael Porter,[1] who is the pre-eminent strategy scholar in the United States.  But this observation is not Porter's.  It is ours.   This came out of our field research.  It was a remarkable outcome.  And we didn't see it coming.  But it happened with all of our clients.  Now, it serves as one of the anchor tenets of the paradigm.  We would like to explore that a bit.  Who cares about this?  Why is this important?  To answer these questions let us get back to basics.[1] Op. Cit., Porter, p 11 

7.  Tools of the WarOver the years, we used tools of the trade in unique ways.  We borrowed tools from friends.  And we made up our own tools.  Some of these are worth noting. 120/20 Rule of Profits.There is a corollary to the 80/20 Rule.  A business “turn around” consulting friend showed us this rule.  We have all seen it.  It is the 120/20 Rule of Profits. ·      120% of a company's profits come from 20% of the customers.  ·      120% of profits from 20% of the salesmen.·      120% of the profits from 20% of the products or services.   We call it the Bibeault 120/20 Rule of Profits, in honor of our consultant friend who pointed it out to us.[1]  This rule is a good tool to develop an effective customer-driven strategy.  It allows us to focus attention on those customers, salesmen or products that deliver the most profit.  It may also help understand why.  Why are some more profitable?The 5/67 Rule ­(1 Sigma)The 5/67 Rule is a subset of the 20/80 Rule or 80/20 Rule.  We discovered it during the War on Waste.  We were always in a hurry to get projects completed and we didn't have time to look at 20% of the problem demanded by the 20/80 Rule.  But we did have time to look at 5% of the problem.  When we did that we kept seeing that we were getting about 60 to 70% of the targeted benefit.  We called it the 5/67 Rule without really knowing much about it.  It just seemed to work but it didn't make sense.  Yes/No ChartsOur unique tool to measure and guide problem behavior (like things happening late).World Record ReportsA unique way to achieve continuous improvement.[1] Don Bibeault is a venture capital investor now.  In his former life, he was management consultant. He specialized in turning around distressed companies.  

6.  Value-adding There are a number of ways to define this term.  We define it simply as “what customers are willing to pay for.”  In any business, everyone needs to understand why the business exists and how it makes money.  As we do the War on Waste, we ask a very simple question, “What does this company do to add value?”  The answer to this simple question serves as the basis for the War on Waste.So the question “what is waste” is intimately tied to the company's value-added activity.  There is an interesting thing that happens in the War on Waste.  As employees start to identify waste, they are reflecting the effectiveness of a company's ability to deliver value.  All those things that occur in a company that keep the value from being added efficiently are wastes.  During the War on Waste, we look at a company's value-added proposition very closely.  And the process for doing that is very thorough.What we have found out is that very few employees of companies have any clue as to what the company does to add value.  When we ask a typical employee of a machine shop, “What does this company do to add-value?” it is amazing that most of them have never thought about it.  After a few minutes of discussion, someone notes that it is obvious that a machine shop makes money only one-way: when chips are being produced.  But then some wise guy asks if they are adding value when they do assemblies for their customers.  Of course, they do.  Customers are paying a small fee for the assembly.  And then one of the ladies in the quality department asks “what about our military customers that also pay to inspect their parts?”  Best, Len Bertain

 5.  Using the Mission StatementWe made an observation early on.  It wasn't a life changing experience but it was part of many of our conversations.  We noted that the Mission Statement is rarely involved in decision-making.  Once a few bright MBAs put a Mission Statement together, it goes somewhere to die.  It just isn't involved in the daily routine.So we wondered why?  Why is so much time spent on developing a “Mission Statement” and it isn't actively used in running the business?  It is almost as if it were part of a checklist for executives.  It is the third thing on the list every CEO must do: Do we have a Mission Statement?  If so, “go to the next item.  If not, make one.”We actually thought that many of the Mission Statements that we had seen were pretty good.  They weren't perfect but they were good starting points.  So why weren't they used to guide business decisions.  They could somehow be part of a touchstone that related a decision to the Mission of the company.    Enjoy.  Len

No Excuses The No Blame motto was developed to encourage employees to come up with ideas.  It serves as their protection from the Black Knights that fight change in the organization.  But there is a downside.  When an employee invokes “No Blame” there is no accountability and that's why we came up with the idea of “No Excuses”.   When an employee team fails to measure up to its capabilities, they accept the consequences and report the data honestly.  They do so with the understanding that “No Blame” is the operating philosophy of the company.  And that is what we want.  However, a manager has the right to investigate the reason for the low performance under the banner of “No Excuses.”  In other words, the workers use “No Blame” and the managers invoke “No Excuses.”  We call this “accountability.”  Enjoy the read.  Best, Len

