make cars to improve life

Every book is interesting. Over the weekend I happened to come across ‘the Toyota way’ by Jeffrey Liker. The art and power of selective reading helped me finish it over the weekend. Don’t go by the book name. it might be primarily about the factory floor but as it was written on the cover – the Toyota way is much about the sate of mind as it is a car company. Very true. If I ever have to head a function that is high on process then the Toyota way will become an interesting book companion. The wikipedia has a comprehensive piece on the same.
While in college I was always enamored by the principle of kaizen meaning constant improvement. Little did I realize the importance of Hansei in Kaizen. The book talks about Americans being unable to really understand Hansei and my guess is that that is the reason why Kaizen does not show up on spell check while hansei does.
The obligatory pat on the back – I had been practicing a form (less intense I guess) of hansei through the last few years.
What is hansei? Hansei ("self-reflection") is a central idea in Japanese culture. Its meaning is to acknowledge your own mistake and to pledge improvement. In Japanese companies it's common practice that a manager expects hansei from his subordinates in case of mistakes. The manager takes the blame in public, whereas the department works on solving the problem. Hansei also means greeting success with modesty and humility. To stop hansei means to stop learning. With hansei one never becomes so convinced of one's own superiority that there is no more room or need for further improvement.
Many Americans have a very difficult time with the constant critiques and focus on the negative (opportunities for improvement). Andy Lund, a Program Manager at Toyota, explains it this way; “people who have not been to Japan may not understand that the objective is not to hurt that individual but to help that individual improve – not to hurt the program but to show flaws to improve the next program. If you understand that deeply, you can get through that constructive criticism. No matter how good a program or a presentation someone makes, we believe there is always something that can be improved, so we feel it is our obligation. It is not an ‘obligatory negative’ but an obligatory opportunity to improve – it is the heart of kaizen”
link1, link 2
I am reminded of the hindi lines uttered by Jasmine’s father “galti karo, sau baar karo, karte raho… par ek galti dubara mut karo” translation – make mistakes a hundred times, keep making them, but never repeat the same mistake.

The trick in life is not 'not to make mistakes'. But to make a lot of them and learning from them and to not repeat them. I have made my fair share and am continuing to make more than fair share of new ones. You can learn from other’s mistakes as well. That is a pretty cool short circuit process as well.
While the concept is easy to understand it is not so easy to implement. It requires one to be open to the fact that one is making mistakes. It requires deep introspection of the mistakes so as to never repeat them. A few years back I was into organizing large format events for our company. My subordinates used to call me ‘ravan’. I will come with my ten heads and think of new angles not visualized. Even after a highly successful event I would make time for introspection and the ‘obligatory negative / opportunity’. In events success can pretty much go to your head. I would try and guard against it. Yes it was a great event, but I am paid to do that. What is important is that we have lowered the probability of shit happening by thinking through and working hard. A 1% probability of anything happening then it means that in a hundred events that thing will definitely happen. With its occurrence will be the termination of my job. So after every event I would focus on the job, what went wrong, what could have gone wrong but didn’t, what went wrong but was controlled. I am generally less effusive in the praise unless I see something truly extraordinary. I don’t know if I should change that part of me though. Probably people deserve a bit of praise but I find it dishonest to give praise unless it truly deserves.
If one is reflective in success and failure then one understands the reason behind it and is able to better handle it. Both require handling and introspection…. Hansei

Another interesting concept is the Genchi Genbutsu. Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation. This is something I recently blogged about. Get off your high horse and outside your ivory tower and see for yourself what is going on. Extremely important for any function. I can vouch for that in marketing for sure.

A post script on the concept of praising:-
There is strategy involved in giving and interpreting compliments. Let’s say you hear someone play a difficult –but not too difficult– piece on the piano, and she plays it well. Is it a compliment if you tell her she played it beautifully?
That depends. You would not be impressed by the not-so-difficult piece if you knew that she was an outstanding pianist. So if you tell her you are impressed, then you are telling her that you don’t think she is an outstanding pianist. And if she is, or aspires to be, an outstanding pianist, then your attempted compliment is in fact an insult.
This means that, in most cases, the best way to compliment the highly accomplished is not to offer any compliment at all. This conveys that all of her fine accomplishments are exactly what you expected of her. But, do wait for when she really outdoes herself and then tell her so. You don’t want her to think that you are someone who just never gives compliments. Once that is taken care of, she will know how to properly interpret your usual silence.
source: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/08/via-youknowwho.html