Creatively Lean

Creatively Lean
How to Get Out of Your Own Way
and Drive Innovation Throughout
Your Organization

Bella Englebach
First edition published in 2020
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Names: Englebach, Bella (Isabella), author.
Title: Creatively lean : how to get out of your own way and drive innovation throughout
your organization / Bella Englebach.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019043227 (print) | LCCN 2019043228 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367262105
(paperback) | ISBN 9780367275518 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429296567 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Creative ability in business. | Creative thinking. | Problem solving. |
New products.
Classification: LCC HD53 .E5438 2020 (print) | LCC HD53 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/063–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019043227
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019043228
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
www.taylorandfrancis.com
 For Sonja and Jensen.
May you always be as creative as you are today.
Contents

List of Figures............................................................................................ ix
Preface......................................................................................................... xi
Acknowledgments.................................................................................... xv
About the Author.................................................................................... xvii

Introduction................................................................................................ 1
Definitions....................................................................................................5

1 A Meeting in the Parking Lot: Lean and Creative

Problem Solving...........................................................................7
2 One of Those Surprise Meetings.................................................17
Practice This Today....................................................................................23
3 Carlo Meets the Management Team............................................25
Practice This Today....................................................................................31
4 A Day in the Contact Center.......................................................33
Practice This Today....................................................................................36
5 Carlo’s New Office......................................................................37
Practice This Today....................................................................................41
6 Listening into Calls.....................................................................43
Practice This Today....................................................................................45
7 Beth Meets the Coaches..............................................................47
Practice This Today....................................................................................50
8 Beth’s First Coaching Session.....................................................51
Practice This Today....................................................................................56
9 Getting to the POINt...................................................................57
Practice This Today....................................................................................60

vii
viii ◾ Contents

10 Trouble in the Warehouse..........................................................61

Practice This Today....................................................................................67
11 PDCA and CPS............................................................................69
Practice This Today....................................................................................71
12 Doing and Checking and Adjusting without a
Lean Coach..................................................................................73
Practice This Today....................................................................................81
13 Solving the Trust Issue in the Warehouse..................................83
Practice This Today....................................................................................89
14 Creativity and the Improvement Kata.........................................91
Practice This Today....................................................................................98
15 Goal Setting in the Contact Center.............................................99
Practice This Today..................................................................................108
16 Gaining Acceptance..................................................................109
Practice This Today..................................................................................116
17 Small Steps, Long Journey........................................................117
Practice This Today..................................................................................121
18 A New Product..........................................................................123
Practice This Today..................................................................................127
19 Not A Typical Monday..............................................................129

Afterword........................................................................................135

Appendix 1 A Brief History of Creative Problem Solving...............137

Appendix 2 Rules and Tools for Divergent Thinking.....................141
Appendix 3 Rules and Tools for Convergent Thinking...................145
Appendix 4 Creative Problem Solving in Practice...........................151
Appendix 5 A3s and CPS.................................................................155
Practice This Today.........................................................162
Appendix 6 Discussion Questions for Self-­Study or Book
Club Use........................................................................163

Resources: Books and Websites for Further Learning....................165

Index...............................................................................................167
List of Figures

Figure I.1 The “Fight or Flight Reaction”............................................. 3

Figure I.2 Patrick’s Brain Learns of a New Threat............................... 4
Figure 1.1 The Purpose of the Lean System....................................... 10
Figure 1.2 The Scientific Method and PDCA....................................... 11
Figure 3.1 Magical Problem Solving.................................................... 27
Figure 3.2 The Rhythm of Divergent and Convergent
Thinking............................................................................. 30
Figure 5.1 The Brain-­Body Connection............................................... 40
Figure 7.1 Coaching............................................................................. 49
Figure 8.1 Lean Leadership.................................................................. 56
Figure 9.1 POINt.................................................................................. 57
Figure 12.1 Observations....................................................................... 73
Figure 12.2 Observations Clustered and Named.................................. 74
Figure 12.3 Cluster by Meaning............................................................ 75
Figure 12.4 Hypotheses......................................................................... 76
Figure 12.5 Hypotheses Clustered and Named..................................... 77
Figure 13.1 Keisha’s A3......................................................................... 84
Figure 13.2 To Show Respect................................................................ 88
Figure 14.1 Deep Thinking.................................................................... 97
Figure 15.1 Brainwriting Sheet............................................................ 102
Figure 17.1 Starting the Kata Storyboard............................................ 119
Figure 17.2 Continuing the Kata Storyboard...................................... 120
Figure 18.1 One Large Batch of Learning........................................... 125
Figure 18.2 Many Small Batches of Learning...................................... 126
Figure A3.1 Evaluation Matrix.............................................................. 148
Figure A3.2 Risk/Impact Matrix........................................................... 148
Figure A5.1 A3 Template..................................................................... 156
Figure A5.2 Creative Problem Solving A3........................................... 159

ix
Preface

It is a couple of days before Christmas, and I am 11 years old. I have been

waiting all day to FINALLY be alone in the house, and now my mother has
left on an errand. None of my siblings are home, and my dad is still at work.
I am about to commit a crime.
I start in the basement. The house is old; the basement, creepy. I’m not
deterred from my mission by the atmosphere or the cobwebs, but my search
here is fruitless, and I move to the ground floor. I check the pantry, and
the back of the coat closet, and look under the stereo. Nothing. It must be
upstairs. My heart is pounding as I check to see if the door to my parents’
bedroom is locked. It isn’t, and I enter, cautiously. The closet door is a little
ajar, and I carefully widen the opening. On the floor I see shoes and, in the
back, a large bag. Could this be it? Knowing that the crime I am about to
commit is major is not enough to stop me. I look in the bag. Yes! There it is!
A Junior Scientist Kit, complete with a real microscope! My joy is complete!
With my Junior Scientist Kit, I could do experiments like a scientist, which
would help me on my way to becoming a doctor!
When I was 11, my career goal was to be a doctor, but by the time
I went to college, it was science itself that really attracted me. I studied
biology and worked in labs. Learning something new by following the
scientific method, doing experiments and interpreting experimental results
were always exciting. But like many scientists, through the twists and turns
of career, I left the lab and moved into the business end of research and
development. “Business” was dramatically different from “science,” or so it
seemed. We didn’t experiment anymore. We came up with solutions and
implemented them. We were using Six Sigma, and in order to move quickly
from “Analyze” to “Improve,” often tried to implement the first solution that
came to mind – usually with little effect.

xi
xii ◾ Preface

In R&D we needed “innovation,” and so I began to work with people

who taught me a completely new way of thinking – Creative Problem
Solving (CPS). CPS is a methodology to spur creative thinking and was
invented by Alex Osborne, the inventor of brainstorming. (Learn more
about CPS in Appendix 1.) CPS was remarkably effective in the research and
development environment, and I eventually became a CPS facilitator.
Shortly afterwards, I started to learn about lean, and I quickly
reignited the passion I had as a youngster for the scientific method, now
encapsulated as the Plan-­Do-Check-­Act (PDCA) cycle. Lean and especially
Lean Product Development (LPD) fit well in R&D, even though the
business side still struggled to stop implementing solutions and start doing
experiments.
What was I to do with CPS then? I felt a little like I had converted to a
new religion. Could I still practice at least some of the old religion? The
more I learned about lean, the more opportunities I saw to integrate CPS
tools into lean thinking. I learned that the lean start-­up and design thinking
communities used some of these approaches, but no one seemed to leverage
the full power of CPS with lean thinking, and most of my “lean colleagues”
had no knowledge of CPS. Even the Lean Product Development community
was at a loss to explain where ideas might come from, or how best to
prepare other people to accept new ideas.
Perhaps this was all part of the “secret sauce” of lean at Toyota, that we
tool-­focused practitioners couldn’t understand.
Worse yet, my CPS colleagues thought lean was an anti-­innovative quality
management system, so my conversations with them often slipped into me
redefining and defending lean, and we struggled to learn from each other.
We often believe that:

◾ Deeply understanding the problem, through diligent definition,

measurement, and analysis, will magically suggest the right solutions
or countermeasures.
◾ “Creativity” is only about coming up with ideas for solutions and is
not needed when we’re trying to understand a problem.
◾ We can import solutions or countermeasures from other
organizations (best practices) and they will work for us.
◾ Only certain people are “creative” or “innovative.”
◾ We can survive if we only make incremental improvements,
because breakthrough improvement will eventually arise from the
accumulation of the incremental improvements.
 Preface ◾ xiii

These are all myths.

Back when I first started working on continuous improvement, a
common lunchtime debate was whether what we called “process excellence”
could exist in the same space as innovation. In our understanding of process
excellence, the goal was standardization – once the standard was achieved,
any innovation would create unnecessary disruption, and was to be avoided!
Of course, most practitioners today would find such assertions ludicrous.
Yet at the same time, we avidly study Toyota and other “lean” companies to
grasp the key to process perfection, perfect flow, immaculate production,
the kind of excellent product development that results in never missing a
new product launch and almost always delights customers. We implement
Kanban, kaizen, A3s (see Appendix 5), and 5S (or is it 6?), and wonder why
our efforts fail to sustain, and why our incremental improvements rarely add
up to transformative change.
There is a story, most likely apocryphal, of the tour group of business
leaders who visited a Toyota plant, and saw a method of bringing parts to
the operators. On arriving home, they rapidly implemented that method in
their own plants, with varying levels of success. When they took a follow-­up
tour a year later, they were astonished to see that Toyota no longer used
that method. Constantly innovating, the Toyota operators had now rethought
the problem of getting parts and were using an entirely different solution.
How the story ends depends on how good the business leaders were at
understanding what had happened. In one version, they go home, and start
to implement the new delivery method. In another, they go home and teach
their operators to solve their own problems and create the innovations they
need in their business.
Few of us can really SEE what is happening in an innovative environment
like a Toyota plant. We’re not there long enough when we visit. Like tourists,
we take pictures of the artifacts, without understanding the culture.
The ability to develop an idea that is completely out of sync with popular
understanding and make it into a business advantage has been part of
the Toyota DNA since Sakichi Toyoda invented the circular loom in 1906.
Over the years, Toyota has built a strong culture for innovation, based on
the “Toyoda Precepts,” which emphasize contributing to the Company and
the overall good, striving to stay ahead of the times, and even “building a
homelike atmosphere at work that is warm and friendly.” Such a long history
of innovation culture cannot be immediately or even quickly replicated in an
organization with a culture that has not supported innovation. So then, it is
a convenience for us to look to the artifacts of a lean company like Toyota.
xiv ◾ Preface

We may easily implement those artifacts, believing that we’re becoming

“lean” and “innovative.” (Of course, Toyota is not the only innovative
company in the world, and may not be the most innovative, but Toyota’s
resilience and consistent business success, despite a multitude of obstacles,
are one of the reasons we lean thinkers still look to Toyota City for the
secrets of success.)
If we cannot replicate over a hundred years of an innovative culture, can
we learn the skills of creativity in another way? The answer is yes, and that
answer is found in creative problem solving.
This book brings the power of lean thinking and CPS together, so
that you can practice the scientific method in business and develop and
implement truly creative countermeasures to your business problems. It is
written for the lean community, but if you’re a CPS practitioner, and are
working with a “lean company,” this book will help you understand how to
help your lean colleagues benefit from CPS without abandoning all the good
things about lean.
(By the way, when my family met my future husband, they warned him
that I had a bad habit of looking for my presents. I wonder how they knew?)
Acknowledgments

Deepest thanks to everyone who ever said to me, “When are you going to
write a book?” Hope you like it!
Thanks to Michael Sinocchi of Productivity Press, who heard me speak
and said: “That might make a good book.”
Thanks to my husband, Rich Englebach, who provided cups of tea, and
reminders that there is more to life than the laptop.
Thanks to Milo and Logan for their companionship during hours of
writing and revision, and who are always ready to go for a walk when the
writer needs to stretch her legs.
Thanks to Robin Keen, Jun Sutherland, Naomi Clark-­Turner, and Erica
Deuso, who provided feedback on the drafts.
Thanks to Jim Luckman, who was my first lean advisor, and who first
asked me, “What problem are you trying to solve?” And thanks also to
many lean-thinking friends and colleagues including Jackie Alligood, Terry
Barnhart, Carol Ciletti, Alan Maloney, Maurice Prendergast, Katherine
Radeka, Suzanne van Egmond, Jim Weber, Susan Wendel, and others too
numerous to include, who inspire me every day on this journey.
Thanks to my talented son-­in-law, Samuel Richman, who used his
creativity to develop the illustrations for this book.
And most especially, thanks to Doug Reid, who has more than a little
of Carlo in him. Doug, your encouragement, questions, and your skill for
clarifying my mumbo-­jumbo are deeply appreciated.

xv
About the Author

Bella Englebach has been applying continuous improvement and lean

thinking to operations and R&D for over 15 years. Trained as a scientist,
she helps people see that the heart of improvement is the scientific method.
Humans naturally respond to the scientific method, because as children
we were all excited to ask why – and we all loved to conduct experiments
to find out why! Along the way, many of us left that type of exploration
behind, and came to believe that we were not good at problem solving or
creativity.
Bella believes that everyone can regain their excited inner scientist to
drive people-­centered improvement for any type of organization. She works
with leaders and managers to create environments where problems can be
seen, innovative solutions can be discovered and tested, and people can
truly drive improvement.
Bella spent 18 years at Johnson & Johnson, where she was a process
excellence and business improvement leader, bringing the worlds of lean
and creativity together in research and development, regulatory affairs, and
IT implementations. She opened her own business, Lean for Humans, Inc,
in 2018.
Bella is a Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Facilitator and is also an
Associate Partner at New & Improved, Inc, a consulting firm specializing
in helping organizations create the environments for innovation through
the CPS approach. She is an experienced facilitator trained in continuous
improvement, Creative Problem Solving, lean improvement, lean product and
process development, and change management.
Bella was a member of the Board of Directors of the Lean Product and
Process Development Exchange for six years, where she served as Board
Secretary and Conference Chair. LPPDE is a nonprofit organization created

xvii
xviii ◾ About the Author

to foster opportunities to grow and share the knowledge, expertise, and

experiences that help organizations use lean product development to
dramatically improve product development performance.
She is a popular speaker and workshop facilitator at lean, operational
excellence, and continuous improvement conferences.
Introduction

One day a few years ago, my husband suggested that we take a cruise. Since
I love to travel, you would think I immediately said, “Yes! I love that idea!
Which cruise do you want to take?” But what I said was, “No.”
Sometimes I don’t even know why I resist a change. I know I have said
“no” to many good ideas, without even thinking about why I’m saying
no. If you asked me afterwards, I tell you “my gut” made that decision.
Immediately afterwards, I would give perfectly logical-­sounding reasons why
my gut reacted in that way. In the case of the cruise, I immediately came
up with quite a few objections to the idea (none based on any real facts or
data). It would be too expensive, I said. We would be the youngest people
on the ship. Our ability to really see the cities we were visiting would
be extremely limited, and so on. I, the person who loves to travel, was
obstructing my husband’s idea before I had really listened or explored it.
For every change are instigators – and there are obstructers.
Creativity is intrinsic to humanity – and so is resistance. Just as we’re
made to be ideators, innovators, and change-­makers, we’re also made to
resist creativity, distrust innovation, and obstruct change. Resistance, distrust,
fear, caution: feelings seated in the “primitive” parts of our brains have
kept us alive in times of famine, danger, and disaster. We’re not always
wrong when we fear newness or when we obstruct change. The question is
whether we’re making those judgments with our primitive brain or whether
we’re engaging the “human” parts of our brain. (And don’t get me wrong. If
your “fight or flight” reaction is engaged by the sight of a poisonous snake in
your path, listen to your gut!)

1
2 ◾ Creatively Lean

I want to be a leader who drives continuous improvement. Intellectually I

understand that everyone (including me) can think creatively – and likewise,
I must understand that everyone (including me) can obstruct creative
thinking.
Why? Because:

◾ the way I react when I hear an idea

◾ the way I ask for ideas (or not)
◾ the way I coach my employees/team members (or tell them what
to do)

affects the ability of my colleagues and teams to think creatively.