4. No BlameThe War on Waste (waste is anything in the company that keeps money from being made) begins with an idea. It doesn't matter the size of the company, if you want to find out what's wrong with the company, listen to an employee's idea.  The idea is not just any idea; it is an idea that identifies a waste in one of the business processes.   In our definition, the War on Waste is a company-wide affair.  Everyone participates.  And all parts of the company are open to review.  No part is spared.  It is one of those times that it is OK to pass judgment on the inefficiencies of a neighboring department.  The War on Waste methodology brings teams together of different work groups to look for waste.  It guides these project teams on how to analyze a waste by finding out how much inefficiency it contributes to the company in actual dollars.  In fact, we believe so strongly in this concept that we trademarked “No Blame.”  The trademark symbol is intended to symbolize to our clients and their employees that we are going to drive change at their company and we do it by invoking “No Blame.”  It is change without reprisal.  Best, Len

3.  The War on WasteThe War on Waste consists of the 6 steps noted in the previous chapter.  We would like to expand on them a little bit here.If the program is a company initiative, the CEO or top Exec needs to announce the campaign and require that everyone get on board. If it starts with a single team, working a project through the Internet eWOW program, the team can influence the company to follow suit and get others involved.Engage – En Garde!Phase 0:  House Cleaning/Fast Cash Generation.It begins when all employees engage in an urgent house cleaning.  This is the War on Waste.  This program looks at hurdles to the delivery of value.  It looks for low hanging wastes that are easy to fix.  Employees learn to answer the question: “What is the value-added product or service that they sell?”  This question creates focus on the client and how to best deliver high value products or services.  Anything that is not creating value is waste.  The goal of this process is to find and get rid of waste.  This will create a great cash flow, focus on the core, and improve Know How.  And it creates a whole bunch of other benefits.  Listen in to find out what they are.  Best, Len

2. How I Got StartedThe story began twenty-nine years ago, as I stood in front of a group of employees who had been forced to attend a class I had been contracted to deliver.  It was a training program that introduced a small manufacturing company to the principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS).  The Toyota Production System is the basis of current Lean Manufacturing and 6-Sigma programs.  In essence, I was teaching a method for identifying and eliminating waste in business processes.  To illustrate my thoughts about how this system should be applied to American industry, I had prepared over 160 slides, including charts, graphs, illustrations, text and checklists. I was to show these slides in conjunction with a series of interactive lectures scheduled to run for ten weeks at the rate of three one-hour sessions per week. As with all of my projects, the entire company was required to attend—everyone from the custodial personnel to the CEO.  But about 15 minutes into the class, I hit a snag.  Listen in to find out what it was and how I charted a new course for my consulting business.  For you listening pleasure.  Best, Len

1.  What is Waste? In the Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, its developer, identified 7 major wastes:·      Waste of over production (largest waste) – making too much of a product and not being able to sell it.  Idle inventory is a waste. ·      Waste of time on hand (waiting) – of course this would be waste because while a worker is not adding value, he or she is costing the company money.·      Waste of transportation – while products are moving around the factory floor, no value is being added to them and that is a big waste.·      Waste of processing itself – when Taiichi Ohno looked at many of Toyota processes, he found that they were not very efficient in delivering value.  They were wasteful processes.·      Waste of stock at hand – if you have stock in inventory waiting for production.  That is a big waste.  It is the foundation of just in time to deliver material to a work process just before it is needed – “Just in Time – JIT.”·      Waste of movement – whenever you look at a factory and see a worker or a pallet of materials moving around a factory, that is a waste.  People can't add value walking around and material can't have value added to it, if it is moving around the factory. ·      Waste of making defective products – this is almost obvious but it was the foundation of the thinking of Total Quality Management (TQM) a number of years ago.  Phil Crosby and a number of quality gurus became phenomenal successes by focusing their efforts on reducing quality defects.  This has, in turn, led to the current 6-Sigma craze.These are all well and good but…they don't cover all the areas of waste in a business.  They certainly can be guides for how a piece of paper moves through an office.  If it waits at any stage, it is a waste of movement.  If a worker has a pile of work at her desk and the others in the office have no pile of work, maybe there is an imbalance of work in the process.   Listen in to find out how we have broken the process down to make it an enjoyable and profitable process for all involved.  Enjoy.  Best, Len Bertain

I told a client about the title of this book and he laughed.  “Len,” he said, “I grant you, we got the processes under control and we made a lot of money as a result of your efforts in less than 90 days.  But it is an ongoing effort.  Paying attention to our inefficiencies is a continual struggle.  But we know how to deal with them.  And that is what the War on Waste did.  It gave us the system to deal with the wastes and we keep our antennas up.  It is management's responsibility to pay attention to new wastes. When we were done with the initial effort, we knew what to do.  We kept a focus on wastes and maintained an efficient operation.  And that is what any business needs to do.  We won the War on Waste and had the system to keep it under control.”   He was successful but was there more to it?  Find out by listening in.  Enjoy.  Best, Len

I love delivering the War on Waste over the years.  We have recently migrated the program to the Internet and call it High ROI Problem Solving.  There seemed to be some problem with people and the term  "War on Waste."  And we have changed the name of our Internet company to "The Consortium of Problem Solvers."  We really have a consortium of Problem Solvers with our facilitators.  They delve into their various projects with the same verve that Dr. Elbie did in the book.  You can't help it.  it is an intoxicating feeling to realize that you are moving people to understand their business from a new perspective.  And this is really exciting.I was asked recently to deliver a TEDx talk on the Black Lives Matters issue and my problem solving program.  Actually I suggested the linkage because when you get into one of our problem solving gigs, color, race bigotry goes out the door.  You only are focused on the problem and its solution.  As one of my clients described me, I am like a Norden bomb sight focused on solving one of his problems.  Actually, I liked that because that is what all my client employees do.  They focus without Blame or racial differentiation.  Just the solution, Man.  Just the Solution.

