Showing posts with label gemba explorers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gemba explorers. Show all posts

30 January 2014

Shakespeare's Gemba

While ago, I nominated Champlain as my Mr. Gemba ("I get my kicks from Champlain").

(stain glass image of Polonius)
Polonius
Here are more Gemba wisdom for you, one from the literature masterpiece and another from today's TV show.

Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3, Lord Polonius advises Laertes.
  • Listen twice as much as you speak.
  • Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice
  • Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment


Today's TV star Judge Judy puts it more directly:
"God gave your two ears and one mouth for a reason."

I believe the #1 gemba tool is a piece of tape across the lips of every QFD team member.

When we are silent, the customer fills the silence with gold – his take on his life and business, what he likes and dislikes. This is the true VOC from which we can begin to understand his needs.

15 August 2013

Mirror Neurons – the science behind "gemba" ?

Recent studies on the behavior of monkeys in a research lab in Parma Italy accidentally found that brain neurons that fired when a monkey picked up a peanut, also fired when a monkey watched a human pick up a peanut.

Ongoing research in these so-called "mirror neurons" in humans have discovered what might be the root-cause of empathy. When we see someone performing a task, it triggers the same neurons as if had been doing the same task ourselves.

A recent discovery has also shown that people on the "empowered" side of a relationship lose some ability to fire these mirror neurons compared to those on the "unempowered" side of the relationship.  (See the report and video at NOVA: Mirror Neurons)

For QFD practitioners, this gives strong support for the power of gemba visits. Unlike surveys and questionnaires which are passive, going to gemba to observe and even participate in activities with our customers, apparently triggers empathy in our brains that may improve how we understand our customers and how we innovate solutions to their problems. Further, this latest research suggests that if we empower the customer to lead the gemba visit, we consequently unempower ourselves, thus improving our ability to empathize.

Wow! I've been teaching "go to the gemba" for twenty years and now have an explanation for why this works so well, especially for bringing marketing and technical people together to better understand customers.

The tools we've developed, which are now core in the Blitz QFD® approach and taught in the QFD Green Belt® course are designed to capture this implicit mirroring process and make it explicit. The result has been more marketing-technical teams attending both public and in-company Blitz QFD® training.

Why not join our next course on September 4-5, 2013 in Santa Fe NM and learn how to put your mirror neurons to good use!



21 February 2013

I get my kicks from Champlain

Samuel de Champlain is my nomination for Mr. Gemba.

I enjoyed immensely reading David Hackett Fischer's biography of the father on New France called Champlain's Dream (Simon & Schuster, 2008).  Like many of us in modern organizations, Champlain started out with a dream, had little if not negative "management" backing, did his exploration the right way, and changed his corner of the world forever.

Champlain's Dream
Let me put this in a QFD context.

Business Goals: converts Native Americans to Catholicism (as measured by # souls), create wealth for France (as measured in livers – French currency at the time), compete with English and Dutch (as measured by # ports, colonies).

Key Stakeholders: 3 successions of King Henri IV, Queen Regent Marie de Medici, and Louis XIII and their administrations. Financial backers including Compagnie de Caen and Hundred Associates.

Key Customers: various tribes of Native Americans on the St. Lawrence River, French traders, Colonists, Catholic Church clergy.

Customer Process Models: Champlain joined many tabagie (smoking festivals and meetings) with Native Americans to learn about their lives, their joys, and their struggles.

Gemba: After the "interview" research of the tabagie, Champlain then explored the St. Lawrence gemba. They joined hunts for food, parties of war, lived in their villages, ate their food, stayed on through the winter seasons (in the early 1600s, most Europeans were fair-weather visitors to North America). He did youth "student" exchanges to learn their languages and customs, etc. This is real gemba.

Customer Needs:

    About the Native Americans, Champlain learned:
  • Help feed our families (many St. Lawrence tribes were hunters and gatherers, did not store food, and suffered terribly with disease and starvation during some winters).
  • Protect us from our enemies (both Indian and European).
  • Help us live in peace.
    About Colonists:
  • I want to serve my King.
  • I want to become a land owner (almost impossible for non-nobility in France).
  • I want a place to retire with my family.
  • I want a great adventure.
  • I want to get out of debtors prison.
    About Clergy:
  • Establish the Church in North America.
  • Create a rule of law and faith (not just revenge).
  • Free to do missionary work.
    About French traders:
  • I want to trade with everyone.
  • I want to fish anywhere.
  • I want to make a lot of money.

Functional Requirements: respect for Native American cultures, no retribution, assure adequate food and nutrition, establish rule of law based on just solutions for all parties, build trust by keeping promises, religious tolerance, make colonies self-sustaining, encourage intermarriage.

The result was a mastery of exploration, cartography, co-habitation of peoples for mutual benefit, and a tremendous leadership style that got it "right" most of the time. This came from Champlain's non-judgmental willingness to learn, appreciate diversity, and explore beyond his comfort zone. In that era, it was the French who recognized the humanity of Native Americans, while the Spanish were enslaving them and the British were pushing them off their land.

Champlain's life is an example of how to do gemba right.