The behavior of leaders has an indelible impact on the culture of an
organization. Our self-­awareness is vital to advancing innovation.
Many years ago, when I was a manager in a large company, one of my
employees, Patrick, came to me with an idea. He was very excited.
“Hey Bella,” he said. “I’ve been talking with my buddy, Pete. We noticed
that we have a lot of empty office space around the building. In fact, we’ve
done some data collection and we found that at any given hour, on any
given day, about 40 percent of the offices are empty. People are in meetings,
or they are traveling to other sites, so they are just not using their offices.
Therefore, Pete and I would like to propose that we move forward with a
shared office space plan.” He put a spreadsheet front of me. “We could save
a lot of money if we do this.”
When Patrick came to me with this idea, I had been well trained
in the things you should say when your employee brings you an idea.
Intellectually, I knew that just saying “no” was NOT what I should do. What
did I say?
“Wow, Patrick, that is quite an idea! In fact, that is the worst idea I have
ever heard!”
Yes, that is exactly what I said. Then I came up with several “logical”
reasons why it was such a bad idea, and why it wouldn’t work.
As you read this story, you might be agreeing with Patrick, thinking this
was a good idea, or you might be agreeing with me, thinking it was a bad
idea. The fact is, at the time, I didn’t have enough information about the
problem Patrick was trying to solve, and therefore couldn’t decide whether it
was an idea we should explore or put aside. But my brain had literally told
my gut that this was a bad idea.
What happened?
 Introduction ◾ 3

The concept of shared office space threatened my internal image of

what it meant to be a manager – as someone who had long aspired to have
an office, of my own, with a door, I couldn’t imagine having the respect a
manager “deserves” without an office and a door. The “threat” of losing MY
office (as shallow as it might seem) elicited memories and associations of
being made to feel “less.” And that triggered the “fight or flight” reaction.
These uncomfortable memories and associations are stored in a tiny part
of my brain: the amygdala. The amygdala is a key part of our “fight or flight”
response and hangs on to bad experiences in order to keep us alive. My
amygdala did its job, releasing stress hormones that quickened my heart rate
and slowed my digestive processes (that is the “gut” feeling). I was reacting
as if there was a poisonous snake in my path. There was no way, in that
state, that I could listen to Patrick’s idea, clarify the problem he was trying to
solve, or evaluate whether to move forward with the idea. See Figure I.1 for
a picture of what was happening in my brain. Because my amygdala was so
busy defending against Patrick’s idea, my frontal lobes didn’t have a chance
to weigh in.
What was Patrick experiencing? Happy and excited to share his idea with
me, he was now faced with the poisonous snake of my reaction. Deep in his
brain, his amygdala recorded this moment as a potentially dangerous situation.
Perhaps his amygdala cataloged it with other bad reactions from other
managers. In order to protect Patrick, his amygdala was preparing to save him
from bringing ideas to managers in the future (and especially to me).

Figure I.1 The “Fight or Flight Reaction.”

4 ◾ Creatively Lean

Our brains were working exactly as they were designed to work. My

brain was protecting me from the “threat” of losing my hard-­earned office.
Patrick’s brain was learning of a new threat, from which it would protect
him in the future. How many ideas would he bring me now? And what story
would he tell his colleagues about what it was like to bring Bella an idea?
Moreover, my “logical” reasons that the idea was bad put Patrick on the
defensive. If he wasn’t in fight or flight mode already, he certainly was by the
time he had reacted to each of my objections. And I never voiced my real
objection: that my self-­worth as a manager was at least partially based on
having my own office – with a door. In retrospect, hearing and addressing that
concern would have been key to managing the change, not only with me, but
with other managers who treasured their hard-­earned offices.
I learned that Creative Problem Solving has tools to save us from
behaving as if ideas are poisonous snakes. The important thing about these
tools is that I must practice using them. Just knowing about them is not
enough to overcome the well-­trained responses of my amygdala (which has
done a great job of keeping me alive so far!)
Oh, my husband did manage to overcome my resistance to cruising,
which was I think, really based on my fear of not being in control of the
itinerary every day, as I was used to. It was an amazing vacation! It is funny
though, when I tell people about it, how many of them say, “Oh, I wouldn’t
want to do that.” Is that their amygdala talking?
But what about my own ideas? The converse of treating other people’s
ideas like poisonous snakes is that I can overvalue my own ideas. Once
I have come up with an idea, I will defend it strenuously. Sometimes, the

Figure I.2 Patrick’s Brain Learns of a New Threat.

 Introduction ◾ 5

idea deserves that strenuous defense. Often, it does not. But the same “gut”
reaction that causes me to try to kill someone else’s idea will cause me to
try to kill their unreasonable (and reasonable) objections to mine. I will
protect my idea, and my brain and gut will help me out. If I find myself
becoming defensive (literally), this means that I’m not thinking with my
frontal lobes.
None of the products of human ingenuity that we value today are
the result of a single person’s ideas. The best innovation is the result of
combining ideas, of building ideas on other ideas, of breaking ideas and
re-­forming them. Creative thinking can be performed individually, but it is
at its best as a team sport. As a leader, I can demonstrate what can happen
when I allow my ideas to prodded, poked, broken, added to other ideas,
improved, strengthened, or just used as inspiration for someone’s even
better idea.
In this book you will meet a manager who is learning both lean thinking
and the tools of creative problem-­solving. As you read each chapter, reflect
on your own learning journey. Where are you getting in your own way as
you seek to be innovative? How might you be both lean and creative? How
might you lead others to be lean and creative?

Definitions
This book uses many words that have many meanings, depending on who
is using them. Here are some key words:
A3 In the A3 methodology, the story of the resolution of a problem is
captured on a piece of A3 or ledger-­size paper. See Appendix 5.
Continuous Improvement Engagement of all members of an organization
in increasing the effectiveness of the organization in meeting
organizational goals.
Convergent thinking A thinking style for judging and selecting options
and making decisions. Convergent thinking can be learned and
developed.
Countermeasures Temporary responses to specific problems that will
serve until a better approach is found or conditions change (Steven
Spear).
Creative Problem Solving A process for solving the kind of problem that
doesn’t have a known answer, originally described by Alex Osborne
and Sidney Parnes. Learn more in Appendix 1.
6 ◾ Creatively Lean

Creative Thinking A thinking style that permits people to view and solve
problems from unusual or unorthodox perspectives. The two phases
of creative thinking are divergent thinking and convergent thinking.
Creative thinking can be learned and developed.
Creativity Novelty that is useful (Stan Gryskiewicz).
Divergent thinking A thinking style for generating many options.
Divergent thinking can be learned and developed.
Gemba A Japanese word meaning the actual place where work is done.
Improvement kata A thinking pattern for problem solving based on the
Toyota approach to management. See Chapter 14.
Innovation New ideas and inventions that create value.
Kaizen workshop an event, usually involving people from several
functions, to create and put into practice significant positive revisions
to a process/
Lean A socio-­technical system for developing and managing people in
organizations so that they can solve problems and continuously
improve the organization to deliver value to customers, modeled
on Toyota (and other organizations that have pursued “lean”).
Practicing lean results in reduction of waste and increased customer
satisfaction.
Lean thinking The thinking style of people who have been developed in
a lean organization to see and solve organizational problems. Lean
thinking can be learned and developed.
Problem A situation or state in which the desired performance is not being
achieved.
Solution The responses or actions taken to bring performance to the
desired level. A problem may need a set of solutions.
Chapter 1

A Meeting in the Parking

Lot: Lean and Creative
Problem Solving

Carlo pulled into the parking lot of Global Plumbing Supply just before the
rain started. The weather forecaster on the radio had waxed eloquently
about the incoming line of storms, and Carlo had made a mental note – and
several physical notes – to remember an umbrella. But now, as he glanced
around the front and back seats of his car, it was clear that the umbrella
hadn’t left the house with him that morning. This was no light spring
shower, and there were at least 50 yards between his parking spot and
the building entrance. Carlo checked his phone. He had 10 minutes before
his meeting started, but there was no indication that rain was going to
lighten up.
Carlo was about to make a dash to the door when a grey Toyota pulled
into the space next to his car. Looking over, he saw his friend and coaching
colleague, Linda. He knew that this engagement at Global Plumbing Supply
was an unusual one, and that he would be sharing coaching responsibilities
with another coach, but he hadn’t realized it might be Linda. “All right,” he
said to himself, “this is a great development!” He was even more delighted
when he saw that Linda was getting out of the car carrying a large umbrella.
“Hey, Linda!” he greeted her.
“Carlo, nice to see you!” she replied. “Want to share my umbrella?”
Inside the lobby of Global Plumbing Supply, they introduced themselves
to the receptionist. “I see you both are expected by Brandon Go, the CEO,”

7
8 ◾ Creatively Lean

replied the receptionist. “Mr. Go called and said he was delayed for 30
minutes or so. He sent his apologies and asked if you could wait for him.
Please make yourselves comfortable here in the lobby.”
Carlo and Linda chose a couch in the small waiting area. “This looks like
a great time to catch up,” said Carlo, taking off his jacket, “and to talk about
this project.”
“How did you get involved in this?” asked Linda.
“I got a call from a friend of mine who told me that this company was
looking to improve their ability to innovate, and that she had recommended
me as creativity coach for their executive team. I have to say I was surprised
to get the call, as I had heard that Global Plumbing Supply had been starting
a lean deployment, and as much as I admire the kind of stuff you do, I have
never had a company that is deploying lean also ask about creativity.”
Linda chuckled. “That might be the case, but maybe we can change
things with this project. I was the one who suggested to Brandon that we
build creative thinking into this lean deployment because I’m finding that
my clients struggle with the kind of deep thinking that lean requires.”
She handed Carlo an envelope. “Here is a briefing about GPS, and some
background about the lean deployment. Look at it later. I’m glad you’re on
board. It is going to be fun to work together at last!”
“I never thought when we took that class together that we might work
together some day,” said Carlo. “I mean, lean thinking and creative thinking
are really almost polar opposites.”
Linda raised an eyebrow. “Carlo, how much do you know about lean
thinking?”
“To be completely honest, not a lot. I know it is about quality control
and manufacturing, standardization, things like that. Important, but not
necessarily creative.”
Linda raised the other eyebrow.
Carlo caught her look. “But since we seem to have some time on our
hands, and since we’re going to be working with each other, I think I need
to learn more.”
“As I do about creative thinking,” replied Linda. “Although I know enough
to recommend you join this project!”
“I’m ready to listen,” said Carlo, “if you’re ready for my questions.
Pretend I don’t know anything (which wouldn’t be too far off ). What is lean
thinking?”
 A Meeting in the Parking Lot ◾ 9

“Thanks for asking,” Linda replied. “Everyone who is involved in lean

in some way has their own preferred definition and visual model. You
can think of this as Linda’s definition of lean and lean thinking. I define
lean as a socio-­technical system for developing and managing people in
organizations so that they can solve problems and continuously improve
the organization to deliver value to customers. Lean is modeled on the
business practices of Toyota and other organizations that have pursued
‘lean.’ Practicing lean results in reduction of waste and increased customer
satisfaction.”
“Hold on a moment,” said Carlo, who was taking notes. “I know
something about socio-­technical systems, but how are you defining that?”
“Good question,” Linda replied. “I tell people this: ‘Socio-­technical’ means
that lean involves people and their interactions, as well as technical tools.
How people work with each other, coach each other, listen to each other,
respect each other, and especially develop each other is critical to lean. And
…” Linda paused, reflecting on something.
“And?”
“And the funny thing is, we’re often taught the technical side of lean long
before the people side is elucidated. In my lean training, the first this I was
taught was 5S, a tool for workplace organization. It was only later in my
career that I realized the real purpose of the tool was to give managers the
opportunity to develop their employees to be able to solve problems that
interfered with having materials always ready. I totally missed the point for
about five years.”
“Why do you think that was?” asked Carlo.
“I’m not completely sure, although I believe it is partly because people
(and that includes me) like to have easy answers, and don’t always want
to think too deeply. Or we’ve been conditioned to think that we’re not
expected to think deeply at work – we should focus on getting work done.
But I came to realize that what I was studying and practicing and eventually
teaching wasn’t just ‘lean’.” Linda made air quotes as she said “lean.” “What it
really was, was ‘lean thinking.’ ”
“Which is?”
“Lean thinking is the thinking style of people who have been developed
in a lean organization to see and solve organizational problems to deliver
value to customers. Lean thinking can be learned and developed. And then I
came to this realization: that the purpose of a lean system, is not to ‘reduce
waste’ or ‘improve flow of value to the customer.’ ”
“It’s not?” asked Carlo.
10 ◾ Creatively Lean

Figure 1.1 The Purpose of the Lean System.

“Not at all. The purpose of the lean system is to develop people who can
reduce waste and improve the flow of value to the customer.”
“And then I realized, it doesn’t matter what business someone is in.
Whether someone develops software, works in a bank, makes automobiles,
teaches high school students,” Linda looked around the lobby, “even if they
run a plumbing supply company. They can use lean tools to improve their
organization. But they won’t do anything sustainable until they start to
develop people to be lean thinkers.”
“And who are lean thinkers?”
“Lean thinkers are people who can see and solve problems. They may
be good at using lean tools, or they may never use a ‘lean tool.’ What they
excel at is using the scientific method to make observations about problems
that need to be solved, create hypotheses on the root causes and solutions,
test the solutions, and implement them.”
“You know,” said Carlo, “this is fascinating to me. My work is all about
solving problems, especially problems that require innovative solutions. I
can see now why you wanted to include creative thinking in this work. But
I use a very specific problem-­solving methodology, which I suspect is not
the same one used in lean thinking. Tell me about how you solve problems
as a lean thinker.”
“The lean problem-­solving process is basically the scientific method:
make an observation, create a hypothesis, do some experiments to test
the hypothesis, and update the hypothesis based on the results of the
experiments. We capture this process as ‘Plan-­Do-Check-­Act.’ ”
 A Meeting in the Parking Lot ◾ 11

Figure 1.2 The Scientific Method and PDCA.

Carlo snapped his fingers and leaned forward. The receptionist looked
over to see what was going on. “Oh sorry,” Carlo said to the receptionist. “I
got a little over-­excited here.” He turned back to Linda. “PDCA, isn’t that the
Deming cycle? I have heard of that.”
“That’s right,” Linda replied. “Except W. Edwards Deming called it the
Shewhart cycle. But what’s important is that a lean thinker is always learning
how to perform PDCA better. All the lean tools were developed and
improved using PDCA.”
The receptionist called out to them. “Mr. Go is ready to see you now. Do
you need directions?”
“I know my way,” said Linda. “Come on, Carlo, I think you’re going to
like Brandon.”
They walked down a hallway and into an office area. A man in his mid-­
thirties was walking toward them with his hand outstretched. “Linda, great
to see you. So sorry I had to keep you waiting. And this must be Carlo. I’m
really looking forward to meeting you and learning about creative thinking.
Linda speaks very highly of you!”
Brandon’s office was not what Carlo expected for a CEO’s office. They
sat at a conference table; there was no desk. The office was small, and there
were boxes of plumbing parts stacked in one corner.
Brandon spent a few minutes reviewing Global Plumbing Supply’s history.
He had inherited the company from his parents, just when he was about to
start his MBA program. Since his parent’s unexpected deaths, he had built
the company from a regional to a national supplier, with significant increases
in revenue. But as the company had grown, silos had developed, costs had
increased, and while income continued to be strong, the operating margin
12 ◾ Creatively Lean

had dropped precipitously. They had started to move the company from
paper-­based to digital processes, but that seemed to result in more rather
than fewer problems. In the middle of this situation, Brandon had read a
book about lean that he had picked up while delayed in an airport. “That
was the best travel delay of my life!” he exclaimed. He had hired Linda’s
company to help GPS start their lean journey, and Linda had recommended
that they bring Carlo into the project.
“So, Carlo, what is this Creative Problem Solving that Linda thinks can
help us?”
Carlo was glad that he had forgotten his umbrella and that he and Linda
had been able to chat in the lobby.
“As Linda was just reminding me, lean thinkers are getting better and
better at seeing and solving problems. But what happens if the problem
they need to solve requires new thinking? While lean was being developed
at Toyota, Creative Problem Solving (CPS) was being developed in the US.
CPS is a proven method for approaching a problem or challenge in an
imaginative and innovative way.”1
Carlo noticed that Brandon had a whiteboard in his office. “Do you mind
if I write on your board?”
“No problem. Go ahead.”
Carlo stood up and grabbed a marker.
“Like PDCA, the CPS approach has distinct steps for solving a problem
and each of those steps uses divergent thinking and convergent thinking.
Are you familiar with those terms?”
Brandon shook his head. “I mean, I could probably define them in general,
but I want to hear it from you as they relate to creative problem solving.”
Carlo wrote “Guidelines for Divergent Thinking” on the board. “Divergent
thinking is the process of creating many options before evaluating them. For
divergent thinking to flourish, CPS practitioners follow these guidelines:” He
wrote, Defer Judgment, Combine and Build, Seek Wild Ideas, and Go for
Quantity on the board under Guidelines for Divergent Thinking.

GUIDELINES FOR DIVERGENT THINKING

Defer Judgment
Combine and Build
Seek Wild Ideas
Go for Quantity
 A Meeting in the Parking Lot ◾ 13

“I’ll explain each one.