As I have delivered the War on Waste for 25 years, I have watched CEOs become shocked as their employees dissected their companies with laser precision as they developed and presented proposals to management.  Many CEOs were flabbergasted that their employees could be so smart.  Others knew the talent was there but didn't want to spend the time to fix their companies.The observation of the War on Waste Paradox has given me a chance to revisit the story that I originally wrote over 17 years ago.  I made several modifications but the story still stands up as a good example of what happens when we do the War on Waste.  I hope you have enjoyed it.

At the end of the War on Waste, Mr. Grimes will have completed the first phase of the process that is required to create an innovation culture that we call the “Quantum Leap Company.”  The War on Waste is Phase 0.  It gets the company started but that's all it does.  If the process dies out after a couple of months, which most lean manufacturing initiatives that we have observed seem to do, then that is too bad.   But we put the CRB into the system to make sure that change and innovation become an integral part of the company.There is a funny comment by Mr. Grimes in this chapter.  He is complaining that he couldn't get information out of the assemblers.  If you listen to that you think that he is stupid if he couldn't get an answer to that question.  This is where secretive Tribal Knowledge is tricky.  You don't need to know why but lots of stuff makes that happen: Mr. Grimes could ask out of curiosity and not have a sense of urgency and gets distracted each time he asks.  You could come up with a million reasons why he couldn't get the answer.  But as you will find out after the War on Waste, those questions are a lot easier to answer.

In a political war, treason is a capital offense punishable by death. A similar rule applies to the War on Waste.  In a recent engagement, one of the CEOs who really understood what the War on Waste was about, stood up on the last day of class and gave a rousing speech to his employees.  At the end, he said, “I am the General of our War on Waste.  We are at war with our competitors who want to take business from us.  There are some of these competitors who want to steal your jobs from you.  As we go forward, I want everyone on board my train.  It is leaving the station.  If you aren't on it, you are committing treason.  And you know what I will do with an employee who commits treason?” I loved it because he really understood what WOW was about.  In our story, Mr. Grimes, the CEO, is the General in his company's War on Waste.  He had to deal with Mike Cain who was his Black Knight from the beginning. His behavior in leaving an employee out in the cold was inexcusable and was a rebellious treasonous offense.  Now Mr. Grimes is driving the train and everyone is getting on board.  Mr. Grimes is doing what we want leaders to do. He is respecting his people as partners in his business; he is giving them a sense of purpose; and he is driving the strategic direction of the company in response to the operational input from the workers.  And more important, he is there to witness the profound changes that are taking place in his company.

A number of different types of initiatives have been sponsored by different CEOs.  For instance, Ray Dolby of Dolby Laboratories has a culture that flourishes on the energy created by the company's fixation on audio sound system perfection.  That environment creates its own sources of energy.  Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines creates energy initiatives with his Wing Ding flings.  He gets employees excited to deliver their services to their customers.  The CEOs job is to find that New Energy Initiative.  In fact, we believe that this is one of the CEO's job responsibilities as defined in the Quantum Leap Company.In this chapter, we also see 2 separate discussion sessions between Dr. Elbie and Mr. Grimes on the subject of the War on Waste Paradox.  Mr. Grimes is starting to see the presence of the paradox corollaries but he is getting impatient to get to the answer.We'll make some progress in the next chapter.

This is what a War on Waste does and the energy is seen in the discussion with Chris in this chapter.  It adds energy to a company.  In the story of Quality Pump, at this point in the process, lots of Energy is going into the company and so order is being restored as seen in some of the early improvements that are taking place.Think of the War on Waste as an Energy Initiative.  It will take about three or four years for the War on Waste energy to be sustained.  When it nears the end of its energy cycle, a new energy initiative needs to be found.  This is precisely what Jack Welch did at GE.  First there was the Work Out Initiative and that was followed by a number of new initiatives every four years or so. 

A brief comment here on the role that Energy plays in our business model.  Energy is one of the most important concepts to explain what happens during the War on Waste or any such business initiative.  We use the term “energy” to describe the process of increasing the value-adding activity of a company.  From my Physics days, I use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to describe energy conservation by introducing another term called Entropy.  Entropy is a measure of the disorganization of a system.  The Second Law tells us that if we increase Entropy (decrease order) we will decrease energy and visa versa.  This is analogous to what happens if you have teenagers and you leave them alone in the house over the weekend.  While you are gone, the disorder increases (increase of Entropy) because there is reduced energy input with your absence.  When you return, you restore order (decrease Entropy) with the addition of your (positive) energy.  

