Three actions anyone can take if they wish to become a more effective leader. If you use it....please let me know how it goes.

1. “Walking the Gemba Walk”
Use a Toyota Style ‘Gemba
Walk’ to change your
perspective as a leader
Michael Bremer
Author E-Book “How to do A Gemba Walk”1

2. • Actively Engaged Employees
– Strong ownership
– Passionate and caring
– High effort
– Persistence

3. Leadership
3

4. Get Your Boots on
and Start Walking!
Go to the source to find the facts…..
“See” first hand, with own eyes what is
really happening vs. what you assume is
happening
Gemba = The Real Place
4

5. Take a
Walk
Change the
Perspective
Make it
Visual
Focus on
OthersChoices
Use the Walk to Work Three
Powerful Leadership Levers

6. Lever #1 –– Alter Perspective
If you are the smartest person in the room,
you’re standing in the wrong room

7. 7
Help people
understand Why?
Perspective shift…#1

8. “….most problems in an organization are the result of the
processes not the people working in the system”
Dr. W. Edwards Deming
85%
Or….do you do a workaround when problems
happen? What message does that send?
8
Typically requires a
perspective shift
Perspective
shift…#2

9. 50% of your job should be standard
work….a pre-defined way to do your job
Standard Work!
8/31/2015 9

10. Coach more critical
thinking skills
10
Standard Work
• In 1 hour lesson how much time…
• How to improve/affect results?
• How to get buy-in?

11. Lever #2 –– Focus on Others
• Prepare for the Walk
• Do the Walk
– Go See
– Ask ‘What’ then ‘Why’
– Show Respect
• Debrief the Walk
11

12. Go See
• Test assumptions
• Listen & learn
12
What is happening that makes
work difficult to do – there is
always something going-on?

13. Ask What, then Why?
• Anyone can look around, good observations
require skill
• What are the targets? Why are they
important? Do people understand the ‘why’?
• Why is performance less than desired?
• Why is there backtracking, rework….?
• What is inhibiting progress?
13
Questions like the above move you
toward becoming a process thinker

14. Coach more critical thinking skills
14Source: Mike Rother “Toyota Kata”
• What problem trying to solve?
• How did you become aware?
• What did you change?
• How did improvement affect
results?
• What is your next improvement?

15. Have Humility & Show Respect
• Ask open-ended questions
• Listen more than you talk
• Create a safe environment for people to talk
(it pays considerable dividends)
• Always jump to the 5 Whys, never the 5 Whos
• Don’t remove problem ownership, trust
people to act when they learn to ‘see it’
• Help them learn to see it and gain confidence
15

16. Takes Practice to Perfect
• Don’t try to do too much on one walk
• Learn how to effectively coach people
– Seeing issues
– Clearing them
– Finding root causes
– Solving them
• Institute cycles of experimentation, learning
and doing
16

17. Who uses ActiveLink, Fitbit or some similar device?
Lever #3 Make it Visual - Are we winning or losing?
17

18. Request for Proposal Info Board
18
You can’t overdo this – it’s
a great way to
communicate

19. Visual Work
Mgmt. -
Scheduling
19
Making the
invisible
easy to see

20. Customer Service Dept.20

21. Everything in life is an Experiment
21
Is there a best known way to do something?
Are we doing it that way?
How do we know it is working?
How can we test new ways?
Keep re-freshening your perspective and learning by going to the
source to learn what is really going on

22. How To Do A Gemba Walk
• More information available, along with host of questions for
different types of walks in the e-book on this subject. Only
$6.99 U.S.
• http://www.amazon.com/How-Gemba-Walk-Michael-
Bremer-ebook/dp/B00KKPSQS8
• Very interested in learning about your experiences with
GWs, insights learned, how it changed perspectives and how
(if) it improved your culture. Please let me know…thanks.
• You are welcome to use this material, would appreciate your
honoring our contribution by referencing the materials came
from the Cumberland Group.
• Happy to connect with you on LinkedIn
22

23. Contact Info
• Michael Bremer
• The Cumberland Group and
• Chicagoland Lean Enterprise Consortium
• Hinsdale, IL 630-235-4210
• michael@cumberlandchicago.com
• www.cumberlandchicago.com
• “How to Do a Gemba
Walk” http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KKPSQ
S8
• “Escape the Improvement
Trap” http://tinyurl.com/44osfyu
Looking for a couple new member companies to
join our consortium group, please let us know if
you have a candidate…..thanks.