“Defer Judgment is waiting to decide if an idea or option is good, bad,
or indifferent until a good list of ideas or options has been generated.”
Brandon nodded his head. “This helps with one of the problems we’re
having teaching PDCA to people. Everyone seems to get stuck at the
first idea they have, and they either love it and try to implement it
immediately or someone says, ‘that won’t work here,’ and they give up.
What’s next?”
“Combine and Build – we realize that most great ideas are the
combination or restructuring of other ideas, and we strive to combine ideas
and build them together.”
Brandon indicated the boxes of plumbing parts in the corner. “So true! Every
one of those parts is evolved from other parts or the combination of parts. I
can see how important that is. Tell me about seeking wild ideas.”
“Seek Wild Ideas – Going beyond the usual ideas or options to come up
with ideas that are not common, that give or use a new perspective. Being
playful and sometimes even silly.”
Brandon frowned. “Okay … that is harder to understand in a business
context. Plumbing is not a silly business, despite all the jokes people make
about plumbers.”
Carlo nodded sympathetically. “It is hard to grasp when we think what
we’re doing is serious. But in situations where we need to solve a problem
with no apparent solution, the wild idea might be the right idea. I’ll give you
an example from when the Wright Brothers were developing the airplane.
They started out using boat propellers as prototypes. But the fluid dynamics
of water are very different from air, and boat propellers didn’t work. Then
the Wright brothers had the idea to think of the propellers as rotary wings,
that could create lift and thrust, rather than a push, as a boat propeller does.
Crazy to think of putting more wings on a biplane that already had wings,
right? But once they allowed themselves to think that wild idea, they were
able to shape propellers that worked.”
“Makes sense,” said Brandon. “And the last rule for divergent thinking?”
“Go for Quantity – The first 5 or 10 or 20 ideas or options may not be
innovative. Stretching the mind to generate dozens of options or ideas, even
if it takes a little longer, will be beneficial.”

Brandon looked at Linda. “That seems like an important thing to do when

we have people getting stuck for ideas to solve problems. Does Creative
Problem Solving have techniques to help people do this?”
14 ◾ Creatively Lean

Carlo smiled. “CPS has dozens of tools to help individuals and groups
generate longer, better, more creative lists of options and ideas.”
“So, then what do you do once have that long list of ideas? I can foresee
us getting just as stuck deciding on which idea to move forward.”
Carlo was happy to answer this. “Divergent thinking isn’t enough.
Simply generating lots of ideas or options won’t help you solve a problem.
Convergent thinking is required to evaluate ideas, narrow down your list,
strengthen ideas, and make good decisions about what goes forward. Like
divergent thinking, there are guidelines for convergent thinking. These were
developed by Scott Isaksen and Don Treffinger and proposed in their book
Creative Problem Solving: The Basic Course in 1982.”2
Carlo wrote on the whiteboard: Be Deliberate; Check Your Objectives;
Improve Your Ideas; Be Affirmative; Consider Novelty.

GUIDELINES FOR CONVERGENT THINKING

Be Deliberate
Check Your Objectives
Improve Your Ideas
Be Affirmative
Consider Novelty

“Allow me to explain.
“Be Deliberate – After spending a long time coming up with options, it is
a temptation to choose options quickly and without a fair consideration of
each. You should undertake this deliberately and allow enough time.
“Check Your Objectives – It is easy to lose sight of why you’re solving a
problem. Validate that the choices being made are ones that impact your
objectives.”
“That’s what we do in our A3s, right, Linda?” queried Brandon.
“Exactly!” Linda responded.
Carlo continued. “Improve Your Ideas – Any idea or option may ‘need work’
before being ready to move forward. Don’t discount the idea that isn’t quite
ready. Take time to improve it.
“Be Affirmative – Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. Stay
positive to improve your thinking.
“Consider Novelty – If you’re using CPS, it is most likely because you need
innovation. Don’t throw out the most unusual ideas rashly. Spend time with
 A Meeting in the Parking Lot ◾ 15

them to see their value, improve them, perhaps rework them.”

“Yeah, I can understand that. It would do no good to come up with wild
ideas if we throw them out immediately.”
Carlo continued. “CPS also has dozens of tools to help the lean thinker
practice effective convergent thinking. And each tool has a specific purpose,
depending on your needs. Some tools help you strengthen ideas, others help
you prioritize, and others help to evaluate or compare ideas.”
Brandon stood up. “This is great. Linda, thanks so much for bringing
Carlo in. I think adding CPS tools to our lean deployment is going to help us
solve problems better. I’m looking forward to learning how the two of you
put this together for us.”
“With you” said Linda. “Not for you.”
“Right,” said Brandon. “With us.”

Practice This Today

Observe yourself as you go through your day: what is your “gut”
reaction to change and new ideas? Are you excited, or does your mind
immediately jump to problems? Do you defend your ideas at the expense
of other people’s ideas? Why do you think you react the way you do?
Can you really trust your gut?

Notes
1. www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/creative-­problem-solving/.
2. Isaksen, Scott G., and Treffinger, Donald J., Creative Problem Solving: The
Basic Course (New York: Bearly Ltd, 1985).
Chapter 2

One of Those Surprise

Meetings

“Did you hear?” asked Georgia, in an ominous tone, as she pushed the
button on the coffee machine. “We have a new corporate initiative.” It was
only 7:30 a.m., but it was clear that this was not Georgia’s first cup of coffee.
“Do you want to hear it from me, or do you want to wait until the staff
meeting this afternoon?” As their Director’s administrative assistant, Georgia
was often the first to hear news, and the first to share it.
Beth suppressed a sigh. She wanted to get to her desk and get started so
she could leave a little early to get to her son’s soccer game. It was clear that
Georgia was eager to share the news, and it might be better to get it out of
the way.
“What staff meeting? I didn’t see it on my calendar.”
Georgia smirked. “That is because this is one of those ‘surprise’
meetings.” She used air quotes with the word “surprise.” “Roberta asked me
to send it out first thing this morning.” Georgia leaned into stage whisper.
“We’re going to start doing lean.”
“What does that mean?” asked Beth.
Georgia’s tone dropped even lower. “You know business hasn’t been
great recently. Lean usually means ‘Less Employees Are Needed.’ If I were
you, I would brush up on my resumé.”
Georgia spotted Edric, Beth’s colleague, down the hall. “I’d better clue
Edric in. See you this afternoon.”
This had started out to be a good day. Beth’s ex had dropped her son
off in time for the 7:00 “early” school bus, and traffic had been light on
the way to Global Plumbing Supply’s Philadelphia headquarters. But now

17
18 ◾ Creatively Lean

Beth’s mood was sinking. As assistant director for US operations, she

knew enough about the numbers to realize Georgia was correct about
the state of their business. She had only been in her role in Roberta’s
leadership team for a year, and if people were going to be let go, she
really couldn’t claim any seniority. But she had too much to do this
morning to work on her resumé.
Back at her desk, she opened her email, and saw the staff meeting
appointment for 2 p.m. Georgia had sent it on behalf of Roberta, the Director
of Sales and Customer Fulfillment, and all of Roberta’s direct reports were
invited. It was only scheduled for 30 minutes, so there was still a chance
that she could leave by 3:30 for the soccer game at 4 p.m. She pressed
“accept” and then spent 10 minutes rescheduling a previous meeting.
As usual, her inbox was full of mail, even though she had cleared it
while her son was doing homework the night before. Before she could get
started, an instant message popped up on her screen.

Mo Khan: Hi boss. You got a moment?

Beth knew if Mo, the supervisor of the contact center was messaging her, it
was probably important. She replied quickly.

beth brickell: For you, always! What’s up?

Mo Khan: We have an issue in the contact center. Can I call you?
beth brickell: You bet. Call my mobile.

As soon as her phone rang, she answered it. “Good morning to you, Mo!”
Mo groaned. “Likewise. Listen, things are a little out of hand here this
morning.” Beth knew that their main customers, plumbers, started their days
early, and by 7:30, many were already on the job, and calling about parts
they needed. “You know that we have started to use a new online ordering
system, right? Customers can use their phones to order parts, and that is
supposed to reduce the number of calls to the contact center. Guess what?”
“What?”
“We’re getting more calls. More calls, not less. The past week has been
so bad that we have a backlog of calls – people who left messages who we
have to call back. That means the contact center employees can’t take calls.
So, we’re getting more of a backlog.”
“And I’m guessing that the people you’re calling back are not happy
because their call went to voicemail.”
 One of Those Surprise Meetings ◾ 19

Mo sighed. “You got it. But that’s not all. This morning three of my folks
called in sick. I don’t know if it’s the flu or stress, but that backlog is getting
worse.”
“Mo, what can I do to help?”
“Beth, I hate to ask this, but I’m going to need permission to hire some
temps – maybe even some more permanent employees to get through
this.”
“We don’t have budget for that.”
“I’m afraid we’re going to lose customers if we don’t solve this problem.
We need more people. At least until the bugs in the app are worked out.”
Beth knew that she was going to have to talk to Roberta about this.
She quickly checked Roberta’s calendar to see if there was an open spot,
but there was nothing available until 4:30 p.m., and that would mean she
wouldn’t be able to get to the soccer game.
“Mo, let me see what I can do. I don’t have budget, but maybe Roberta
does. I will send her an email, but she usually doesn’t respond to email for a
couple of days. But I will do everything I can to get you an answer today. Is
there anything else I can do?”
“You wanna come answer some calls?”
“I wish I could, but I’m not trained for contact center anymore, and I have
my own backlog.” She could tell Mo was frustrated. “I’m really sorry. Tell the
crew I have their backs.”
Beth sent an instant message to Georgia to ask her to hold the 4:30 p.m.
slot on Roberta’s calendar for her, but Georgia didn’t respond. Beth sent
Roberta a calendar appointment, hoping either Roberta or Georgia would
see it. She knew better than to instant message or call Roberta. Roberta was
not, as she put it, “an IM person,” and rarely answered her phone.
Beth turned her attention back to her own backlog of email. There
were customer complaints that she had been copied in on, notifications of
corporate required training that she was late on, calendar appointments that
needed to be accepted, which meant she had to prioritize and reschedule
existing appointments. Clearly, a lot of people had been working from home
last night, sending emails, and setting up meetings.
“I know how the contact center folks feel,” she thought to herself. “I
need a sick day.” A notification appeared on her screen telling her she had a
meeting in five minutes. She had only been at work an hour, but she could
tell it was going to be a long day.
Beth felt almost sick as she entered the conference room for the 2 p.m.
meeting. Was it concerns about what she would hear in the meeting, or
20 ◾ Creatively Lean

the sandwich she had snatched for lunch in between phone calls and
meetings? All day, the rumor mill had been pumping out worrying stories.
Beth had already heard from colleagues that all the permanent employees
in her contact center were going to be replaced with contractors in another
country, and that budgets for new projects were going to be slashed. Up to
25 percent of employees were going to be laid off, and to top it off, they
were going to have to pay for their coffee and all training and non-­sales
travel were going to be eliminated. Beth had tried to avoid the rumors, but
they had popped up in phone conversations, in instant messages, and in the
restroom.
It seemed that others in the meeting shared her anxiety. The mood in
the room was solemn, and people were avoiding eye contact with their
colleagues.
At 2:03, Roberta swept into the room and took her place at the head of
the conference table. She was smiling and relaxed, and warmly greeted her
direct reports. Georgia sat in a chair in the corner, thumbing through her
phone.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for making time for this meeting.
Let me check that everyone is here.”
Beth glanced around the room. All seven of Roberta’s direct reports for
US sales and customer fulfillment, including Georgia, were in their seats. To
Beth’s left was Bob O’Toole, the Southeast area sales manager. Bob had his
laptop open, and Beth could see he was looking at LinkedIn. Next to Bob
was Marisol Rivera, who was responsible for the Southwest. Marisol also had
her laptop open. She was working on a spreadsheet and had at least five
IM windows open. To Marisol’s left, was Beth’s closest work friend, Keisha
Cobb, who managed the parts warehouse. Keisha reported to Beth and was
invited to Roberta’s staff meetings because the company considered her to
be a high-­potential employee. Rounding out the group was Edric Santos,
the area manager for the Northeast and the Midwest, and Judy McEntire, the
area manager for the Northwest. Judy and Edric, who had started at Global
on the same day more than 20 years ago, were whispering to each other,
but stopped when Roberta spoke.
“I’m so glad I could have this meeting on a day when you’re all in the
office,” Roberta started. It was unusual that all the area managers were
in. They each supervised a team of salespeople in their regions and were
frequently “on the road.”
“I have some exciting news to share. As you know, the Directors have
been at an off-­site meeting for the past week, and I’m looking forward to
 One of Those Surprise Meetings ◾ 21

giving you some insight into a new direction we’re taking as a result of
that meeting.” She glanced around the room. “Everyone, please close your
laptops and phones – I want your full attention for this.
“Six months ago, as you’re probably aware, the executive team performed
a review of the business.” Beth remembered when there had been
consultants in the building. She had been interviewed and asked for metrics
from her area. The consultants disappeared as quickly as they came, and
Beth had not thought about them since.
Roberta continued. “The review identified areas of strength and areas that
need to improve.” Beth held her breath. The problems in the contact center
were well known and had only gotten worse since the implementation of
the online ordering system. Maybe the rumor about outsourcing the contact
center was true.
Roberta handed out some papers that were stacked in front of her.
“This will help you understand what was found in the review, and the
areas for improvement. As I pass this out, it is important that we talk about
confidentiality.”
Beth knew what was coming next. As Roberta’s direct reports, each
with their own staff, there were topics and information that they were not
to share with their staff. The information on these sheets of paper was
something they would be told not to share.
“For the next couple of weeks, this information is company confidential
– not to be shared outside the company. However, I expect you to share this
with your staff in the next couple of days. I will meet with you before you
meet with our staff and I would be happy to join your staff meeting if you
need me to.”
Beth looked at the paper. It was large, ledger-­size, and had the name
of the CEO, Brandon Go, on the top line. The title was “Improving
Performance of Global Plumbing Supply.”
Roberta was handing out a second sheet. This one had Roberta’s name
on it and was entitled “Improving Performance of Sales and Fulfillment.”
Unlike Brandon’s document, this one had several blank sections.
“These.” said Roberta, “are A3s.” She smiled broadly. “They are tools
to help us on our improvement journey. Let’s take a look at Brandon’s A3
first.
“As you can see, Brandon is setting out some ambitious goals for us.
Much of the time at the off-­site was reviewing and discussing these goals
with him, so that each Director understands them, and buys into them, and
sees how our departments can contribute.
22 ◾ Creatively Lean

“The five goals are:

1. No safety incidents.
2. Improve employee engagement by 50 percent.
3. Improve net promoter score to 80.
4. Bring five innovative new offerings to market.
5. Increase operating margin to 10 percent.”

Beth put her hand up. “Roberta, I need to ask a question.” Roberta nodded.
“I’m sure you have lots of questions. I did when I saw this – or the first
version of this that Brandon shared with us.”
Beth paused for moment. She wanted to ask her question carefully, so
she didn’t betray her anxiety.
“These all look great, but doesn’t achieving Number 5 mean that we can’t
achieve the others?”
Roberta leaned forward. “Tell me more about what you’re thinking.”
“Our operating margin is only around 3 percent now. Our biggest cost
driver is salaries and benefits. So, to increase the net margin, we will have to let
people go.” Beth’s mouth was suddenly very dry. “And if we let people go, that
will mean the employee engagement for the remaining employees will sink.
And turnover will go up among the remaining employees. And that will create
customer service and safety issues. So, I’m not getting it.” Glancing around the
room, she noticed that her colleagues were avoiding looking at her.
“Thanks, Beth, for that question.” Roberta chuckled. “I had the same
question. When we’re pushed on operating margin, we always cut costs, and
usually at the expense of people. But Brandon believes that we can grow
the top line and learn to manage the bottom line better. Some of that top
line growth will come from new offerings, but we can also contribute with
better sales and new services for our customers. Did you notice that these
are three-­year goals? We’re not expected to do this all at once. But we do
need to get started.”
In the next 20 minutes, Roberta reviewed Brandon’s A3 with her team,
and listened carefully to their input. Beth watched Roberta with awe. This
was seemingly a new Roberta. She was known as a brusque manager, quick
with decisions and typically did not seek feedback.
“That must have been some off-­site!” Beth thought to herself. “I wonder
how long this will last.”
As promised, the meeting ended by 2:30, and Roberta asked each person
to work with Georgia to find time on her calendar for a one-­on-one before
 One of Those Surprise Meetings ◾ 23

their own staff meetings. Beth was the last to leave the room. She wanted to
catch Roberta and let her know about the requested meeting to discuss the
contact center staffing issues.
“We don’t need to meet,” said Roberta. “You know I don’t have budget for
more headcount. I would like you to go and spend the day in the contact
center tomorrow and see what is really happening there.”
Beth’s heart sank. This was the old Roberta, quick with a decision, even
if it wasn’t well-­thought-out.
“I have several important meetings tomorrow. It is not a good day
for me.”
Roberta looked Beth in the eyes. “There is nothing more important right
now than you going to see what is really happening there. Cancel those
other meetings. I have your back on that. And on Wednesday, meet me in
my office at 10 a.m. I hired some coaching help for you, and you need to get
acquainted. Oh, and Beth, how is Connor’s soccer going?”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

How does the rumor mill operate in your organization? What does this
say about the level of interpersonal and interdepartmental trust? How
does it impact people’s ability to see and solve problems and be creative
and innovative? If there are a lot of rumors and stories, what are the
ways you can change the conversation?
Chapter 3