In this chapter, we find Chris is freaking out because his turf is being encroached upon.  He is obviously protecting his special Tribal Knowledge and is resentful that any one would think that he could do anything wrong.  As Jim points out, his information is not only wrong but it costs the manufacturing operation time and therefore the company a lot of money.  We have observed over and over that those in staff positions with their Tribal Knowledge integrated into the value-added process are very often fair game for big wastes.  And in most cases, that information is exposed as waste but maybe not as dramatic as in the situation at Quality Pump.  As we usually do the process map, we expose many of the staff function Tribal Knowledge steps on the map.  As we work through the line positions where value-added operations are done, Tribal Knowledge gets into the details of how a job is done.  So we don't have much success exposing wastes there until we dig into them with project teams.

Step 5: Define the Energy Initiative Plan for the Company. As noted under Energy Initiative, the key to a sustained corporate energy level is implementing a program to ensure on-going infusion of energy into the company.  These energy initiatives will keep the company employees motivated.  As noted in the energy initiative definition, every CEO must define his or her own approach to this.  For example, these initiatives can be the "Big Deal" four-year projects of Jack Welch of GE or the six-month “Wing Dings” of Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines.  Whatever the technique, the CEO has a serious responsibility in identifying the next initiative activity for the company. I wanted the listener to see how we have evolved our program and our view of how it really should work.  When we were doing the program earlier, we were running without a compass.  No one had ever done what we were doing.  Of course, that made it fun.  And we were interpreting the results that we were seeing with a limited scope of what was really happening.  When we started with the on-line system, it became very clear that we had to make the interface to the CEO much easier and useful.  And we did that with a few stabs and we finally got it right.  We think.  But our experiences are ephemeral in that we are learning all the time and our conclusions of what we are doing are both changing and improving the process.  So don't ever get comfortable with anything you see or experience in this program because it is almost magic.  Just go with it.  

Step 4: Manage Change. The CEO must agree that he or she will be in charge of change management within the company.  It is not the job of a Change Agent—the CEO manages the Change Agent, not the other way around.  The CEO must also be alert for the next major change initiative that will drive the organization to greater success.  We are averse to making a position called the "Change Agent" because it creates a job with no value.  The Change Agent is in the job description of the CEO.

The second and third parts of the characteristics of the Quantum Leap Company are:Step 2: Recognize Ideas. If you get nothing else from this book, understand this: recognizing the importance of ideas is crucial to the success of this paradigm.  No Blame protects the idea from renegade managers and other Black Knights in the Quantum Leap Company. If ideas have an opportunity to thrive, profits will follow.  In a way, this is the magic of this process. Step 3: Manage Innovation. In order to ensure a continuous flow of ideas, the CEO must agree to implement a system of innovation to make sure that process improvement and new business ideas are encouraged.  The Quantum Leap Company establishes the CRB  and creates a Portfolio of Innovation as the storage location for ideas in the various stages of implementation.  The CRB will be responsible for supporting innovation ideas for new market or business opportunities.  In our new Internet system, if the CEO, continues to pay for the on-line implementation of Problem Solving and does so more than a year, the Quantum Leap Company will  then exist.

The creation of the CRB is an important part of this process.  It is the way that we are able to insure a continuation of the process and move the company to the Quantum Leap Company.  It is through the continuation of ideation (the process of generating ideas) and conversion ot the ideas to innovations that our clients are able to sustain this culture.  Recently, we have discarded the CRB because our Internet based video-teleconferencing found that there was another factor working here: The CEO's commitment to the on-going problem solving.  We noted that earlier but the ability of our on-line system to capture the CEOs attention by making it easy to use it and track the progress of ideas progressing thru the company.We have spent a lot of time trying to understand the company that evolves from this initial work of the War on Waste that we call the Quantum Leap Company.  As we have created over 20 Quantum Leap companies, we have observed the following characteristics of each.  And our Internet clients have all (100% of them) become Quantum Leap Companies and follow the following steps.  That they do, was an amazing discovery.Step 1: Lead the WOW Program. The CEO agrees to participate, lead the War on Waste Program (you could elect to use any number of programs that encourage the input from employees in a change initiative) and follow the procedures of change defined by it. The CEO leads this change initiative, the Phase 0 initiative, and does not pass the responsibility to others.  Certainly others may be commissioned to help but the responsibility falls directly on the CEO.

