34. The Kaizen Yoyo
with Eagle Wing Education and Training 29th January, 2010
Lessons from Lean The Kaizen Yoyo When implementing Kaizen and making improvements, one of (possibly the) most important things is the on-going commitment of the team. Exceptions to this rule should be extremely rare, or better not occur at all. A Kaizen Yoyo is a person who it is best to not have on the improvement team. These are those people who repeatedly pull out of the improvement work to devote their time to other commitments, either by choice or by the needs of their superiors. A Yoyo accomplishes little, robs the team of resources, disrupts team progress and demoralizes the other members of what may be an otherwise dedicated team. In short, a Yoyo must be replaced or their superiors must stop “pulling the string” to allow for any improvement to happen from a Kaizen event. If you think this sounds harsh, look at it this way. If the goalie for a soccer team fails to arrive to half the practises, when the final comes around he won’t know how to work with the team. He won’t have the polished skills he needs, and he won’t understand the team strategies. In this case the problem and its solution are obvious – as it should be regarding a Kaizen Yoyo.
Gemba Gossip Shopfloor Accounts by Andrew Church “One executive in a company I was in recently was determined to ensure that Lean was not wrongly perceived as only a shopfloor thing. So he made an edict that during every multiteam Kaizen Event, there would be on team dedicated to an “office event”. This practice drilled into everyone that Lean was enterprise-wide while also generation substantial and much needed improvements.”
Quotable Quotes “Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.” Robert Half
Want to see your company’s successes featured in our weekly newsletter? Email the details of your latest achievements to [email protected]
Lessons from Lean The Kaizen Yoyo When implementing Kaizen and making improvements, one of (possibly the) most important things is the on-going commitment of the team. Exceptions to this rule should be extremely rare, or better not occur at all. A Kaizen Yoyo is a person who it is best to not have on the improvement team. These are those people who repeatedly pull out of the improvement work to devote their time to other commitments, either by choice or by the needs of their superiors. A Yoyo accomplishes little, robs the team of resources, disrupts team progress and demoralizes the other members of what may be an otherwise dedicated team. In short, a Yoyo must be replaced or their superiors must stop “pulling the string” to allow for any improvement to happen from a Kaizen event. If you think this sounds harsh, look at it this way. If the goalie for a soccer team fails to arrive to half the practises, when the final comes around he won’t know how to work with the team. He won’t have the polished skills he needs, and he won’t understand the team strategies. In this case the problem and its solution are obvious – as it should be regarding a Kaizen Yoyo.
Gemba Gossip Shopfloor Accounts by Andrew Church “One executive in a company I was in recently was determined to ensure that Lean was not wrongly perceived as only a shopfloor thing. So he made an edict that during every multiteam Kaizen Event, there would be on team dedicated to an “office event”. This practice drilled into everyone that Lean was enterprise-wide while also generation substantial and much needed improvements.”
Quotable Quotes “Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.” Robert Half
Want to see your company’s successes featured in our weekly newsletter? Email the details of your latest achievements to [email protected]