Carlo Meets the

Management Team

Linda and Carlo were sitting in the cafeteria waiting for a meeting with
Brandon and his management team. Again. Carlo didn’t mind. He enjoyed
having the time to sit and chat with Linda and learn more about lean and
her way of thinking about an organization. He could see that Linda wasn’t
quite as happy as he was to be kept waiting, but he thought she was happy
to learn from him as well.
“Linda,” he said, “I think stories are incredibly important. Is there a story
about lean that encapsulated the whole approach for you?”
“Wow, interesting question. Well, yes, there are several stories, but this is
one of my favorites.
A new Toyota employee was given a problem to solve. He eagerly
started to work on the problem, and in a few days, came up with
some countermeasures he wanted to try. He proudly showed his
manager, expecting accolades.
The manager grunted, ‘Hmmph. No good. Go back. Think
deeper.’ ”
Carlo nodded his head. “That is surprising. And it is also very, I don’t know,
Zen. I could imagine a character in a martial arts movie – or maybe Yoda
saying that.”
“Is it?” asked Linda. “Surprising? And I think Yoda would say, ‘Think
deeper, you must.’ ”
Carlo chuckled. “He would! It is surprising to me because I’m so used to
encouraging people. And I think I would be surprised to hear an American

25
26 ◾ Creatively Lean

manager say that. They might tell the employee what is wrong with their
solutions, or what the right answer is. Both of which, incidentally, would
impact the employee’s desire and ability to bring new ideas forward.”
“Exactly.” Said Linda. “Exactly.”
They saw Brandon waving to them. “I guess it’s showtime,” said Carlo,
waving back.
Brandon’s direct reports were packed into his office. Today was the day
that Carlo was going to give them a briefing on creative thinking. Carlo
stood near the whiteboard. He wasn’t a fan of slide presentations and had
decided to speak from the heart and used the whiteboard to illustrate his
points.
He started with his usual opening. “I can’t go for five minutes in a
discussion on the need for innovation without someone telling the stories of
the organizations that failed to recognize that their market was shifting and just
didn’t innovate when they had to. You know the stories: Kodak, Blockbuster,
your local taxicab authority, your favorite bookstore, and the local coffee shop.
We know that continuous improvement is required just to stay in business, and
that it is better to be at the forefront of innovation rather than the organization
playing catch-­up. Does that make sense for your business?”
The leadership team nodded their heads. Carlo took that as license to
continue.
“Unfortunately, even though these stories are well known, creative
thinking is still not treated like a basic need or a basic skill even in lean
organizations.”
Brandon interrupted. “And we’re not a lean organization – yet.”
Carlo picked up a marker and drew on the whiteboard. “This is a
common formula or process for improvement. Tell me what you think of it.”
“You see a problem, you do some root cause analysis, which suggests a
solution (I call this ‘magic happens’), sometimes you test the solution, but
often you don’t, you implement the solution and it works.”
No one appeared to have questions, so he went on. “It doesn’t matter
what improvement approach you employ; you can fall into the ‘magic
happens’ trap. As you move through your problem-­solving approach, there
is a point at which you need to come up with potential solutions or, as
Linda would say, ‘countermeasures.’ ” He glanced around the room. Everyone
was leaning forward, expectantly. He continued. “We believe that examining
the problem, measuring it, determining the root causes will help us to find
the solutions. And I’ve seen magic happen, so I can attest to the fact that
magic does happen – sometimes. Sometimes analysis does suggest solutions
 Carlo Meets the Management Team ◾ 27

Figure 3.1 Magical Problem Solving.

and countermeasures to try, and if you’re lucky, some of them work and
are accepted. Or perhaps a good practice or tool from another company
or department will be just the thing your organization can implement with
success. You feel smart.”
A woman raised her hand. “Yes, but …”
Carlo nodded at her.
“But most of the time, magic doesn’t happen.”
“And what might be the reasons for that?” asked Carlo. “And remind me
of your name?”
“I’m Roberta, Director of Sales and Fulfillment. Perhaps you don’t have
good ways to measure the problem, and some problems don’t have readily
apparent solutions even after what seems like a well-­conducted analysis.”
Another director chimed in. “Linda has been teaching us a lot about
the importance of finding the root cause, but sometimes you can’t identify
solutions that address the root causes. I know we are supposed to test our
way to the right set of countermeasures, but it is not always clear even
where to start. What to try first. And my team is getting frustrated.”
Jeremy, the HR Director spoke up. “Well, sometimes the solution to the
root cause is obvious.”
28 ◾ Creatively Lean

Roberta nodded. “Or, Jeremy, we think it is obvious. But sometimes the

‘obvious’ solution is not one that that people can accept.”
Jeremy made a scoffing sound. “I would think that for most of the
problems in our business, there is a ‘best practice’ we can borrow. I don’t
know why we have to go and look to reinvent wheels all the time.”
“Jeremy has a good point,” said Linda. “That’s why I’m teaching you and
your employees a lot of lean thinking tools and concepts, because many
of the problems that you have are not particularly unusual.” A few people
laughed, nodding their heads. Linda continued. “Yes, you know what I
mean! But sometimes the best practice we had hoped to borrow fails in your
environment.”
Roberta had been listening intently. “We don’t want to just catch up to
our competition, we need to do better than them. So, we can’t just borrow
best practices all the time anyway. We are going to have to be more
innovative in our solutions. We can’t rely on waiting for magical thinking to
get to those innovative solutions.”
“That was great,” said Carlo. “Lots of reasons why magic might not
happen. And there is at least one more: Perhaps you just can’t figure out
what the real problem is that needs to be solved.” He noticed that Linda was
taking notes in the black notebook she carried everywhere with her.
“People and organizations who can’t make the ‘magic’ happen, despite
the strength of their tools for making problems visible and analyzing the
problems, will fall behind those who understand how the magic really
works. The magic starts to work when we understand how to leverage our
intrinsic human ability for creative thinking.”

The magic starts to work when we leverage our human

ability for creative thinking.

One of the attendees laughed. “You do know that this is a plumbing supply
company, right, not an art studio?”
“I do,” Carlo replied. “And I have great faith in the creativity of plumbers
and the people who supply the parts they need. I know plumbers are
creative, because every time I go to a new hotel it takes me at least five
minutes to figure out how to turn the shower on. It’s always different.”
Everyone chuckled. “But I have great faith in you, plumbing supply people,
because everyone has some ability to be creative, and everyone can build
their skills for creativity.”
 Carlo Meets the Management Team ◾ 29

Linda raised her hand. “Carlo, do you mind if I weigh in here? I’d like to
offer a perspective from the ‘lean thinking’ side.”
“That would be great, Linda, thanks!”
Linda stood up. “When we think deeply as we define the problem, when
we think deeply as we work out how to measure it, when we think deeply
as we analyze our data, aren’t we more likely to address the correct issues?”
Carlo saw heads nod around the table.
“When we think deeply as we come up with countermeasures and
solutions, aren’t we more likely to arrive at the best ones?”
Brandon answered this time. “We need the best solutions, so we do need
to think better, more deeply.”
Linda continued. “When we think deeply when we implement our
changes, aren’t we’re more likely to be successful in making the change
happen?”
Another executive spoke up. “We’re not good at making and sustaining
changes.”
“Linda,” said Carlo, “why don’t you tell them the story you told me when
we were sitting in the cafeteria?”
Linda smiled. “OK.”

‘A new Toyota employee was given a problem to solve. He eagerly

started to work on the problem, and in a few days, came up with
some countermeasures he wanted to try. He proudly showed his
manager, expecting accolades.

The manager grunted, ‘Hmmph. No good. Go back. Think

deeper.’

Carlo saw that the meeting attendees looked puzzled. Linda kept going.
“If the result of lean thinking is the reduction of waste, isn’t it wasteful to
address the wrong problem, and to attempt to implement solutions and
countermeasures that have no chance to solve the real problem? How
might we ‘Go back and think deeper?’ Why don’t we think deeply? What’s
stopping us?”
There was silence in the room. Finally, Roberta spoke again.
“I have had some fantastic managers in my career. But I have never had a
manager say to me, ‘Hmmph, no good. Go back. Think deeper.’ ”
She looked at Brandon.
30 ◾ Creatively Lean

“I know I haven’t ever said that to someone,” Brandon mused. “I have

told people what I thought they should do instead. More than once.”
Carlo turned to Roberta. “Is that all that is stopping you from thinking
deeply? Not having been asked to?”
Brandon raised his hand.
“We move very fast in this business. We don’t have time to think deeply.”
“Okay,” said Carlo. “Do you have time to not think deeply? Can you
afford not to implement innovative solutions?”

Do you have time to NOT think deeply?

Everyone laughed.
“One of the main reasons that people don’t think deeply is that they don’t
know how. The Creative Problem-­Solving Process provides tools to use with
your lean problem-­solving approach to help you think deeper at every stage.”

Figure 3.2 The Rhythm of Divergent and Convergent Thinking.

 Carlo Meets the Management Team ◾ 31

Carlo erased “magic happens” from the whiteboard, changed some of

the wording in the boxes, and added “divergent thinking” and “convergent
thinking” to each step of the process.
“Deep thinking means creative thinking. Thinking creatively means:
Using DIVERGENT THINKING and CONVERGENT THINKING deliberately
and separately.”

Thinking creatively means using divergent thinking and convergent

thinking deliberately and separately.

“You’d better define that,” said Linda.

“Divergent thinking means coming up with multiple options. Convergent
thinking means deliberately choosing and strengthening options.
“This simple cycle of divergent and convergent thinking can be applied
to every step of your favorite improvement process. This cycle separates
the work of ideation from the work of judging ideas, allowing our brains to
focus energy on generative work and selective work, giving each its own
time in the process. We have plenty of ideas to work with, and we don’t kill
them before they have been properly reviewed and considered.”
Carlo looked around the room. He was happy to see that he still had
their full attention. “What questions do you have?” he asked.
Roberta raised her hand. “Can I talk to you about working with my
section? I have a direct report in mind who I think would benefit from this
as she starts to learn lean thinking. Her name is Beth Brickell.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

What are the top “intractable problems” your organization or team are
facing? Is your organization systematically addressing these problems
using effective innovation approaches and tools? How might you
change this?
Chapter 4

A Day in the Contact Center

The next day, Beth walked into the contact center at 7 a.m. She had given
Mo a heads up that she would spend the day with him and his team. “You
know, we’re not going to pretty things up for you,” he had said. “We’re
scrambling too much right now.”
The contact center was a large open “bullpen.” Monitors on the wall
showed the number of calls coming in, calls being answered, calls on hold,
and calls dropped or sent to voicemail. At 7 a.m., the plumbers on the East
Coast were just getting to their first jobs, and calls were light. Each contact
center employee had their own monitors and wore a headset. Even though
they were in an open workspace, they did not look at each other while on
a call.
Beth felt a little apprehensive. She had started in the contact center and
had risen to day shift supervisor before being promoted to Roberta’s team.
She used to be very familiar with contact center operations, but it had been
a long time since she had taken a call.
Mo met her at the door. “Hey, boss, what’s cooking?”
Beth smiled. It was great to see Mo in person. These days, Beth’s contact
with him was usually limited to teleconferences and IM chats, even though
they worked in adjoining buildings.
“You tell me.” She glanced around the room. “Doesn’t seem so crazy
right now.”
“Yeah, well, wait an hour. Then the customers will start to discover their
missing orders and defective orders from yesterday, and we’ll start getting
calls from guys out on jobs who need to order SKUs from the warehouse.”
Beth was puzzled. “I thought they were supposed to use the new online
ordering system and not call in any more for orders.”

33
34 ◾ Creatively Lean

“Some old dogs don’t want to learn new tricks. Some of our customers
don’t have smartphones or tablets. And some do, and tried the new
system, but don’t like it too much. There are definitely problems with it.”
Mo handed Beth a cup of coffee. “One cream, right? See, I remember!”
“Thanks, that’s right. So, what do you want me to do? Like I said
yesterday, I’m not trained on the new procedures, so I don’t think it is a
good idea for me to take calls.”
“It means a lot to the crew that you stopped by here and are interested
in our problems. But, to be honest, a couple of them were nervous about
you being here. I told them that you’re mostly harmless.” Mo indicated
an empty station. “I suggest you hang out here for a while, watch what is
going on and, in a little bit, you can listen in to some calls.”
Beth took a sip of the coffee and grimaced. “The coffee here still tastes
like despair.”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?”
Beth sat at the empty station and sipped her coffee. She didn’t really
know how she was going to observe what was happening around her.
The contact center employees were speaking into their headsets, and she
couldn’t hear much of what they were saying.
She decided to start with the spot she was sitting in. The person who
usually sat there had put up some pictures of their family on the low
wall on one side of the station. Two kids, both girls, appeared in several
pictures, obviously taken at successive ages. In one picture, they were
on a beach, in another, in front of a Christmas tree. A schedule of last
season’s Phillies games was tacked up next to the pictures. Several sticky
notes were attached to the monitor. One featured a hand-­drawn smiley
face and the instruction “SMILE!” The sticky note attached below read
in tiny handwriting, “even if you really are not feeling it.” Another note
stated, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!” with a picture of a martini glass.
The buzz in the room had picked up considerably. She noticed that all
the employees were now taking calls, and the large monitor at the front
of the room became more active, flashing green and red icons.
Mo came over to her. “Do you see it?”
“What?” The visual display had been put in six months ago, and
although she had been involved in approving it, and had come into the
contact center on the day it was launched, she had to admit she didn’t
understand what it was communicating.
“Customers are abandoning their call. It is only 7:30 a.m., and seven
customers who have been put on hold have hung up. They will probably
call back, but they won’t be happy.”
 A Day in the Contact Center ◾ 35

“How can you tell that?”

Mo walked with her over to the display. “See that red square flashing
there? That indicates that calls have been abandoned in the last 10 minutes.
I know it is seven because it says seven over here, which shows cumulative
abandoned calls for the shift. A couple of minutes ago, before the volume
picked up, it was 0.” He pointed to the other side of the board. The “7”
blinked for a second and changed to an “8.”
Beth was impressed. They had demonstrated the board on the day she
had visited, but she hadn’t paid much attention to it when she visited the
contact center after that.
“What do you do about that?” she asked.
“When the associates see the red square indicating that calls are being
abandoned, they are supposed to reduce their call handling time from 4
minutes to 3 minutes. That should help reduce the call wait time for other
customers and reduce call abandons – when a customer hangs up before
their call is answered.” Mo pointed to another set of numbers. “But as you
can see, the calls are not being closed within 4 minutes, never mind, 3
minutes.”
“Wow,” Beth said. “When I started in the contact center, we were
supposed to handle calls in 8 minutes.”
Mo smirked. “Welcome to the future! That would be a luxury we can’t
afford. We just have too much call volume to spend that amount of time on
calls. Except right now, our Average Handling Time is up to 7 minutes, and
we have had many calls last more than 20 minutes. That is why I need more
help.”
Beth felt a surge of embarrassment. “Mo, I had no idea how challenging
things were here. I wish you had brought this up in our one-­on-one
meetings.”
“Well, to be fair, we haven’t had a one-­on-one in several weeks. You
and I have both been swamped. On the other hand, I have given you some
hints.”
“That’s true, and I’m sorry I didn’t pay better attention. Roberta is
clear about no budget for additional heads. We’re going to have to get
creative.”
Mo was usually cheerful and friendly, but now he was scowling. “They
seem to have money for this new lean initiative. There are consultants and
coaches all over the place.”
“I guess that will run its course. I’m getting a coach, by the way. Maybe I
can get them to take a few calls!”
36 ◾ Creatively Lean

Beth wondered what to do next. “Mo, is there someone who would be

comfortable with me listening in on a call or two?”
The smile returned to Mo’s face. “I was ready for that. Julie would be
happy to let you listen in.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

What systems are you using to identify problems? What metrics? In what
ways are they helpful? In what ways are they not helpful?
Chapter 5

Carlo’s New Office

“Hey, Carlo!”
Carlo looked up from his laptop and saw Brandon rounding the corner
into the cafeteria. Brandon sat down at the table across from Carlo. “Is this
your office now?”
Carlo looked around. “I kind of like it here. I do have a cubicle assigned
to me, but this is better. Nice windows, as much coffee as I need all day,
and I get to see all the comings and goings. I like a little buzz in the
background. And Linda stops in here a lot too, so it’s easy to keep up to
speed with what she is working on.”
“Your way of going to the gemba, huh?”1
“You could say that. Hey, so what did your team think of that meeting?”
Brandon smiled. “We’re throwing a lot at them. Lean, CPS, new strategy. I
got some pushback afterwards about how they are not all that creative, and
they don’t see how this works. But not from everyone. Roberta was very
excited, and a couple of the others.”
Brandon took off his glasses. “Don’t let me leave these here. I think I
need more information about CPS to answer their questions. A lot of them
are very pragmatic and logical, and not so idealistic in their approach. Just
the word ‘creative’ makes them nervous.”
“Hmm. I have found that even the most pragmatic person is more often
swayed by emotion than fact, but I’d be happy to give you some science
behind CPS.” Carlo pulled a piece of paper out of his folder, in case he
needed to draw. He looked up at Brandon. “Are those new glasses?”
“Uh huh. Readers. I guess that goes with becoming a CEO.”
“Do you mind me asking how old you are?”
“Thirty-­five. Which is young for readers. And young for a CEO, I guess.”