You will notice that we don't call this the “Innovation” Review Board but the “Change” Review Board.  Although the CRB manages the ideas that are submitted to it, when they are completed they become innovations or one of the four types of innovation: incremental, disruptive, organizational and new business structure.  In a typical distribution 85% of the ideas coming in are incremental with the remaining 15% distributed across the other types of innovation.  As the CRB does its job, new ideas that are submitted are more and more complex because the low hanging, obvious issues have already been addressed.  Best, Len Bertain

The CRB is the CEO's mechanism to manage change and encourage ideas.  In the Quantum Leap Company, the CEO has three newly defined job responsibilities: 1) managing change, 2) coordinating ideas of innovation and 3) searching for the next energy infusion initiative.  The CRB helps the CEO with two of those functions (change and ideas), and it is amazing how well it does that.   It is important to understand why the CRB should exist.  First, ideas need a place to go.  If they are routed up the chain of command, nothing happens. For some reason managers have a hard time allowing ideas other than their own into the system.  So by allowing ideas to come to the CRB directly, they aren't filtered and have a chance to get reviewed and implemented.  Second, the CRB reports directly to the CEO.  That gives a message to all employees that the CRB is important.  In many situations, I've had CEOs who wanted to direct the responsibility of managing the CRB to other executives.  Because the CEO is in charge of change, the CRB has to report to that office.  Managing change is one of the CEO's most important responsibilities.  Enjoy, Len Bertain

As a corollary to the major War on Waste Paradox, consider this.  Why is it that companies care about their people but don't care about what they know?  I call these little gems, “War on Waste Paradox Corollaries.”  The greatest waste is the mind.  A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  And that is what this book is really about.  Enjoy, Len 

In this chapter, we find that Bonnie has some Tribal Knowledge that is clearly untapped.  When challenged with a problem, she brings up her credentials and contributes to a great idea.  It represents another example of unused Tribal Knowledge.  It is present in the company the minute that Bonnie joined.  But then it sits untapped.  When we try to get a handle on corporate skills, a lot of people do not let those unused skills out of the bag for any number of reasons.  As we do the War on Waste projects, we love to find situations like this.  On that issue alone, as a facilitator, I get great joy out of finding the Bonnie's and their unused skills.  The volcano of the attached episode image reflects the idea eruption from this program.  It is very exciting to watch.Enjoy,  Len Bertain

 Historically, the 80/20 Rule was the greatest tool in our bag of tricks before we discovered the 5/67 rule.  The 80/20 rule tells us that 80% of revenues comes from 20% of customers, 80% of customer problem calls come from 20% of customers (hopefully they aren't the same as the customers generating 80% of the revenues) and so forth. I remember learning about this several years ago.  I think I learned it from my Dad. Just before my Dad died, I had a chance to visit him alone on one weekend.  We talked about a lot of things.  I remember telling him that he taught me a valuable business lesson known as the 80/20 Rule.  He was surprised for two reasons: one, that I would admit that I learned anything from him and two, he had never heard of the 80/20 rule.  I said that I learned it the hard way.  I always assumed that when I needed $100 to fix a piece of equipment and he gave me only $20 (20%) of that, that there was some logic to his method.  He always got about 80% of the problem solved by spending only 20% of the cost.  We both got a laugh out of that.  Best, Len Bertain

Are we having fun yet?  We talked in the chapter about 5/67 Analysis.  In the real world of the War on Waste, 5/67 Analysis is what we call a “forcing function.” In the hands of an engineer, it serves as the forcing function to define the 5% of the features that give 67% of the benefit.  It forces rapid prototyping.  Today, the goal of the engineering of a technology company is time to market.   By designing to that goal, 5/67 Analysis drives the engineering organization to think thru the features to give maximum benefit to the expected users.  We use the 5/67 Analysis as the way to do management training, strategy development, human resources optimization, etc.  It permeates all of our thinking about how to run a company.  In short, it is the most powerful tool that we have at our disposal.  My friend, George Sibbald, is writing a book about that and he has asked me to look over his shoulder.As you read this chapter, you get a feeling that Quality Pumps is going to be OK.  Mr. Grimes is relaxing a bit and the employees are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, and it isn't a bear carrying a lantern.  However, the job isn't done yet.  Mr. Grimes will have to see all these ideas through to completion and there will be some pain felt before that is accomplished.We get a new take on Tribal Knowledge when Phil, a non-college educated consultant joins Dr. Elbie.  There is a prejudice against this in most companies.  It is the rare employee or person who can rise above that in our corporate world.  Only the super-educated rise to the top.  How can such an individual contribute to Tribal Knowledge.

