The Ninth Waste

Toyota is relentless in their pursuit of excellence and has clearly focused on continuous improvement through the elimination of the non-value adding wastes.  Traditionally, Toyota has defined seven classic wastes: Defects, Waiting, Motion, Transportation, Inventory, Overproduction, and Extra or wrong Processing.  Years ago, I added an eighth waste – the Underutilized Talents of Workers and started to write and teach about Quick and Easy Kaizen, a marvelous technique developed in Japan to open up people’s hidden creative talent.  At one time, Toyota was receiving 70 improvement ideas per worker per year.  In fact, in 1989, I published a book titled 40 Years, 20 Million Ideas – The Toyota Suggestion System By Yuzo Yasuda. 
There is a desperate need, to be successful today with your Lean activities, you must address a ninth waste: Manager’s "Resistance to Change."

“Failure to Change is a Vice! I want everyone at Toyota to change and at least do not be an obstacle for someone else who wants to change.” Hiroshi Okuda, Senior Advisor, Member of the Board and former Chairman of Toyota

Go ahead, present a new idea to your manager that can save your company a great deal of money and see what kind of reaction you get!  I am sure that 90% of your manager’s first reaction is to say “No!”  They believe it is safer to say “No.” Going on in their head might be,  “Somehow, I got through yesterday without changing. Why “rock the boat and make waves today?”  And since every new idea is not perfect, most managers do have a talent of finding some minor “flaw,” that might get in the way of the idea not working.

When I was younger, I never remember my father ever saying, “Yes.”  One Saturday my friend Eli came by and asked if I would like to go to the movies with him.  I really didn’t want to go with him but I did not want to say “No” to him. So while Eli was standing close by, I turned to my father and asked him, “Dad, can I go to the movies with Eli?”  Well, naturally, without even lifting his head out of the newspaper my father said, “No.”  Eli left and a few minutes later my father lowered the newspaper and asked me what I had said earlier to him.  I told him that I asked if he would let me go to the movies with Eli.  He said, “Well, why didn’t you go?”  “Because you said “No,” to me.  My father at that moment really got annoyed at me.  He felt guilty and knew that I had played a game with him.  He always said “No,” and it was up to me to determine if the “No,” was real or not.

Well, I feel that most managers act just like my father, feeling that their role is to always say no – to them it is safer to say “No,” then “Yes.”

I do like the old adage, “It is easier to ask for forgiveness then permission.”

Bottoms-Up Management

Toyota has two pillars for their success: Just-In-Time – the elimination of the non-value adding wastes and “Respect for People.” The later is empowering people, all workers, to be part of the on-going continuous improvement process.  This is achieved by encouraging all workers to “Pull the cord!” – to immediately stop working whenever a problem is detected and also stop all of your fellow workers to stop working.  “The best time to detect a problem and solve it is when the problem occurs.”  Also, equally as powerful is empowering all workers to come up with small improvement ideas to make their work easier, more interesting and to build their skills and capabilities.  Look, General Motors knows all about Toyota’s seven wastes but somehow cannot keep up with Toyota.  Why?  Obviously, General Motors is unwilling to apply the other two wastes.  They still underutilize people’s hidden creative talents and they have to set a top-down management structure that prevents change from happening quickly.

Bottoms-up management, the Japanese approach, clearly puts the decision making process at the point where the most knowledge is, not where the most power is.  If a Japanese worker comes up with a new idea that will save the company money, they do not have to ask for permission from their boss.  The worker with the idea will “bounce,” it off their fellow workers, do the “due diligence,” the “cost justification,” and try to study all of the ramifications of how the new idea will affect others.  They do not need to ask their boss for permission.  In fact, they will inform their superior of what the problem was and the recommended solution – this is a courtesy to keep the boss informed and is not looking for approval.  But, some times the idea effects other workers and the supervisor does play the boundary role to look beyond the worker's own job.

Taiichi Ohno, former vice president of production at Toyota, would hardly ever tell someone to “Do something.”  He would always ASK.  Even when he knew the answer, he would not give it.   Every request of him would cause him to ask the person a question to get the person to make the right decision for Toyota.  His job was to challenge.  One day, after he left Toyota and became the Chairman of Toyota Gosei, a Toyota supplier, he turned to a group of workers looking at a warehouse building and said, “At Toyota, we don’t need warehouses. Get rid of this warehouse.  Make it into a machine shop and retrain everyone in it to be a mechanic.  I will give you one year to do it.”  He did not tell them how to do it.  He then walked away with a smile on his lips.  Of course, the managers listening to him were petrified with fear.  But, they listened and one year later the building was turned into a machine shop and everyone was retrained as mechanics.

“Something is wrong if workers do not look each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures.  Even last month’s manual should be out of date.” – Taiichi Ohno

I teach Quick and Easy Kaizen a very simple and powerful technique that empowers workers to be involved in daily improvement activities.  The average company in Japan saves $4,000 per year per worker.  Why aren’t managers jumping on the bandwagon and following this most important process that has made Toyota so successful? It is an enigma.  Sure, the managers can go after Six Sigma and Kaizen Blitz or send work to China, for everyone seems to be doing it.  I know it is not easy to change but that is the major role of managers to overcome their resistance and challenge and help others to change.