CAPITAL: The Voice of Business Issue 1, 2015 | Page 25
GEMBA
Somta Tools has done a lot of work to implement Lean in its organisation.
Here, staff members are given a training session by one of Somta’s experienced
international partners. As Dr Michael Ballé pointed out, training is a vitally
important part of Lean thinking. PHOTO: Supplied.
But it has become clear that today’s
gemba walk is going to be a little different
to the usual factory tour. Ballé has already
cut Somta’s Lean consultant short before
he has managed to get past the third
slide in his presentation, a slide that
details the company’s roadmap for the
implementation of Lean.
“No, roadmaps don’t work,” Ballé says
bluntly. “We are not trying to ‘do’ Lean; we
are trying to teach Lean thinking.”
He explains that Toyota’s response to
him when he first asked for their roadmaps
was: “We make people before we make
parts.”
“This will sound very sad,” he says
ruefully, “but I’ve spent my entire career
studying that sentence.”
Having a book of procedures is a ninetiestype business management strategy that
has no place in today’s world, he says. “If
you tried to apply that today you would kill
the business. No company today can deal
with all the overcost of all that bullshit.”
“Today you have to compromise. You
have to let go and be more inclusive, more
accepting. This is not about compliance.”
Some of the execs are beginning to look
slightly dubious.
He tries explaining that company leaders
err when making the “assumption that the
destination is known”
.
“No,” he reminds them, “we live in a
Google world.” Things change faster than
we can react.
“You have all been brought up in an
‘extractive’ culture,” he reveals to the crossarmed executives around the boardroom
table. “You try to squeeze as much as you
can out of your staff, your customers, your
suppliers.”
“You are trained to look for static
efficiencies.”
“But you have to move to an inclusive
culture to succeed today,” he urges. “You
need to embrace.”
It’s all feeling a bit Zen and there are a
few p \