Over the years of doing this work in Problem Solving, I am always amazed about SMED as a tool.  When you explain the concept of separating value-added steps from wasteful non-value-added steps, you watch the lights click on as employees grasp the concept.  30 years ago when I did a bank and I asked a stupid question, "Who in the bank adds value?"  Talk about blank looks.  None of the employees had ever thought about their jobs quite that way.  So when I narrowed it down to a question of what are the steps in the bank to process a loan.  We listed them just like we did in the chapter.  But then I asked the tough question, "why do you do it this way?"  And of course, the answer I got was that it was mandated by federal regulations.  Now one thing I do know about banking regulations is that how you enforce them at your bank, is up to you.  The process just needs to meet the goals and objectives of the regulation.  But to reassure the employees, I got the CEO/Founder to agree.  So once it was established that they could redefine the loan process, we got more push back.  Of course you have to collect the information and pass it around serially, step by step thru the office and expand the lead time (time to process the loan).  So when I asked why can't you create a value-added path for the loan and a need to know separate path.  For instance, a few of the audit clerks had a need to know to check/verify credit worthiness.  But they didn't add value.  They just needed to know.  So once the value-added path was established the load was rushed thru approval waiting for the last documents (usually tax information).  With that understanding, a loan could be approved and if tax records agreed with submitted data, the load was approved.This is one of my problem solving tricks.  Once we realized that they could have the document approved in 4 hours once the tax records were in, that became a selling feature of the bank: We approve loans in 4 hours once all the information is available to us.  Think about that.  I am not saying the total loan process is 4 hours, just the last step.  Think about it, can you do that in your business.  It is after all "improved service."  Best, Len Bertain

SMED has application in just about all businesses.  We did a project at a hospital that was planning to expand their facility.  They were going to raise $6 million for this new hospital wing.  When we did a SMED analysis on surgery we found that they were using the surgery rooms to only about 20% of their capacity.  For instance, when a surgery was completed, there was usually a 2-hour wait before the next surgery could begin in that room. The doctors, in their unique Tribal Knowledge system, wanted to be businessmen on top of being doctors.  After all, they were highly educated.  As a group they didn't want to spend more than $10 per hour to have the room cleaned up. When I suggested that they put a surgery clean-up crew together, the doctors argued that it was too expensive.  Then I asked them if they knew how much revenue was made from that room per hour.  When they thought through spending $50 for an hour's worth of work from a team of cleanup personnel versus $2000 of revenue that could be generated, it was a “no brainer” to make the decision.  They followed the SMED process in detail.  And it worked.  Can you think of any applications of SMED in your business? Enjoy.  Best,Len Bertain

In the last episode, the problem described was a good example of Tribal Knowledge gone amok.  The scheduler loved to respond to crises and he and the shop foreman had an unwritten understanding that all jobs identified as priorities by the CEO would be introduced into the schedule to meet the targeted dead line.  They did this knowing full well that the consequence would be the problem identified by the team noted above.  In the course of the analysis, this fact was discovered and it took a good deal of coercion to get them admit how they did the scheduling.  And it turned out that the cause of their procedure was a memo from the CEO that all hot jobs would meet their delivery date.  So these two guys changed the procedure themselves so that the CEO would not yell at them. The message here is that once secretive Tribal Knowledge is uncovered, unless there is a No Blame release of finger pointing, the path to a clean solution is difficult.  We got the scheduler and the shop foreman to become part of the solution by contributing ideas to the team.  The end result was getting to the root cause of the problem and a complete change in the scheduling of jobs.I would like to make a comment here about the CEO who caused the creation of the problem in the first place.  When we dig into the source of many of these Tribal Knowledge wastes, they have their roots in casual comments of the CEO.  The CEO might say something like, “Gee that looks like an expensive way to do that.” Or “Why are all those hot jobs not making it to the floor?”   We saw the way the second comment created the problem discussed in this chapter.  The CEO was responsible for the hot jobs problem from a comment that he inadvertently made to the foreman and the scheduler.  In a funny story that an associate of mine experienced, a CEO asked him to find out why the production process had slowed down so much.  Upon investigation, it took my friend about 15 minutes to find the problem.  It turns out that the CEO had made a casual comment about spending too much on something and so the CFO instituted a process to make sure he saw all PO's and the Sales VP had to get a copy as well, etc and it took forever for an order to hit the floor from receipt in sales.My advice to CEOs when they walk the floor: Be careful!  Best, Len Bertain

How do you know that you have identified a good waste to work on?  In the December, 2001 issue of Fast Company magazine, Tom Peters made an observation that I have been using in War on Waste projects since I started in 1985.  Peters observed that good ideas came from someone who was “pissed about something.”  In his perception, things only happen in the world when someone is angry about the status quo.  Martin Luther was angry about 95 theses, or 95 issues with the Catholic Church.  This anger led to the Protestant Reformation. Similar situations in which discontent has led to significant change, even transformation, have happened throughout history.  In Peters' view, and in mine, just about every major business improvement occurs for the same reason, because someone is angry about something.  What we've noticed during the War on Waste is that if someone is angry about a part of his/her job, then there is usually a waste associated with that.  In one company, three teams in a particular class were rolling along nicely with good wastes that needed to be eliminated.  At the fourth table, the team was just sitting there not talking.  So I went over to them and asked what was going on. The informal spokesman said that no one wanted to contribute.  I asked him if he did?  He said sure, but he wasn't going to go it alone.  I said I understood.  Out of the blue I asked him, “Does anything in your job, piss you off?”  “Of course,” he said.  “I get really mad when I have to change a setup to run a rush job (or hot job) that is still sitting around days later.”  Just at that time, the CEO came in.  He said they had solved the hot-job problem a couple of months ago.  I pointed out that it didn't sound like it. I gave him a yellow, ruled pad and directed him to go out with the team and write down all jobs still sitting in the shop that were hot two weeks ago.  The hot jobs had red tags.  After 15 minutes, the CEO and the team came back with a page full of stalled hot jobs.  Apparently, the problem had not been solved.  The team now had their project and it turned out to be a good one because the CEO was now firmly engaged and committed to make it work.