37
38 ◾ Creatively Lean

“So, you’re not too old to remember being a kid. Do you have any children?”
A warm smile spread over Brandon’s face. “Yes, two. A little girl just
turning 3 and a 6-month-­old baby boy. They are amazing. Tiring, but
amazing. This is all for them – keeping the business going and growing.”
Carlo nodded. “A powerful incentive to turn things around. That is
beautiful. Tell me about your baby boy. Six months is a wonderful age. Is he
a learning expert?”
“I would say so. Six months ago, he was just completely dependent on
us. And now he can sit up, he can engage people – he ‘flirts’ with everyone
he meets, he is babbling, and he …” Brandon stopped. “I can go on and on
about him. And about my daughter.”
“And you’re within your rights to do that,” Carlo replied. “Dads are
supposed to be proud. But, look, it’s not just your kids, as wonderful as
they are. It’s what all humans are good at: learning. From the moment
we’re born, we’re learning experts. In around a year, we learn to walk,
and probably run. In a few more months toddlers master enough of their
native language to become a typical troublesome 2-year-­old, able to demand
things, make arguments, and get what they want – most of the time! Their
curiosity is boundless. They touch everything, taste everything – right? And
they experiment continually.”
“They do. That’s what makes them tiring!”
“Have you ever wondered what is happening as their brains develop?
They store memories, impressions, and experiences in their brains – the
chocolate tastes good, the stove is hot.”
Brandon interrupted. “My daughter was more cautious than my son.”
“Her brain was still soaking up memories and experiences. Just a
different personality type.”
“That is for sure,” replied Brandon.
“As babies experiment and learn, their brains work continuously to use
any negative memories and experiences to bolster the natural defense
mechanisms that evolution gave them to stay alive. This is the science part,
by the way. Deep within every human’s brain, a tiny region called the
amygdala retains negative memories. These negative memories, like the time
you touched a hot stove, or when someone yelled at you, are used to trigger
the so-­called ‘fight or flight’ response, to protect you from danger.”

The “fight or flight” response is intended to protect us from danger.

 Carlo’s New Office ◾ 39

Brandon mused out loud. “I’ve heard that the fight or flight response is a
‘primitive’ response, that we don’t need much now we live far away from
animals that can eat us.”
“That is a good way to think of it, though we still need it sometimes. And
you can often tell it is happening by physical changes. Your mouth gets dry,
your heart races, you might feel a twinge in your gut, or even nausea as your
digestion slows down. When it is triggered, we still want to fight things or
run away from them. You should know that the fight or flight response can
also be triggered by unfamiliarity of any kind. A new dish, a potential job
change, a new idea, can all result in a rush of hormones that we associate
with discomfort. If your gut is telling you that an idea is a bad idea, it may
not really be your gut – but your amygdala, which has triggered adrenaline to
course through your circulation and slow your digestion down!”
“And the impact of that on our creativity would be negative, right?” asked
Brandon.
“Yes, because creativity and innovation are all about newness, and we
can be wired to avoid, or try to kill, or run away from newness. It’s not a
bad character trait, by the way, and it can be overcome, when it interferes
with creativity.”
Carlo continued. “Think about your little boy. Does he like to drop things
from his highchair?
“Oh yes, he does. Our dog is getting fat!”
“Your son is being a scientist, testing that gravity works on all objects,
and testing to see what your response is, and probably the dog’s as well.
What is happening in that little head?”
“More brain science?”
“Yes, more brain science. When a child or an adult is engaged in creative
learning activities, another area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is highly
active, and the chemicals that are released cause pleasant sensations. Your
son is learning, and being creative, and he is also getting a good feeling,
good sensations, when he does that. Sometimes I feel as if adults, in their
routines, don’t experience that as much.”
“Not when I’m dealing with my emails, or the financial spreadsheets, but
I do know what that feels like.”
“When does that happen, Brandon?”
“Well, you might not believe this of a CEO of a plumbing supply
company, but I’m a pretty good bass guitar player. I don’t get to play much
anymore, kids, and work and all, but when I was in a band and we were
working up a new set – that was great. Time flew by, and I would feel
almost, you know, high.”
40 ◾ Creatively Lean

Figure 5.1 The Brain-Body Connection.

“I’m glad you can express that. If you pay attention to how your body
feels, you can gain some insight into what is happening in your brain.”
“For your pragmatic colleagues, understanding something about the
interplay between the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex and other regions
of the brain will help them understand how to build patterns that lead to
innovation, even in highly uncertain circumstances. The tools of Creative
Problem Solving will allow you to learn to keep your thinking in the
prefrontal cortex, so you can generate ideas, listen to other people’s ideas,
and choose ideas to carry forward.”
Brandon took the piece of paper that Carlo had ready to draw on and
made some notes on it. “Would it be fair to tell my pragmatists that the tools
of CPS help them to be more creative?”

Creative Problem Solving tools help you become more creative.

“You could, although there is more to becoming more creative than just
using a set of tools. The tools set you on the right path.”
“What else is needed?”
“You can help by giving your brain opportunities for making connections
and reaching insights, things like walking outside, stepping away from the
problem you’re trying to solve, using meditation and mindfulness practices.
You might find that getting back to your guitar playing will help too.”

Time away from the problem gives your brain space to make
connections and reach insights.
 Carlo’s New Office ◾ 41

“That might be a little too ‘woo-­woo’ for them,” said Brandon with a
mischievous smile.
“Little by little, we’ll get there. But you can make progress by feeding
your brain a wide range of information to make connections with. Outside
interests and hobbies are very important. Do you encourage your employees
to take time for themselves? You can help by showing interest in and valuing
their growth outside of work.”

To improve creativity, feed your brain a wide variety of information.

“And here’s another piece of science. In a study, the brains of rappers

were scanned while they were ‘freestyling.’ Most of the areas of the brain
that are involved in decision-­making appeared to be dormant, while the
medial prefrontal cortex, which usually gets little day-­to-day use, was highly
activated. That gives us a clue about when to make decisions – and it’s not
when we’re trying to think creatively. So, we’re right when we separate
divergent thinking from convergent thinking.”
“This was helpful, Carlo,” said Brandon. “Can I come see you in your
‘office’ another time?”
“You bet,” said Carlo. “Any time.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

Recall a time when you did not respond well to a new idea or a change
in your life. What did you feel physically? Now think about a time when
you were completely engaged in learning or creating something new.
How did you feel? What do you do to expand your knowledge outside of
your work environment? How might you enrich your learning outside
of work?

Note
1. Gemba is a Japanese word meaning the actual place where work is done.
Chapter 6

Listening into Calls

Mo took Beth to meet Julie. Beth had met her several times before and
knew that Mo considered her to be one of his best employees. They waited
while Julie completed a call and entered information about the call into the
computer.
“Julie, as I explained earlier, Beth is going to listen into a few of your
calls. She is not evaluating you; I just want her to hear the kinds of issues
we have been having in the past couple of weeks.” He indicated where Beth
was to sit and attached an additional headset to the phone. “Beth, please
check that your headset is muted on each call.”
Beth reached out to shake Julie’s hand. “Thank you for letting me do
this.” Julie shook her hand quickly and turned her attention to an incoming
call. She smiled as she greeted the customer.
“Good morning, Global Plumbing Supply, my name is Julie Jacobs. May I
have your name, please?”
The caller didn’t sound happy. “Richard Krauss. Need me to spell that?”
“Yes, please.”
“K-­R-A-­U-S-­S. Richard.”
“And do you have a customer number?”
“1536943344.” Julie entered the number into the computer. Beth could see
the customer’s account information appear on the screen.
“How may I help you today?”
“You can tell me where my order is. I ordered several parts four days ago,
and they didn’t arrive on the truck again this morning. I don’t know what is
up with you folks, but I can’t keep my customers waiting like this.”
Julie’s voice stayed calm. “One moment please while I review this issue.
May I put you on hold?”

43
44 ◾ Creatively Lean

“Sure. But I don’t have all day.”

Julie scrolled through the display on her screen. “Beth, look at this. Do
you see a recent order?”
Beth squinted at the monitor. “It looks like his last order was two weeks
ago. I’m not seeing anything more recent.”
Julie returned to her caller. “Mr. Krauss, do you have an order number?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I ordered with that new app.”
“It should be in a confirmation email you received when you completed
the order.”
“Okay, hang on. How do I look at my email when I’m talking on the
phone?”
“I don’t know what kind of phone you’re using, sir, but you can usually
open other apps and keep the call in the background.”
“Oh hell.”
“Mr. Krauss, I have your phone number as 267–555–3733. Is that correct?”
“Yeah.”
“I can call you back if we get disconnected.”
They heard some beeps and a muffled curse. “Okay, I got into my email.
I’m not seeing a confirmation email.”
“Please check your junk or spam folder.”
“Nope. Nothing. What does that mean?”
“Sir, I believe the order was not completed using the app. We don’t have
a record of it here. I would be happy to expedite an order for you if want to
make the order over the phone.”
“You’re telling me that the parts are not on their way? How the hell did
that happen?”
“If you give me the part numbers you need now, you will have them
tomorrow.”
“I don’t need them tomorrow! I need them two days ago! You idiots and
your stupid app! I’m losing money here!”
“Sir, please calm down. I will do my best to help you.” Julie’s voice was
still calm and friendly.
“Yeah, well, you suck and your app sucks and your company sucks.
You’re not going to help me anymore.”
The line went dead.
Beth looked at Julie who was entering information into the computer.
“Wow. That went bad fast.”
 Listening into Calls ◾ 45

Julie grimaced. “Less than three minutes! Good call handling time, right?
But not a happy customer.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Me? I just take the next call. Mr. Krauss is Mo’s problem now.” Julie
pressed a button on her phone and smiled.
“Good morning, Global Plumbing Supply, this is Julie Jacobs. May I have
your name, please?”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

Are you or your employees locked into standardized actions and
responses that don’t bring satisfaction to customers? How might you
bring creative thinking to your standardized processes?
Chapter 7

Beth Meets the Coaches

Beth went to Roberta’s office at 10 a.m., as requested, an extra-­large coffee in

hand. She had not slept well. Snippets of the day in the contact center kept
running through her mind. She felt mortified that she hadn’t known how
difficult things were in the contact center, despite Mo’s “hints” and requests
for more help. The problems with the on-­line app were worse than she had
anticipated, and despite the professionalism of the contact center staff, it was
clear that they were losing the confidence of their customers.
She was surprised to see not one, but two people sitting and chatting
with Roberta at the large oval table that Roberta used as a desk. She
hesitated outside the open door, but Roberta called her into the office, and
invited her to sit down.
“Beth, I’d like you to meet your new coaches.” Roberta indicated the
tall gray-­haired woman. “This is Linda Lomax, your lean coach, and this
gentleman is Carlo Cox, your CPS coach.”
Beth was speechless. She was already not happy at being told that she
“needed coaching” and needing two coaches was almost more than she
could believe. Still, she wasn’t going to let on her consternation, so she
shook each coach’s hand, and said she was pleased to meet them.
Roberta seemed to be genuinely happy.
“Beth, your area is key to our improvement. I’ve been thinking about
how to quickly build your skills as a lean leader and I’m just thrilled that
Carlo and Linda are available to work with you while I’m building my
own skills working with the sales groups. They have been wonderful
coaches and thinking partners to me in the past couple of weeks, so I feel
you’re in great hands. Linda and Carlo, I know you will enjoy working
with Beth.”

47
48 ◾ Creatively Lean

Linda spoke first. “I realize this is quite unusual, to have two coaches.
Carlo and I are good friends and colleagues and we have complementary
skill sets to share with you. It won’t be the same as being coached by your
manager, and, frankly, Carlo and I might not always agree, but we will
always be focused on you and your development. Sometimes we will meet
one-­on-one, and there may be times when all three of us meet, or even all
four us, including Roberta. We’ll do our best to meet your schedule and your
needs.”
Carlo picked up the conversation. He looked a little younger than Linda,
and although he was dressed in the business casual office uniform of a polo
shirt and khakis, Beth noticed that he had specks of what looked like oil
paint on his hands, and his hair was gathered in a neat ponytail. “You may
be wondering why Roberta wants you to have a Creative Problem Solving
coach as well as a lean coach. Linda and I think it is cool that Roberta wants
you to learn lean and the CPS tools. She must think a lot of you to make
this investment!”
Roberta leaned forward. “Beth, that is true. And I could leave you with
Linda alone and you’d be in good shape. But our business really needs
creative thinking and innovation, and I have found CPS to add a lot of value
to lean thinking. This is kind of an experiment, and I appreciate you being
willing to give it a try. At least, I hope you’re willing to give it a try.”
Linda chuckled. “Well, that’s very lean of you, Roberta, to look at this as
an experiment. And kind of you, Beth, to participate!”
Roberta leaned back in her chair. “Beth, what questions do you have?”
“Roberta, I appreciate your interest in my development, I really do. But
things are chaos right now. I don’t have time for coaching – never mind two
coaches.”
Roberta looked a little stunned. “As you can see, you can always count
on Beth for an honest and heartfelt response.”
The two coaches smiled sympathetically. Linda leaned in toward Beth.
“Coaching is a two-­way street, Beth. Yes, you will need to put time into the
coaching sessions and into work that the sessions may indicate. I assure
you that Carlo and I will work with you to make sure that what you’re
learning and developing is directly applicable to the problems you’re trying
to solve. We will never tell you an answer, but we will help you frame and
understand the problems and find good solutions.”
“Creative solutions!” added Carlo.
Linda continued. “Ultimately, it is your choice, not Roberta’s as to whether
you agree to this arrangement. You will always be in the driver’s seat.”
 Beth Meets the Coaches ◾ 49

Figure 7.1 Coaching.

Roberta stood up. “I think Beth should try this for a week or two, and
then decide. She doesn’t know what she is objecting to.”
Beth saw Linda make a note in her notebook.
“It is still Beth’s decision,” Carlo said. “Beth, just so you know, while
Roberta is the sponsor in this arrangement, our conversations will not be
shared with her. Unless there is something you would like to be shared.
And, please, if there are questions you would like to ask without Roberta in
the room, we can arrange that.”
Strangely, Roberta did not appear to be bothered by Carlo’s statement.
She was standing by the door, awaiting a decision from Beth.
“No, it’s fine,” said Beth. “We can do a couple of weeks as an experiment,
right? When do we start?”
Linda handed her a slip of paper. “I am teaching an Introduction to Lean
Thinking class next week. It meets every morning from 8 to 12. We will
start the coaching the week after.”
“Every day next week?” Beth looked at Roberta. “Am I expected to attend
every session?”
Linda also looked at Roberta.
Roberta’s face looked more like the “old Roberta.” She was losing
patience. “Participation in coaching is your decision, Beth, but training is
not. I expect you to be there.”
Beth thought of all the meetings, emails, conference calls on her calendar
next week. It was going to mean long days of catching up once she got
home every night.
“I’ll be there,” she said.
50 ◾ Creatively Lean

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

As you go through your day, notice how often you make “judgment
calls.” Do you think you’re stopping your own creative ideas before they
have a chance? Are you missing opportunities?
Linda says that coaching is a two-­way street. What does that mean to
you? Who is coaching you? Who are you coaching?
Chapter 8

Beth’s First Coaching Session

Beth was right. Attending the lean training class set her work schedule
back considerably. The sessions themselves were interesting, and Linda did
a good job of keeping the training focused and fun, but the emails kept
coming in, multiple meetings had to be rescheduled, and Beth felt guilty
about not helping Mo with the problems in the contact center. By the end
of the week, she began to wonder whether any of the topics covered in the
class could be applied at Global Plumbing Supply. Linda stressed the need
for leaders to be “at the gemba” with their employees and for improvement
to become a daily habit. Beth just didn’t see how she could squeeze
visits to the areas she supervised, daily stand-­up meetings, and multiple
improvement projects into her packed schedule.
This meant that she missed Connor scoring a goal in his soccer game on
Saturday because she was looking at email on her phone, and she stayed
up late Sunday night trying to figure out budget issues that made no sense
to her. By Monday, when she sat down with Linda and Carlo for her first
coaching session, she was feeling stressed and uncooperative.
They met in Roberta’s office (Roberta was at an off-­site meeting). Linda
was already there when Beth arrived, but Carlo was not. Linda and Beth
made small talk until Carlo appeared, carrying three cups of coffee.
“Looks like we’re ready to start.” Beth said, as soon as Carlo sat down.
“Great!” said Linda and Carlo together. They looked at each other and
started laughing.
“We’d better stick to one person talking at a time,” said Carlo, perhaps
picking up on Beth’s lack of amusement. “Linda, why don’t you go first?”
“Agreed.” said Linda. “Beth, our meeting today is essentially a contracting
meeting. In this meeting, we will hear your goals for this coaching

