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A principle that has been often discussed (and hopefully practiced) in the Lean community over the past few years is usually described as "respect for people." A certain British rabble rouser recently said at a Lean conference "all this respect for people stuff is horse sh*t," and that it is a "conventional Western management interpretation." He mocked the idea of "respect for people programs," although I'm not sure where such a standalone program has ever been attempted.

Demonstrating respect for people goes beyond just being nice to them. Showing respect in the workplace is all about the relationship we develop with other people and how we value them. To explain this more here are another 10 ways to show respect for people in your organization:

The fact is that a company does not have to be respectful of its employees and customers in order to be successful. Some can treat their workers and clients with disdain and a lack of respect and still remain profitable…for a while, at least. In the end, it turns out that being respectful is not only the right thing to do, but is also good for business.

During one of my training opportunities a Toyota Sensei once told me that the highest form of "respect for people" was allowing people to solve their own problems.  This statement stuck with me and I have often used this during training/coaching sessions.  Apparently, this statement also stuck with my friend.  In the hallway last week he said after a year of gemba he finally understood his role as a leader and what I meant when I talked about "respect for people."   He said at first he loved the Lean approach, because he loved being in gemba, but after a while the follow-up became overwhelming to him and frustrating to the teams he worked with.  He said each time he went to gemba he felt guilty about the increasing number of problems he was not having the time to solve.

In all, I see the principle of respect for people thrown about sometimes casually, and sometimes in direct conflict of what I believe the principle is truly about.

This is a great article! He is absolutely right. I could see this being misinterpreted very easily.

Respect for people is not simply treating people in your organization in a positive manner.  It is challenging them to grow, providing them the tools, training, and experiences to do so, and creating an environment where mistakes and failures are allowed and even encouraged.  Respect extends beyond the immediate organization to suppliers, customers, and the community as a whole.

"There are four purposes of improvement: easier, better, faster, and cheaper. These four goals appear in the order of priority." Shigeo Shingo

"Challenge" is one of the explicit values in The Toyota Way 2001 but it looks quite different. Yes, there are challenges issued. But behind that challenge is a support structure. The leaders, at all levels are expected to stretch their own personal development, but to do so within the context of kaizen, deep understanding gained by genchi genbutsu, team work and most important of all, respect. The leader's development level is gauged by how the challenge is met even more than whether it is met. Just "get-r-done" doesn't work here.

And she is right. It makes no sense, based on her experience, to work hard to expose waste. Unless. Unless you and I, leaders in our organizations, act differently as well. Unless we demonstrate exposing waste gets rewarded, not punished. Unless we walk the talk ourselves. Unless we say thank you. Unless we demonstrate respect for her opinion. That's trust. And, without it, all the waste we so nobly hope to find remains hidden. Keep on learning.

Lesson 1: The critical importance of the simple act of walking. When you get bogged down, distracted, or even discouraged rediscover the power of going to see. Lesson 2: Never walk alone. What is the benefit if only you see the current state and think of a better way to create a future sate? Always walk the value stream with the people who touch it. It will be their efforts who are needed to improve it. Lesson 3: Expand your focus. Many look primarily at the steps in the value stream and ask how to remove the waste. You must ask about the support processes to get the right people to the right place in the value stream at the right time with the right knowledge, materials, and equipment. Lesson 4: Reflect first on the purpose of the process. Focus on what problem the customer is trying to solve and ask whether the existing process, now matter how well, run, can effectively address their problem. Pay special attention to the way people are engaged in the operation and its improvement. Lesson 5: Make work fulfilling. There is nothing worse than seeing good people trapped in an unfulfilling process that they lack the power to improve. Lesson 6: Stability before full panoply of lean techniques. The process must be capable (able to produce good results every time) and available (able to operate when it is needed).

More wisdom from last week's factory tours with Ritsuo Shingo: 1. Don't ask workers for improvement ideas. Ask them: What work they don't like What work is tiring Any suggestions they have for management In other words, you can't just ask for "improvement ideas" unless and until you've established trust - i.e., until you've earned the right to ask for their help. 2. "Blaming your workers is like spitting in the sky. It comes back down on your face. It's your teaching that needs to be improved." 'Nuff said.

Awesome!

It is difficult to assure quality at the source if leaders do not respect all associates. I have seen companies with people who do not feel comfortable reporting quality concerns at the gemba, because they are ignored or "punished" if they stop the line to report a problem. This creates an atmosphere of fear, and quality issues slip out the door reaching the customer and creates a snowball of problems for everyone.

Putting people and tools on the line to catch defects created by another process is a sign of not showing respect in the inherent capability of the people to do good work. Instead, management has to spend time and energy in creating processes that are capable and can catch errors and mistakes by themselves leading to continuous improvement. Dr. Shigeo Shingo preached these concepts when he talked about zero quality control. According to Dr. Shingo, we cannot achieve the aim of zero defects until we make each element of the process capable to produce perfect quality by ensuring the errors and mistakes are quickly identified and corrected before they lead to defects. His idea of poka-yoke and source checking are exactly in line with this principle.

How could we avoid this from happening with our cross check process?

Let's set it as a vision and then design in 6-8 month improvement targets. The vision can be a year or two out and we can steadily march toward the vision with incremental targets.

The most effective strategy is to build an organizational culture into one that promotes continual improvement. A continual improvement culture is one that is constantly changing to improve (grounded in long term principles: respect for people, experiment, iterate quickly, etc.).

So, next time someone challenges you on why 5S is a good thing, look them in the eye and tell them it's (sort of) proven that it lowers stress and enhances the self-regulatory abilities of everyone in the workforce. That sounds like respect for the individual AND a greater capacity for execution and daily kaizen.

There are many valid reasons why someone may not follow standard work.

I think Toyota, even with the problems, is a fantastic example of a very well managed company. Yet even with all the study of lean manufacturing even basic ideas are overlooked. For example, the two main pillars of the Toyota way are "continuous improvement" and "respect for people." For all of us, it is valuable to refocusing on core principles. We are too often looking for the next new idea.

The gemba walk how-to guide has its merits. But we need to be careful. Gemba walk templates, observation points, and sample questions can appear formal, audit-like, creating distance between the observer and the observed. We should worry less about doing the gemba walk the right way and focus more on doing the right thing by people. This means treating people as individuals and showing them respect. This means taking a genuine interest in person in front of us, in how they see reality and and learning how they wish to influence outcomes in their lives and work. Ultimately, the gemba walk is not about the gemba or the walk. It is all about the humble listen.