In my view, Tribal Knowledge applies to situations like this all the time.  In this case, the Tribal Knowledge was contained in the past experiences of the receptionist.  It was her unique skill set or her past experiences that defined the receptionist's untapped Tribal Knowledge.  The story of Sully, the plater, is again one of those real situations that cropped up at one of our clients.  In fact, it was the inability to get the truck to leave on time that created the first Yes/No chart.  The owner's son couldn't get up in time to inspect the parts going to the plater.  The employees knew the problem and who was guilty but I didn't.  So when we posted the Yes/No chart and the president asked for an explanation, there was never a red X on the chart again.So don't lose faith that Dr. Elbie doesn't know what he is doing.  He does and he is a master at this program.  And so you will see.  Best, Len B

No one owns the market on ideas.  This last sequence with our hero getting interesting and valuable input from someone who doesn't know anything about his work, namely his wife, is very real.  It comes from one of my most exciting moments as a consultant.  I was in a class and a couple of machinists were arguing about the best way to do something.   They were sitting on a project team with the company receptionist.  After a few minutes of their bantering back and forth, she blurted out, “Why don't you turn up the feeds and speeds?  You are after all machining aluminum and the part needs to be produced at a low cost.  I didn't hear you guys mention anything about the required surface finish.”  I happened to be at the table when this happened and the look on the faces of the two machinists was priceless.  It turns out that the receptionist had grown up in a family of five boys.  Their family had a machine shop and she learned how to operate machine shop equipment at an early age.  But she wanted to raise a family and she had.  She was now in her mid-forties and took the job in an environment that she knew.  From that point forward, her life at the company changed.  She moved into operations and became an instant success.  My message is this: listen to anyone who has an idea.  It just may surprise you.  Best, Len

Dr. Elbie and Mr. Grimes begin the first serious discussion of the War on Waste Paradox.  It concludes with an observation that a paradox exists when Managers say things like: “I trust my people."  when he really meant:  “I trust my people but not all of them."   I don't know how many people have heard this anywhere, but I sure have.  People hear stuff like this all the time from management and that is what we are going to explore as the story at Quality Pumps unfolds.  This isn't all there is to it.  There is a lot more.  Enjoy, Len

In the War on Waste Problem Solving, everyone is involved.  It always seems that people in the accounting department want to hide out away from the rest of the company.  They can in the old Quality Pumps.  But in the new Quality Pumps, they will be involved.  The problem that most companies create is isolation of functions.  In fact, that is the basis of a hierarchical structure in a company.  There are silos of information, of structure, of personnel.  And dare ye to cross that line.  I remember when I was doing a Just in Time project at one of the Big 3 Auto companies.  I wanted to link an empty box on the shop floor with an account's order to a supplier and boy was that ever difficult.  Go to the line managers boss and up the chain of command to the head of manufacturing over to the CFO and down to the accountant.  Talk about waste.  We finally got that resolved but you get my point.  Lots of stuff has to happen to make the ideal Just in Time factory work.  Or a factory without the War on Waste Paradox.  Enjoy the read, Len

Dr. Elbie seems to be pleased with the way the training is going.  Tony gets into the process and helps Bonnie understand how Sales can be more involved in what's going on in the plant.  The interesting thing about Yes/No charts is that they serve as anchors for making it clear that No Blame is operational as a philosophy at the company.   By that I mean that when you post a yes or a no, there is no blame involved.  It won't work otherwise.  If you get a No, get over it and fix it so that you don't have another one.  I have probably done over 500 yes/no charts and am always amazed by the results.  The yes/no chart just works.  Enjoy it.  Len

Dr. Elbie does a pretty good job of explaining Yes/No Charts.  When people first hear about them they dismiss them as primitive.  But the bulk of the resistance to change or modifying of Tribal Knowledge and integrating it into the mainstream of the business process requires a formal behavior modification tool.  And that is the Yes/No Chart.  It is very powerful measure of a team, particularly one that is protecting or dealing with secretive Tribal Knowledge.  Once the measurement is in place, you are measuring the team's collective behavior and not an individual.  That makes it easy to change the resistance of those who were working under a Tribal Knowledge process.  They can save face and feel proud of the improvement that they have achieved under the banner of No Blame. 

