Many people think that the mindset for continuous improvement is common, easy to learn, or that they possess it. This does not reflect the true situation. The improvement mindset is rare.
In my profession, teaching, I see the result of my work during and after every class. There is always – always! – a gap between what happened and what I had hoped would happen. Years of teaching and prior experiences in industry and elsewhere taught me long ago to think of my work in this way: “Everything is a disaster.” If you think this way, deeply, in your heart and mind, then you will be motivated to understand problems and make improvements every day.
How many people – top leaders, middle managers, or workers – are willing to admit that “Everything is a disaster” with respect to their work, their department, or their company? Very few, that’s for sure. The metrics look good, so they are lulled into a false sense that all is well. My teaching metrics are great, but still, I think my teaching is a disaster.
Toshihiro Nagamatsu, a team leader at Shingijutsu USA, tells people: “We are always at our worst.” What does he mean by that? At any point in time, your company and your work are in bad shape, and you must acknowledge this because others are competing against you and will take your business if you do not recognize problems and make improvements every day.
Nagamatsu-san explains it this way:
“You may think you are a good company today, but make no mistake you are not. You may become better tomorrow, but still you are toward the back. At any moment, somewhere in this world there is someone the same work better. There is no end. You must continually seek to improve.”
So, until you learn to recognize the gap that always – always! – exists between what happened and what you expected to happen – that “everything is a disaster,” or “we are always at our worst” – you do not yet possess the mindset for continuous improvement. And this, in turn, affects your ability to respect people.
This extends even to the leaders of the Lean community, who until only recently largely ignored the gap between what they expected to happen and what has actually happened. To them, everything is not a disaster. And, there remain critically important aspects of of Lean management that are entirely ignored. This will not get any attention until they adopt the mindset that “Everything is a disaster.”
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from Bob Emiliani http://www.bobemiliani.com/the-improvement-mindset-is-rare/
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