Maintaining creative tension

At last year's WMMC event, JLR's Grant McPherson said his former Japanese boss at Honda questioned why UK teams needed to pause to bask in their sense of achievement before addressing the next improvement challenge. This perspective is recognised by author Mike Rother who describes how an 'episodic' rather than 'continuous' approach to improvement differentiates organisations. Some management processes, although unseen, have a profound impact on culture and outlook. At the core is whether to manage the green or the red (visual management signals for in or out of control). Managing only the red signals will mean satisfaction comes when a measure is in control. Once achieved, the 'creative tension' to improve is reduced. Sometimes, standards can drop unnoticed until the deterioration becomes visible, by which time it can be tough to regain control. Those who manage the red triggers as a stepping stone towards managing the green, seldom have an out-of-control condition. Satisfaction comes from responding to the creative tension to deliver continuous improvement. Creative tension can be built with the right questions. James Womack recounts his first day at Toyota, when he was given a sheet of paper with a question on it: do we have a problem with the translation process for the new plant in Malaysia? Discussions with his boss led to other questions. If we do have a problem, what is the problem? How do you know that this is the problem is compared to what you just quickly guessed was the cause of the problem? What is it about the management process that is causing the problem and how do you know that? What should we do about this and why do you think that we should do that rather than half a dozen other possibilities? What are those alternatives? If this is what we should do, who is going to do what and when? How are you going to manufacture the improvement to get it done? How are we going to know that we have solved the problem and what will be the evidence? I recommend you use these nine questions daily. They will do more than you can imagine to deliver the full potential of your improvement teams.