When you watch this process unfold in company after company, it is indeed a pleasure and an honor.  The employees are telling me that they are on board and want to make the company better.  And surprisingly, this happens very quickly.In this chapter, we delve into the Process Map and it is a mind blower.  An interesting thing about doing a process map is that all the hidden components of the Tribal Knowledge get exposed.  And because the people manning the process are not stupid, we get great ideas to address the solutions of these undocumented processes.  The reason that there are over 60 steps in the process map (undocumented until the class began looking into it) is that no one was controlling and measuring the process to see all this stuff.  When you go through any Process Map you expose a lot of the secretive Tribal Knowledge.  And so as the company goes forward, employees will see problems in the process and document the appropriate steps to improve these problems. 

Ideas generate enthusiasm for work.  And sometimes that enthusiasm can get us in trouble, just like our hero.  One of the greatest motivators for work is psychic reward from the job environment.  People get turned on when they have opportunities to introduce ideas.  If a company just allows ideas to happen, profits will follow. In the War on Waste, Mr. Grimes is making Roland uncomfortable because he has his own personal agenda that he is protecting and it is gradually getting exposed as keeping sales from rolling in to the company.  In most cases of people trying to protect their Tribal Knowledge, when you begin to post measurements of productivity or sales results or any metric for all to see, the underlying secrets of Tribal Knowledge get exposed and become vetted.  Employees don't mind giving up their undocumented processes to the company, in exchange for recognition of their contribution to an idea that eliminates a waste of $100,000.  When they stand up before the CEO while delivering their proposal, they do so with great pride as a member of a team that is helping the company survive.  Enjoy.  Len Bertain

Teams are integral to the success of No Blame Management enterprises.  The problem with most efforts using teams to create value in a company is that personnel who are not familiar with the work objectives of the teams are assigned to head up these efforts. Perhaps the key to the success of any team, whether it is a work team or a sports team, is that the team has a crystal clear common cause.  You may call it a goal or a team goal but when we are talking about team I like to use “common cause” because it means that everyone on the team is buying into the objective.  In a baseball game, the common cause is to score more runs than the other team.  The same is true for basketball, soccer, and track. However, when we work with business teams, the common cause is to determine the measures of how the team will know it has won.  The team needs to know how it will create more value.  Production teams have a goal of producing more product profitably; programming teams need to get their services delivered in a way to maximize the value-added deliverable.  But in the War on Waste, the common cause is defining and solving a waste that keeps value from being created. In every War on Waste project, each team is looking for $100,000 of annual waste that can be fixed for less than $2,000. That is a significant common cause.  Best, Len Bertain

We call the War on Waste process a discovery because as the process goes forward, all employees realize that they can contribute to the improvement process and each idea, small or large, is important.  And as the dialogue of the classroom continues, the employees are starting to see the mess that they have created together.  And yet, the process is starting to show them how they are going to fix it.  There is a lot of the special and wasteful Tribal Knowledge finding its way into the discussion and before long most of it will be on the table.I had an album from the great Charlie Mingus and on the cover he had written an adage or phrase that I liked.  It was a cool way to phrase Occam's Razor: of two options, the simplest one is usually the right one.  Charlie Mingus said:Anybody can make the simple complicated.Creativity is making the complicated simple.  

One of the more interesting discussions that we have is what we call GAP Analysis.  It is a way to describe the skills and opportunities that the company has to offer the market and what the company delivers to the needs and wants of the customers.  Where this two capabilities and requirements intersect is the value added part of the equation.  Where they don't are either waste (because it is a skill or opportunity that no one wants; and or the Gap, where needs and requirements of your clients are not met.  When I put this up on the board, in almost every class that I have taught, I get the strangest look.  Now the employees are getting into their MBA thinking.  Remember, these are mostly not college educated people.  Even when that is the case, I still get that look.

They get into a discussion of a problem that requires input from all those in the room and a few that aren't.  Problem Solving in this program is always a group effort.  That is a recognition of the value of how extensive Tribal Knowledge really is.  It is spread throughout the company and no one has total knowledge of what goes on in a company and how it all fits together.  We call this the difference between what is written down and what is a secret.  Later on we'll talk about how to get all that hidden knowledge out onto the table.

A word of caution: be careful when you get into a discussion of what is value added and what is essential support.  The discussion with Buck is one that I have engaged in over a 1000 times.  It is crucial to get this out on the table for group consumption.  Once this is clear and all the anxiety is addressed, then the War on Waste can proceed.  Buck is being annoying but he has a legitimate concern, so don't ignore that.  Enjoy, Len 

The discussion in this section about what is waste and value-added is very typical of what we experience in this program.  No one wants to be doing a job that is waste.  If it is, the next thing you know you are on the outside looking for a new job.  So there is always some turf protecting when you get here.  The Black Knights push back.  Those protecting special Tribal Knowledge become edgy.  The whole company is nervous because as you start to look at each job and how it should be measured. People will begin worrying and will resist until they feel comfortable that they are not being singled out.  Once the No Blame concept catches on, most everyone gets it and feels that the protection of special Tribal Knowledge is less and less important.  Enjoy, Len