51
52 ◾ Creatively Lean

engagement, what our mutual responsibilities will be, work out logistical
details like how and when we should meet.”
“I don’t understand,” said Beth. “I thought Roberta contracted you.”
Linda smiled. “That is true, Roberta is the sponsor of this engagement,
and Carlo and I have contracts that describe our business relationship with
Roberta and your company. Also, we want to make sure that the work we
do with you meets your needs, so we’re going to contract that with you
today. We think it will help us all to have that clarity.” Linda turned to Carlo.
“Carlo, do you want to add anything?”
“No, I’m all for clarity.”
Linda turned to Beth again. “Beth, what are your goals for the coaching?”
Beth grimaced “Can I be honest?”
“We like honesty as much as we like clarity,” said Carlo. “Right, Linda?”
“Go for it, Beth,” Linda responded.
“This coaching seems like a real added burden right now. My goal would
be to have it take as little time as it can and for it to disrupt my work as little
as possible. I’m flattered that Roberta wants me to be coached – at least I
think I’m flattered, and I do very much want to develop as a leader, but I
can’t think of a worse time for this to be added to my plate.”
Linda smiled at Beth. “Beth, I think you’re fantastic!” Carlo was nodding
his head. “I think I can speak for Carlo when I say that we’re deeply
appreciative of your honesty, and your trust in sharing that with us.”
Carlo nodded his head in agreement again. “I completely concur with
that. And please be assured, as we said when we first met, that we will not
share the content of our conversations with Roberta.”
Linda leaned forward. “What did you think of the lean training?”
“Well, I thought it was pretty interesting, and a lot of it makes sense, and
I would love to see lean happen here, but given how difficult things are
right now, I feel the same way about the lean stuff as I do the coaching. It
seems like a big burden to add to everything else that is going on.”
“Thank you for that!” said Linda. “Was there anything you learned that
seemed as if it could be helpful?”
“Hmm, I liked the way you talked about lean leadership. I wish we
had more leaders who thought that way. You know, who are focused
on supporting and developing their people so their people can focus on
solving problems. I aspire to that sort of leadership, but a lot of stuff gets in
the way.”
Carlo opened a notebook. “Can you tell us more?”
 Beth’s First Coaching Session ◾ 53

“In the training, Linda talked a lot about how lean is about reducing
waste in the organization and increasing customer value, and that the
best way to do that is have the people who are doing the work solve the
problems that cause the waste. That means that their leader’s job is to coach
them to see and solve the problems. But that’s not how my job as a leader
works.”
“For example?” prodded Carlo.
“For example, in the training, Linda talked about the importance of going
to where the work is actually happening. But my time is so limited that
I rarely have the chance to do that.” Beth stopped and thought for a few
moments. “I did have a chance do that, the week before last. I spent the
day in the contact center, and I have to say I learned a lot. But I didn’t really
know what to do with what I learned, and I didn’t see how me being there
helped the employees. I think I made some of them nervous. And then I
missed a day of other work I should have been doing, and then I got even
more behind because I went to the lean training, so I haven’t followed up
on that visit.”
Carlo nodded. “Interesting.” He leaned back in his chair and looked at the
ceiling for a moment. “I heard you say you aspire to ‘that kind of leadership.’
I also heard you say that there is a lot of stuff stopping you right now. Is that
fair?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“I wonder if this might be a goal for our coaching sessions: ‘It would be
great if Beth were a leader who is able to help her employees see and solve
problems.’ ”
“That sounds kind of, you know, lofty! How many sessions do we have
anyway?”
Carlo laughed. “You’re honest, and practical. Bear with me for a few
minutes, because I want to explore this potential goal with you and Linda.”
He handed Beth a stack of sticky notes and a black marker. Linda
chuckled. “I think that is a world record, even for you, for bringing out the
sticky notes!”
Carlo pushed a stack of the yellow notes toward Linda. “You can play
too.” He stood up and wrote on Roberta’s whiteboard. “It would be great
if Beth were a leader who is able to help her employees see and solve
problems.”
“Okay, Beth and Linda, what do you see as a plus, a good thing about
that goal? Write it on a sticky note.”
54 ◾ Creatively Lean

Beth thought for a moment, and then wrote in small letters at the top of a
sticky note: “Roberta will be happy I have a goal.” She put the black marker
down. She noticed that Linda had already written about five stickies. “Good
start, Beth,” Carlo observed. “What else?”
Beth picked up the black marker and wrote on the same sticky note: “I
already have goals for this year.”
Carlo noticed what she was doing. “Oh, apologies, Beth, I should have
told you that I want each plus on a separate sticky. Please re-­write that on a
new sticky.”
Beth crossed the statement out. “It wasn’t so much of a plus.”
“That’s cool,” replied Carlo. “You can keep it for when we do issues. For
now, let’s focus on pluses. What else?”
Beth opened and closed the black marker several times. Finally, she
picked up a clean sticky note and wrote: “Coaching will be more useful
because it will be focused on a goal I care about.” Carlo picked up her two
pluses and the eight or nine that Linda had jotted down and stuck them on
the whiteboard. “I’m going to read these out loud, as they may spur other
ideas.” As he read Beth’s and Linda’s contributions, Beth felt her mood begin
to lift. Although it was hard to think up the pluses, and she couldn’t do it
as fast as Linda, hearing Linda’s ideas helped her think about more positive
attributes of the goal. She jotted down a couple more and then grabbed
another sticky and wrote: “I might be able to save the contact center.”
Carlo picked it up and read it out loud. “That is more of an opportunity but
let’s go there. What opportunities might this goal bring about? What could it
lead to?”
Beth was surprised that Carlo didn’t comment on the audaciousness of
her statement, but quickly wrote down another opportunity. “We could have
happy customers.” Carlo placed the note on the whiteboard. “What else?”
Beth started to feel excited. She wrote: “I could get a promotion” and
“The contact center could be a benchmark for the rest of the company.” She
realized she hadn’t thought much about the warehouse. “The warehouse
might be a better place to work.” Carlo continued to read the opportunities
out loud and place the sticky notes on the whiteboard. After several
minutes, both Beth and Linda had stopped writing. Half of the whiteboard
was covered in neatly aligned sticky notes under the headings “Pluses” and
“Opportunities.”
Linda looked expectantly at Carlo. “Issues?”
“Yes, issues. Beth, now is the time to bring back that problem you
wanted to raise. I’d like you to write it down in a very specific way. Please
 Beth’s First Coaching Session ◾ 55

state it like this: ‘How might we?’ or ‘How to?’ or ‘What are all the ways
that?’ ”
“Like this? ‘How might I deal with the fact I already have a full set of
goals?’ ”
Carlo nodded. “Very good. Write it down like that.” Again, Beth was
surprised. She had expected an argument from Carlo or Linda when they
heard her issue with the goal, but so far, neither one had commented
positively or negatively on anything she had said or written down.
She wasn’t surprised, however, when Carlo asked, “What else?”
It wasn’t long before the whiteboard blossomed with sticky notes under
the heading “Issues.” Even though Beth was now allowing all her negative
thoughts about lean and coaching to come to mind – and get written
down – she still felt energized. Perhaps it was the freedom of being able
to articulate her thoughts, or the lack of judgment from her coaches – she
wasn’t sure.
When the writing slowed down again, Carlo invited her to review the
issues. “Beth, please look at everything that is up here and pick the issues
that are the most important to you. You can draw a star on your key issues.
Take your time.”
Beth walked up to the whiteboard, a black marker in hand. She read
every sticky note. Finally, she picked four and drew stars on them.

◾ How might we deal with the fact I already have a full set of goals?
◾ What are all the ways I can make time for coaching?
◾ What are all the ways I can make time for going to the gemba?
◾ How might I learn to coach my employees when I’m not an
expert on any of this?

“Any others?” asked Carlo.

Beth looked at the whiteboard again. “Yes, this one: ‘How might I learn
to trust Roberta?’ ”
“Let’s add it,” said Carlo. “What do you think about that goal we started
with? Do you want to edit or update it?
“Yes, I do. How about this? ‘It would be great if Beth were a lean leader
who created trust so that her employees and supervisors could see and solve
problems.’ ”
Carlo finally allowed himself a moment of judgment. “That’s deep, Beth.
That’s deep. Wow, you’re going to be awesome to work with.”
56 ◾ Creatively Lean

Figure 8.1 Lean Leadership.

Linda nodded. “I agree, that is a deep and inspiring goal. One that means
that you will need to go beyond lean tools and CPS tools, because what
you’re aiming for is a change in mindset.”
“A change in mindset? That sounds hard.”
“Indeed,” said Linda.
“Which is a perfect segue into new thinking,” said Carlo. “New thinking.
Beth, each of these issues you have chosen are problems that you will work
on solving, with our support.”
“And Roberta’s,” added Linda. “We’ll all work with you to understand
these problems and use new thinking to come up with and test solutions.”
Beth’s phone buzzed. “Hey, I’m sorry, I have to run. Did we get to what
you wanted, to contract with me?”
“Not completely,” Linda replied. “We’ll finish at our next meeting. How
are you feeling about all this?”
Beth smiled. “Weirdly good. I feel like I have gotten myself into
something huge. But it’s good. Weirdly good.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

Think again about who is your coach and who you are coaching. What
are the benefits of coaching, both for the coachee and the coach?
Why did Beth feel more positively about her “issues” when they were
phrased as questions?
Chapter 9

Getting to the POINt

After Beth left the room, Linda looked at Carlo quizzically. “Carlo, what did
you just do? You somehow took Beth through a thought process that helped
her overcome her initial objections to being coached to becoming a lean
thinker and leader.”
“You caught me! The steps that I went through are found in a creative
problem-­solving tool called POINt.1
There was a little space left on the whiteboard and Carlo used it to write
down the steps of POINt.
Carlo pointed at the whiteboard as he spoke. “POINt is an elegant tool
that fosters thinking that must done in the frontal lobes. POINt is designed
to evaluate and develop ideas, or proposals or options. We often apply it to

Figure 9.1 POINt.

57
58 ◾ Creatively Lean

evaluating or developing solutions. The ‘plusses,’ ‘opportunities,’ and ‘issues’

serve to evaluate the proposal. The new thinking is all about strengthening
it. Here are the steps I followed.
“I started with a proposal for the goal of the coaching sessions, which
was a recapitulation of Beth’s desire – in other words, although I articulated
and wrote down the coaching goal, I only wrote what I heard Beth say.”
“A good coaching practice,” commented Linda.
“I then asked Beth and you to state ‘Pluses.’ A plus is anything, anything
at all, positive about the idea. If you’re used to doing SWOT (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, think about the ‘strengths’ of
the idea or proposal.”
“But this didn’t feel painful the way SWOT can feel. You stayed on the
positive side of things.”
“Right, unlike a SWOT analysis, POINt’s next step is Opportunities. A
good way to spur the generation of opportunities is to use a sentence starter
like ‘It might,’ or ‘It could lead to.’ ”
Linda interjected. “Why move to Opportunities and skip the
Weaknesses?”
“Linda, that is a good question, and it reveals the purpose of POINt. As
we ponder opportunities, we must engage our imaginations, which requires
us to keep our thinking in the ‘higher’ parts of the brain. As we listen to the
pluses and opportunities, we can become engaged in the idea or proposal,
and become open to change, and our ability to ideate is freed. The key
principle is ‘Praise First.’ ”

Using “Praise First” is the key to not saying “no” immediately.

“But of course, every idea or proposal has shortcomings. And you did get to
them.”
“Right. In POINt, the Issues are considered: but they are listed in a way
that invites problem solving. Issues are stated as questions: ‘How might we?’
or ‘What are all the ways?’ We stay in the part of the brain that is generative
and innovative.
“What we ran out of time to do with Beth is ‘New Thinking.’ Each critical
issue is treated as a problem to be solved.”
“And that is something we can address with lean problem solving,” Linda
pointed out.
 Getting to the POINt ◾ 59

“Exactly, but listen, in POINt as described by Miller, Vehar and

Firestien, this involves brainstorming potential solutions to the issues.”
“Mm … in a lean environment, this might also mean that an issue
becomes the subject of a kaizen workshop (small or large), an A3, and/or
a set of improvement katas.”
“I want to talk about how to incorporate creative thinking into each of
those approaches,” offered Carlo.
“Oh, we will! That is one of the things that keeps me excited about
working with you. Let me summarize about POINt to make sure I
understand it. The elegance of POINt lies in its impact on the human
brain. POINt drives thinking to the frontal lobes. Even when issues are
raised, they are treated as problems to be solved, not judgments to kill
ideas or proposals.”
Carlo nodded in agreement. “You got it. Remember, ‘Praise First.’ For
many people, POINt is a completely foreign way of thinking. In my early
training, I was taught to look for the flaws in an idea or hypothesis first.
And in business … have you experienced this? Someone will present
an idea or proposal (usually with a lengthy PowerPoint presentation). If
they are lucky, they will get to the second or third slide before someone
(often a senior leader) will raise ‘questions.’ The questions are rarely
legitimate questions; they are objections or issues. The presenter may
go into a defensive mode, sometimes resorting to back-­up slides to
address the issues. If there is no pertinent back-­up slide, they are viewed
as unprepared. All parties walk away dreading the next meeting, and
chances are, the attendees didn’t even get to see the full proposal.”
“In a lean environment, we try to avoid that kind of meeting, but I get
your point (no pun intended),” Linda replied.
“Imagine a similar meeting using POINt as the agenda. The full
proposal would be heard, and its attendees could highlight its positive
attributes and the opportunities it creates. Then issues would be raised,
as problems to be solved. If information, data, or solutions were available
to address the issue immediately, great! If not, the magnitude of the
issues and the work necessary to solve them could serve as input to
a decision to move forward or not – or to charter work to solve the
most critical issues. And all participants would walk away engaged and
encouraged.”
“This is good stuff, Carlo,” said Linda. “We may be on to something
here.”
60 ◾ Creatively Lean

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

List five situations at work or home where you could practice using POINt.

Note
1. POINt was first described by Blair Miller, Jonathan Vehar, and Roger Firestien
in Creativity Unbound: An Introduction to Creative Process (Williamsville, NY:
Innovation Resources, Inc., 2001).
Chapter 10

Trouble in the Warehouse

After a few weeks, Beth began to look forward to her coaching sessions, at
least the ones with Linda. Most of the time she met with Linda in person,
“at the gemba” as Linda would say, and her meetings with Carlo took place
on the phone. Every now and then, the three of them would meet. Looking
back, Beth could see that things were starting to change for the better –
except for the problems at the contact center. Roberta’s opinion was that
the IT department needed to fix the ordering app, and she directed Beth to
work with the warehouse first. Beth, concerned about the stress levels in the
contact center, protested, but Roberta was adamant. Keisha, who supervised
the warehouse, had attended the lean training with Beth, and she was
excited about making improvements.
Beth and Keisha decided that improvements in the warehouse could
impact two of the company’s goals:

◾ reduce safety incidents to 0.

◾ increase the operating margin to 10 percent.

Realizing that the company only made money when a customer received
(and paid) for a part, Beth and Keisha started by working with the
warehouse team to map the flow of parts from the time a part was ordered,
to when it was dispatched to a plumbing company. They devoted a week
to 5S1 and discovered that a lot of space in the warehouse was taken up
by parts that hadn’t been requested in years. They measured how far the
warehouse employees traveled to pick the most commonly used parts
and at Beth’s insistence, used the freed-­up space from the 5S to create a
supermarket2 for the fast-­moving parts. Linda showed them how to set up

61
62 ◾ Creatively Lean

kanbans3 so they stopped running out of key parts – this earned a lot of
praise from their colleagues in the contact center, who noticed a decrease in
call volume from customers wondering where a part was. They set up visual
management tools in addition to the kanban signals in the supermarket:
Progress boards showed the headway they were making in their
improvement projects. Key performance indicators (KPIs) were displayed
throughout the warehouse. Daily stand-­up meetings in the warehouse,
which had seemed impossible to cram into the schedule, now seemed easy
– if Beth was off-­site and missed them, she felt as if a piece of her day was
missing. The number of emails coming into her inbox decreased, because
she learned about problems earlier, and the employees were gaining
confidence in solving problems in the warehouse.
In the coaching sessions with Linda, Beth was able to focus on her own
behavior as a lean leader. She was learning to see what was happening in
the warehouse and learning how to encourage Keisha and the warehouse
employees to solve problems and be comfortable asking for help. She
learned to ask more questions and listen more. For almost every situation
they ran into in the warehouse, Linda had a lean tool to address it, and Beth
eagerly encouraged the warehouse associates to adopt the tools.
Meanwhile, her conversations with Carlo were brief, and she began to
wonder why she had to meet with him at all. She enjoyed her conversations
with him, but they seemed to lack relevance to the work she was doing.
At the end of a coaching session with Linda, Linda announced that
she was taking a few weeks off for a long-­planned family vacation. Beth
wasn’t concerned, because the warehouse was running smoothly, and Beth
believed that she and Keisha had enough lean knowledge to work on their
own without coaching.
“Of course, Carlo is always available to you,” Linda said in parting.
“Remember to keep up with your stand-­up meetings and updating your
progress boards. I’m looking forward to seeing your progress when I get back!”
Three days later, Beth was awakened by her phone buzzing at 5 a.m.
Keisha’s name and smiling picture appeared on the screen.
“Hello? Beth?” Keisha sounded shaken.
“Hey, Keisha, it’s 5 o’clock, what’s wrong?”
“Beth, are you able to get over to work right now? I mean, I know you
have to get Connor to school, but something has happened, and I need
you here.” Keisha’s voice was trembling. “There’s been a bad accident.
Really bad.”
“What happened? Are you okay?”
 Trouble in the Warehouse ◾ 63

“I’m fine. I was just coming into the office when it happened. I didn’t
even see it, but I heard it.”
“Hang on, I will be there as fast as I can. Call me back if you need to – I
will keep the phone on.” Beth jumped out of bed and pulled on a pair of
jeans and a tee shirt. She woke Connor up, and told him that she had to
leave for an emergency at work. She knew he would get himself up and on
the bus. “Connor, please just remember to lock the door when you go, and
don’t forget to feed the cat.”
“Before or after I lock the door, Mom?”
“Smartass!” She kissed him on the forehead. “Don’t go back to sleep!”
Once she was in the car, she called Keisha back. “Hey, what happened?”
In the background she heard a siren. “Is someone hurt?”
Keisha seemed a little calmer. “Yes, Tony was operating the forklift, and
hit a shelving unit. I think the unit wasn’t properly secured and collapsed.
Tony is okay because of the forklift cage, but Judy was walking through the
aisle and the unit fell on her. She was knocked unconscious. She’s awake
now, but she says she can’t feel her legs. There is a helicopter on the way,
and they are taking her to University Hospital.”
“Oh, my God, what was she doing walking in the aisle while Tony was
operating the forklift? And why wasn’t the shelving unit properly secured?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t know. I have been stressing the importance of
safety recently, and I have never seen anything like that when I have walked
through the warehouse. I feel so responsible, but I don’t know what went
wrong!”
That morning started Beth’s worst day at work. She had to call Roberta
and Brandon, sit with Keisha and Tony as they explained what happened
to the police and to the company safety officer, and worst of all, call Judy’s
husband and tell him that his wife was on her way to University Hospital
in a helicopter. Roberta went to the hospital to be with him as Judy was
evaluated and prepped for surgery.
Later, a lawyer came down to the warehouse offices and told Beth,
Keisha, and the warehouse employees not to talk to anyone about the
accident unless one of the company attorneys was present. Tony, the forklift
operator, protested. “Why? Are you afraid Judy is going to sue? She should
sue. Safety around here is a joke!” Beth saw Keisha stand up and walk out
of the room. She found Keisha in the restroom.
“I’m not in here crying, if that’s what you think,” Keisha said angrily. “I
just had to get away. I have been trying so hard to make safety a priority,
and Tony just said it. It’s not.”
64 ◾ Creatively Lean

“What do you mean?” asked Beth. “It is one of the top company goals.”
She recalled Brandon standing in front of everyone at an all-­hands meeting,
proclaiming that “Zero Safety Incidents” was a goal everyone should take
seriously.
“It’s not like what we’ve done for improving warehouse operations. We’ve
done all that work, mapping and doing 5S and creating the supermarket.
We’ve made progress. But we assumed that talking about safety was
enough. Supposing Judy does sue us? What will that do to our operating
margin? But when we moved the shelving to make the supermarket, I didn’t
think to check that it was properly secured. And, apparently, people walking
in the aisles while the forklifts are operating is done every day – just not
when management is around to see it.”
“But why?” asked Beth.
“Because we have increased the pick rate and people don’t have the
flexibility to wait for a forklift to be out of the aisle before they go in to pick
a part.”
Beth was surprised. “When did the pick rate get changed? That isn’t in
the metrics we reviewed.”
Keisha pointed at herself. “I did that. I thought it would help our
effectiveness. I didn’t think it was important to tell you. And, Beth, you and
I were at the gemba, but we didn’t see what was really happening. And now
Judy may never walk again.”
“I don’t get it,” said Beth. “We told people it is safe to bring up problems
and issues. We let them know it’s okay. Why didn’t they tell us? Why didn’t
you tell me about changing the pick rate?”
It was several hours later that Beth was finally able to sit down in her
office and collect her thoughts. She desperately wanted to call Linda but
knew that Linda was somewhere far away on a mountain top with no
cell service. Roberta was still at the hospital with Judy’s family, as Judy
underwent a long and delicate surgery to fuse her spine.
Not being able to talk to Linda, she imagined what Linda might say to her.
“Beth, what is the problem you’re trying to solve?” Beth wasn’t sure. Was
it making sure that shelving was properly secured, or something bigger?
Employee engagement in safety? Employee trust that they could share issues?
Again, she imagined Linda’s voice in her head. “What do you know about
this problem?” That was hard to answer, because she wasn’t clear about the
problem.
“What is the goal of solving this problem?” Beth knew the answer to that
– zero safety incidents.
 Trouble in the Warehouse ◾ 65

“What is the problem you’re trying to solve?” This was the question
she kept coming back to. She knew Linda would ask her to plan a PDCA
cycle, but without clarity on the problem, there was no point in doing
any PDCA. In a way, there was no rush, because it would take several
weeks for the safety officer to produce a report and start the corrective
action process, but the new-­found sense that as a manager she was truly
responsible for other people’s health and their very lives was weighing
heavily on her. She glanced at her watch. It was almost 6 p.m., 13 hours
since Keisha’s call had woken her. She pulled out her phone and texted
Connor, telling him to order pizza for dinner and do his homework. Then
she dialed Carlo.
Carlo answered the phone immediately. “Hey, Beth, how are you? I saw
your company mentioned on the news today. Is everyone okay?”
“No, we had a bad accident, and someone was seriously injured. I’m not
really allowed to talk about it right now.”
“I understand. What can I do to help you?”
“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, I really felt I needed to talk to
Linda, and she’s on vacation. So, I called you.”
Carlo chuckled. “That’s okay. You’ve been doing a lot of good work with
Linda, and you and I haven’t had as much to talk about. But I’m here for
you, and it’s off the clock time today; don’t worry about how long it takes.”
“I have a problem, I mean, we, Keisha and Roberta, and me, and the
whole company have a problem to solve, and I don’t think that what I have
learned so far about lean can help me solve it. I mean, maybe Linda would
know something, but I’m stumped. And you know what, I’m going to have
to talk about this accident a little bit.”
She outlined the story in as general terms as she could. When she
finished, she said, “I think Linda would tell me to start to plan a PDCA cycle
to move forward. But this is not like solving a problem in the parts flow or
setting some tools in order. I don’t really know what the problem is, and I
know I need to clarify it to get started.”
Carlo listened. When she finished, he said, “Linda has taught you well.
Do you mind if I do some teaching?”
“I guess I asked for it. So, yes, please.”
“We’ve talked about the creative process. Do you remember what I call
the heartbeat of the process?”
“Yes, alternating between divergent and convergent thinking.”
“Right. Every step in the creative process has a phase when we do
divergent thinking and a phase when we do convergent thinking. This
66 ◾ Creatively Lean

rhythm applies to any problem-­solving approach. So, in a PDCA cycle, we

can feel that heartbeat as well.
“Roughly speaking, it goes like this:
“In the ‘Plan’ stage, you consider many possible actions; that is the
divergent thinking. Then you select one or two to move forward – that is
the convergent thinking. You also select from many possible ways to test the
actions and select one experiment to run.
“In the ‘Do’ stage, you perform the action, do your experiment, as you
planned it. You should have done all your divergent thinking in the Plan
stage.
“In ‘Check’ or ‘Study’ you consider a range of meanings or implications
from the results of your actions. That is divergent thinking again. Thinking
convergently, you select the meanings that make the most sense. In the ‘Act’
or ‘Adjust’ stage, you consider a range of changes to your approach, and
select the best to carry forward into your next PDCA cycle.
“Now sometimes, you don’t need to think divergently and convergently
in each stage. Sometimes the path forward or the adjustment to be made are
clear. But if they are not, letting that creative heartbeat drive your thinking is
vital. And it sounds to me as if you’re in one of those unclear situations right
now.” Carlo paused. “I wish we were sitting together. I would love to draw
you a picture. But I will send you one by email.”
“I think I get it,” said Beth. “In every stage but ‘Do’ we should consider a
range of options and then select and strengthen how we move forward from
that range of options.”
“Yes, and don’t forget, if you keep your experiments small, you can go
back and test other options. You don’t have to be right the first time.”
“Linda would ask me, what problem am I trying to solve? Since I’m not
sure, could I come up with several problem statements and then do some
convergent thinking work to narrow them down and improve them?”
“What do you think?”
“I think, yes. I think it would be a good idea to do it with Keisha, and
maybe some other people as well.”
“Beth, I would be happy to come in and facilitate that work, if you would
find it helpful. I’ll discuss with Roberta.”
“Carlo, thanks for listening – and thanks for teaching. I have a lot to think
about.”
 Trouble in the Warehouse ◾ 67

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

What problems are you facing that don’t have clear paths forward or
well-­known tools or best practices that might be good countermeasures?
How do you usually address these problems?

Notes
1. 5S is an approach to organizing a workplace. The 5S are “Sort,” “Set in order,”
“Shine,” “Standardize,” and “Sustain.”
2. A “supermarket” contains an inventory or supplies organized for easy access.
As the supplies are used, they are replaced.
3. Kanban (in the case of the supermarket) is a signal that the supplies or
inventory need to be replenished.
Chapter 11

PDCA and CPS

After he hung up the phone, Carlo went to his notes from his discussions
with Linda. He had learned from Linda that the Plan-­Do-Check-­Act cycle
is intrinsic to lean thinking. Shorthand for the scientific method, and made
a popular business concept by W. Edwards Deming, it breaks the usual
mental paradigm of shuttling between planning and execution and forces
us to learn as we make progress. Linda told him that some people think
of the cycle as PDSA (Plan-­Do-Study-­Act) or even Allen Ward’s product
development learning cycle LAMDA (Look-­Ask-Model-­Discuss-Act).
As Carlo told Beth, sometimes a PDCA cycle is straightforward. But now
when Beth was dealing with an unusual and poorly understood situation, he
understood how challenging she found it to decide how to proceed.
Carlo realized that the CPS approach of separating divergent and
convergent thinking would be extremely helpful. At its simplest, bringing the
power of creativity to bear on challenging problems in each step of PDCA
(except “Act”) means asking:

What are all the …? (divergent thinking)

And

Which few do we carry forward and how might we strengthen

them …? (convergent thinking)

He recalled a conversation he had had with Linda in his cafeteria “office.”

“Do you remember me saying that PDCA is shorthand for the scientific
method?” Linda had asked. “I have a confession about that. I think that

69
70 ◾ Creatively Lean

the Plan stage in PDCA is too much of a shorthand representation of what

happens in the scientific method.”
“What do you mean?” Carlo had inquired.
“Think about how scientists really work. Plan includes:

1. Make an observation.
2. Create a hypothesis regarding the observation.
3. Design an experiment to test the observation.

Only after all those steps does a scientist conduct an experiment, which is
what we call the ‘do’ step.”
“From my perspective,” Carlo had offered, “in each of these activities,
there are opportunities for divergent and convergent thinking.”
Now he thought about Beth’s situation with the warehouse in this light.
How might she plan and execute a PDCA cycle to clarify the problem she
needed to solve, using creative thinking to enhance her lean thinking?
In their phone call, Beth had shared that she and Keisha had made
several observations:

◾ Safety is one of the top company goals.

◾ Safety has been a communication focus.
◾ A terrible accident has happened.
◾ Tony stated that safety is not a priority.
◾ No one remembered to secure the shelving unit after it was
moved to create the supermarket in the warehouse.
◾ No one checked that the shelving unit was secured.
◾ People have been walking in the aisles of the warehouse while
the forklifts are in motion.
◾ Although Beth and Keisha try to be in the warehouse daily, they
have not seen anyone walking in the aisles while the forklifts are
moving.
◾ Keisha did not tell Beth that the pick rate had changed.
◾ No one told Beth or Keisha that the change in pick rate was
leading people to violate safety rules.

Carlo knew that if Beth and Keisha and the warehouse team brainstormed
on this, they would come up with other observations. But how would they
know which observation or observations were most key? This required
convergent thinking. Carlo forgot about his glass of wine as he started to
write a facilitation plan for a meeting with Beth and Keisha.
 PDCA and CPS ◾ 71

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

Are you running some PDCA cycles? How might you use divergent and
convergent thinking in your PDCA cycle?
Chapter 12

Doing and Checking

and Adjusting without
a Lean Coach

Carlo met with Beth and Keisha the next morning. The two managers had
posted their observations about the previous day’s event on the wall.

Figure 12.1 Observations.

73
74 ◾ Creatively Lean

Figure 12.2 Observations Clustered and Named.

Once the observations were posted, Carlo asked Beth and Keisha to
cluster them. Carlo asked them to discuss each observation before choosing
to cluster it with others, to avoid clustering simply because statements
contain similar words. “You should aim for clustering statements that have
similar meanings, not similar words. Also, don’t feel that you need to cluster
every statement. The one that stands alone maybe will turn out to be the
most important one!” he said.
After the observations have been clustered, they named each cluster
(with a statement, not a single word or title). Finally, they voted to select the
observation cluster to move forward.
Beth and Keisha chose to move forward with “We have many secrets at
every level.”
They also decided, after discussion, that the word “secrets” was not
helpful, because “secrets” seemed to imply that people were withholding
information deliberately and for bad purposes. They decided to rename the
cluster “Why we don’t tell.”
Now what?” asked Beth. “We have an observation to move forward, so
what comes next? A hypothesis?”
 Doing, Checking, Adjusting without a Lean Coach ◾ 75

Figure 12.3 Cluster by Meaning.

“How about some divergent thinking to come up with some potential

hypotheses for this observation?”
“Can we use the Five Whys?”1 Beth had learned about the Five Whys in
the lean training class.
“I’m worried,” said Keisha, “that we haven’t had any input from the
people in the warehouse yet. Can we ask the Five Whys in a series of
interviews? We could speak with people who work in the warehouse, and
other people who interact with the warehouse personnel. We can share the
observations in the ‘Why we don’t tell cluster’ and ask why each person
thought those observations came to be.”
“Interesting idea,” said Carlo. “Five Whys is often used to identify a single
root cause, and so can be used as a tool for convergence.”
Keisha considered this. “I think there might be more than one root cause
for the problem of keeping and not sharing important information – or more
than one belief as to why secrets should be kept. I believe interviews would
reveal several potential root cases, or hypotheses to test.”
“It’s worth a try,” said Beth.
After the interviews, they posted the results of the Five Whys on the
whiteboard.
Once again, they used clustering to converge on some hypotheses to
test. Because of the nature of the statements, it was especially important to
76 ◾ Creatively Lean

Figure 12.4 Hypotheses.

discuss the meaning of each statement before they clustered them. This took
much longer than they expected, but the discussion was rich and helpful.
“It occurs to me,” said Beth, “that we are getting closer and closer to really
understanding the current conditions. But it surprises me that it’s taking so
much effort for us to get to that understanding.”
“Yeah,” said Keisha in agreement. “I thought that I knew what was
happening in my own department. I thought we’d be digging into solutions
by now.”
This time they did not vote on the cluster to move forward with. The
conversation about the cluster “Managers demonstrate that KPIs are more
important than safety” had been so passionate that everyone agreed that this
would be the subject of their next experiment.
Now Beth and her team had gone through two cycles of divergent
and convergent thinking to move from making observations to having a
hypothesis to test (the “do” step) of the PDCA cycle. All they needed to do
now was decide what experiment to run.
“Wow,” said Beth, pushing her chair back from the table. “That was
intense.” The meeting to determine which hypothesis to take into the PDCA
 Doing, Checking, Adjusting without a Lean Coach ◾ 77

Figure 12.5 Hypotheses Clustered and Named.

cycle had just ended, and she, Keisha, Roberta, and Carlo were left in the
room after the other members of the team had left. “I’m still shocked that
despite all that ‘going to the gemba,’ we didn’t see what was happening.”
Roberta grimaced. “At least we got good news today about Judy. She is
making great progress and she is headed to rehab next week.”
“That is great to hear!” exclaimed Keisha. As the direct supervisor of the
warehouse, she was carrying a large burden of guilt for what had happened
to Judy.
“So, Carlo,” said Beth. “We’re ready to test our hypothesis. Well, almost
ready, because I’m not clear what we’re going to test, and how to test it.”
“Your hypothesis is …”
“that managers demonstrate that KPIs are more important than safety,”
said Beth, finishing Carlo’s sentence for him.
“In my CPS world, that sounds a lot like a problem that needs some more
clarification.”
“I agree it needs more clarification,” Beth responded. “What I got from
this whole exercise is that employees believe that managers demonstrate
more interest in KPIs than safety. I just don’t know why that is.”
78 ◾ Creatively Lean

“So …” said Carlo. “What are all the ways you could find out why they
believe that?”
He passed some sticky notes over to Beth.
“Do we have to do divergent thinking again?” asked Beth, only
half-­joking.
“Do you know how to find out why? If so, you don’t need to think
divergently. So, what is it: do you have an answer, or do you need to do
more divergent thinking?”
Beth sighed, picked up the sticky notes and passed some to Keisha and
Roberta. Unlike her first effort with divergent thinking, the ideas came to her
easily, and she didn’t try to judge them before she wrote them down. In a
few minutes, they had a wall full of ideas. As usual, Beth had one more idea
after she thought she had exhausted her imagination. Carlo called time and
she quickly put it on the board.
“Roberta, would you like to select three of the ideas you think are
promising? Sponsor’s choice, but don’t forget the guidelines for convergent
thinking.”
Roberta glanced up at the wall. The guidelines for divergent and
convergent thinking were now posted in every conference room. “I will
indeed be deliberate, check the objective, improve the ideas, be affirmative,
and consider novelty.”
“Great,” said Carlo. “Go for it.”
Roberta stood up, and carefully read every note on the wall. She went
back and read a couple again, Finally, she pulled one sticky note off the
wall and read it out loud. “Review meeting agendas and minutes from the
last three months to see how much time is devoted to safety vs. KPIs.” It
was the very last sticky note that Beth had put on the board.
“Sponsor’s choice,” she said. “One is enough, and this one can be done
fast. Once we see the results of this test, we can do some of the others if
needed.”
“Fair enough,” said Carlo. “We will not lose these other ideas.” He looked
at the three managers. “How was that for quick divergence and convergence?
You see, this doesn’t have to be a lengthy exercise.”
“Let’s run the experiment,” said Beth. “Maybe we can divide up the agendas
and minutes between the three of us. Can we touch base tomorrow afternoon?”
Keisha shook her head. “I will do all of them. Then I can apply the same
criteria to every document. Tomorrow afternoon is good.”
The next day, the three managers met to review the results of Keisha’s
analysis. They dialed Carlo in on a teleconference line.
 Doing, Checking, Adjusting without a Lean Coach ◾ 79

“It’s pretty clear,” Keisha announced, showing them a chart. “Safety is

always mentioned at the beginning of each KPI review meeting, but when I
looked at the rest of the agendas and minutes, almost none of the meeting
time is spent on safety topics.”
“What about KPIs?”
“Well, the warehouse folks are correct. They are advertised as KPI review
meetings, so of course we spend a lot of time talking about KPIs. Eighty
percent of the agenda topics are about KPIs.”
Roberta looked at the chart. “Why don’t we have safety KPIs? I mean, we
have the company safety goal on Brandon’s A3 – which obviously we’re not
going to achieve. We should have KPIs for safety like all the other metrics
we review.”
Beth cleared her throat. “Hang on a moment. I just want to pay attention
to where we are in the PDCA process. We made some observations, we
formulated some hypotheses to test, and we just ran an experiment. We
have done ‘Plan’ and ‘Do.’ Let’s think some more about the ‘Check’ step,
before we move to ‘Act.’ ”
Roberta gave her a sharp look, then smiled. “Thanks, Beth, I’m so used
to making the decisions and moving things forward. But you have to give
me credit – I asked a question!”
Carlo’s voice crackled from the phone. “Beth, remember we said that
‘Check’ can have a divergent and a convergent phase? Where are you now?”
“I guess we could do some divergent thinking. ‘Check’ means to study
the result of the experiment. I personally think that having some safety
KPIs, like Roberta suggested are a good idea to explore, but let’s think more
deeply about what this result means.”
“Creative thinking is deep thinking,” Carlo remarked. “Once again, what
is your hypothesis?”
Keisha answered. “That managers demonstrate that KPIs are more
important than safety. I think the results of the experiment pretty much
proved that.”
“I agree,” said Beth, “if the agendas are seen as what management thinks
is important, then people could believe that managers demonstrate that we
care more about KPIs than safety. But humor me for a minute – what other
explanations might there be for this result?”
The three women sat and looked at each other for a moment. Nobody
said anything.
“If people see these agendas as what management thinks is important,”
said Beth. “Is our next step another experiment to check that out?”
80 ◾ Creatively Lean

There was another period of silence. “Feeling stuck?” said Carlo from the
phone. “What are all the ways you can find out if your employees take these
agendas as indicating management priorities?”
“We could ask them,” said Beth. “I mean, there are probably a lot of
different ways to get to the bottom of this but asking them would be simple
and fast. I know I asked for some divergent thinking, but now I feel as if we
should just verify this one point.”
“Let’s do it,” said Roberta. “Let’s take that as our action.”
“Carlo, I feel like we’re letting you down, in some way,” Beth said. “I
mean, we didn’t generate a lot of sticky notes.”
“You did pause and consider before you implemented safety KPIs,”
said Carlo. “And, who knows, you might still do that. But by pausing and
taking a moment to think more deeply, you may have saved yourselves
a lot of wasted effort implementing safety KPIs that might not help. I’m
very interested to hear what you learn from talking to people about these
agendas.”
The next afternoon, Beth, Keisha, and Roberta met again. They had each
spoken with warehouse employees.
Beth spoke first. “My conversations were very interesting. Both the
people I spoke to said that the meeting focus on KPIs did indicate to them
that safety is not as important as meeting other goals. But they also said that
they consider the meetings to be a show for management anyway.”
“I got similar feedback,” said Roberta. “I also heard that the questions
we ask, ‘at the gemba’ are much more important to employees than what
happens in the meeting.”
“What did they mean by that?” asked Beth.
“They told me that when we’re on the floor with them, it is a little
scary, especially if it is me and Beth, not so much Keisha, but they see the
questions we ask as being what we really care about, because it is ‘eye-­to-
eye’ and so that is what gets followed up on. And we don’t ask about safety,
or anything relating to safety like ergonomics. We only ask questions about
performance.”
Keisha nodded. “I didn’t hear that, but I did hear that the KPI review
meetings are seen as a meaningless exercise.”
Beth stood up and wrote on the whiteboard. “Hypothesis Validated.
Managers care more about KPIs than safety.”
Keisha stood up and took the pen from Beth. She wrote. “Observation:
Our KPI review meetings are seen as a meaningless exercise.”
She sat down again. “Okay, so now what do we do?”
 Doing, Checking, Adjusting without a Lean Coach ◾ 81

Roberta spoke first. “I think we need to create some leader standard

work2 around the questions we’re asking in the warehouse, so that we start
to emphasize safety. That is a PDCA cycle right there, planning what we
going to do and trying it out, and seeing if it makes a difference. We also
need to do something about those meetings! I also want to go back and
look at our hypothesis about trust. Keisha, I’d like you to do an A3 on that,
since you supervise the warehouse. Beth, you can be her A3 coach.”
“I thought lean was supposed to make our lives easier,” said Keisha, only
half-­joking.
“It will be easier when the warehouse is a safe place to work,” replied
Roberta.

Practice This Today

If you’re practicing PDCA, how much time are you spending on
“Plan” proportional to the other steps? Are you thinking of hypotheses
to test? How much time are you spending on the “Check” step? Are you
tempted to move quickly to “Act?” How might you take a more scientific
approach to your PDCA cycles?

Notes
1. The “Five Whys” is a method to find the root cause of a problem by asking
“why” iteratively. It is attributed to Sakichi Toyoda. A related CPS tool that
opens thinking to changing current conditions is the “Why/Why Not Chain.”
In this approach, the questions “why?” and “why not” are alternated.
2. Leader standard work consists of planned routines for lean leaders to ensure
that they visit the gemba, and support employees by asking good questions,
listening, and coaching.
Chapter 13

Solving the Trust Issue

in the Warehouse

A week later, Keisha sat down with Beth to review her A3. Linda was also in
the room. As Beth’s coach, she was going to coach Beth later on how Beth
had coached Keisha. After a few minutes, Beth and Keisha almost forgot that
Linda was there.
“Thank you for sharing your A3 with me,” said Beth, “I really appreciate
you getting it to me earlier so I could thoroughly read it and think about my
questions. Would you like to walk me through your updates, and I’ll share
my questions?”
Keisha nodded. “I have been working on the analysis. I have mostly
been interviewing people in the warehouse. If you look at my fishbone
diagram, I’m looking at six areas: people, materials, measurements, culture,
management, and equipment. I’ve put nuggets from my interviews into most
of these categories.”
“I see,” said Beth. “How did you pick those categories?”
“I learned that the fishbones usually have six categories, but they didn’t
all seem to fit our problem. This isn’t a problem with a physical product.
One category I changed was ‘methods,’ because we don’t really have a
process for sharing problems to document.”
Keisha stopped and looked at Beth. “Oh, my goodness. What did I
just say?”
“We have no process for sharing problems. So, no methods section on
your fishbone.”
“Oh boy. That is pretty revealing, isn’t it?”

83
 84 ◾
Creatively Lean
Figure 13.1 Keisha’s A3.
 Solving the Trust Issue in the Warehouse ◾ 85

Beth opened her mouth to say something, then remembered she was
coaching, not managing. She paused for a moment. “So, Keisha, what do
you plan to do?”
“Add a methods section to my little fish skeleton here. For sure. But let
me show you what I added. ‘Management’ and ‘Culture.’
“How are you defining ‘culture?’ ”
“I heard someone say that culture was the stories we tell each other so I
put the story about someone getting fired for bringing up a problem in that
section, and I also heard a lot about how important ‘pizza for picks’ is to
people.”
“Tell me more,” said Beth. She remembered something about “pizza for
picks” being initiated as a reward program.
“ ‘Pizza for picks’ was a monthly award. Whoever had the best pick rate
for the month would get a gift certificate for a family-­size pizza. We haven’t
done it for almost a year, but people in the warehouse really liked it. And
because it was an award for individuals, it kind of created a competition
between people.”
“Interesting,” Beth remarked. “How do you see that being pertinent to
trust in the warehouse?”
“I think being competitive made people not want to help each other or
share information.”
Once again, Beth was about to say something, and changed her mind.
She decided to ask a question to drive Keisha to think divergently. “What are
all the ways you could check that out?”
“Oh, let me think about that.” Keisha made a note on her A3 in the “Plan”
section.
“How can you include this idea about the contest causing a competitive
spirit on the A3? I don’t see it here yet.”
“You’re right, that should be in the analysis section.” She made
another note.
“Tell me about ‘Freddy got fired.’ ”
“That is related to something we heard when did our Five Whys
interviewing. A couple of people told me that a certain employee got fired
for reporting a safety situation. I had to go back and look at this employee’s
file because this happened before I started working here. He was dismissed
for cause, but it was after several months of tardiness and absentee issues.
He had been on a performance improvement plan, but he continued to have
attendance problems. There were some other performance issues as well.”
“What did the people you talked to think happened?”
86 ◾ Creatively Lean

“The funny thing is, none of them knew this employee. He was
terminated before they started too. They said they were told that he was
always in trouble for complaining about safety issues, and that was why he
was put on a PIP and eventually fired.”
Beth sighed. She was struggling to ask questions, and not make a
statement. “What are all the reasons you can think of to explain why this
story is being told?”
“It’s a good story. We don’t have stories to tell about how someone was
rewarded for sharing a problem. Somebody is enjoying telling this story.
Hmm … I will need to think of some more reasons – and some ways to
check them out.”
Beth finally allowed herself to make a statement. “I feel like we’re
getting somewhere important with your exploration into ‘culture’ and
‘management.’ Have you considered having someone interview you on
why you didn’t tell me about changing the pick rate? Or at least reflecting
on that yourself?”
Keisha looked shocked. “No. I mean, I could. And we might want to
interview you, too. Or ask you to do your own reflection.”
Beth felt a sting of conscience. “You’re right. I need to examine my own
behavior. I guess thinking divergently means I need to include myself and
my behavior among the possible reasons for the lack of trust.”
Linda spoke up – Beth and Keisha had almost forgotten she was in
the room.
“Now you’re getting to the real heart of lean.” She stood up on write on
the whiteboard.

“Lean”: A socio-­technical system for developing and managing

people in organizations so that they can solve problems and
continuously improve the organization to deliver value to
customers.

Linda circled two words in the definition: “developing” and “people.” She sat
down again. Beth and Keisha stared at the board.
“I think I understand,” said Beth, softly. “Solving this problem is not only
about safety in the warehouse. It is about Keisha and me becoming better
leaders for our employees. We’re the ones being developed to be better
managers and leaders.”
Keisha stood up and picked up a red marker. She went to the board and
underlined the word “socio-­technical.”
 Solving the Trust Issue in the Warehouse ◾ 87

“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t understand that word.” She circled “socio.”
“How can our employees have trust, if I don’t even trust Beth?”
Beth looked at Keisha, shocked. “What do you mean?” She had been
wondering why Keisha hadn’t told her about the change in the pick rate,
ever since she had heard about it.
Linda spoke up again. “I think the coaching session is over. Good job,
Beth. You did well as a coach. But now you and Keisha need a different
kind of conversation, one that should probably not include me.”
Beth watched Linda leave the room. There was an uncomfortable silence.
Keisha sat down at the table and stared at her hands. Beth thought about
all the time they had spent together, all the work they had done together,
all the happy hours, and holiday parties. She had never given Keisha a bad
performance review.
“Okay,” Beth thought to herself. “What question do I ask?” She imagined
what Carlo might say. A question that invites a divergent set of answers?
“Keisha. In what ways am I not trustworthy?”
She was trying to sound calm, but her heart was beating as fast as if she
had just climbed three flights of stairs. Her palms were clammy.
“Well, I didn’t say you weren’t trustworthy. I said I don’t trust you. But
okay …”
“Do you want some sticky notes?”
Keisha laughed. “No, that’s fine. I don’t need sticky notes. I guess, you’re
very hard driving sometimes. A lot of the time. Once you come up with
something, we all need to get on board and go with your program. And
once you get going on something, you’re not good at listening to other
people’s input.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“All of this lean stuff we’ve been doing in the warehouse. You heard
about supermarkets from Linda, or in training or something, and you were
determined to set one up in the warehouse. It was like a shiny object, and
you went for it, and we all had to get on board.”
“It’s working, isn’t it? Doesn’t it improve the picking for common parts?”
“That’s not the problem. It’s a good idea, it works. It’s not the
supermarket, it’s that once you heard that idea, you didn’t want to listen to
any other ideas. I tried to talk to you about the pick rate once, but you told
me to wait. So, I just went ahead and changed it, and kind of hoped you’d
be happy when you found out, and not mad. You know what they say: ask
forgiveness, not permission.”
“You thought I’d be mad? It’s not like I walk around yelling at people.”
88 ◾ Creatively Lean

“No, you don’t yell. But you can be intimidating when you’re passionate
about something. You’re articulate, you present good arguments, and you
make good points. You don’t make space for other people. That’s why
people don’t tell you things. It’s not that they don’t want to get yelled at.
They just don’t want to get in the way of Beth when she’s on a roll.”
“Wow. Thank you. That took some courage.” Beth thought about her
own relationship with Roberta. She wondered if she was modelling some of
Roberta’s impatience with her own team. “I need to reflect on that.”
“Beth, you’re a nice person. And you have been a good boss. But if this
lean stuff is going to stick, don’t we all need to change?”
Beth nodded her head. “Linda has been saying that. And Carlo too, I
believe. I didn’t know what they meant though. It’s not about being nice,
is it?”
“Being nice? I don’t think so. It is about being more demanding. More
demanding of good thinking. Not stopping with the first idea. Having us all
think harder, more deeply. Having the courage to share ideas, having the
will to listen to them.”
Beth added, “Having the courage to listen to bad news, having the will to
tackle the problem, not the person reporting it.” She paused for a moment.
“You know, if I had really listened to you about the pick rate, I probably
would have just told you it was a bad idea. But I could have done three
other things, instead. I could have thought about ‘Praise First,’ and come
up with some good points about the idea to move my thinking away from

Figure 13.2 To Show Respect.

 Solving the Trust Issue in the Warehouse ◾ 89

‘fight or flight.’ Perhaps I could have asked you to run an experiment with
pick rate. Or I could have asked you to go and think deeper. Any of those
responses would have indicated more respect for you than just telling you it
was a bad idea.”
“Which it probably was,” said Keisha, a little sheepishly.
“I don’t know. Maybe we should experiment with the pick rate.” Beth
looked at Keisha’s A3. “What are you going to do with this?”
“I think I found a root cause. Now I’m going to see if I can come up with
some countermeasures.”
“Which are going to involve me, right?”
“And me,” said Keisha.

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

How have you grown as a lean leader? What might you do to continue
your growth? Where might you be holding your co-­workers and
employees back? What do you need to be free to lead?
Chapter 14

Creativity and the

Improvement Kata

It was a rainy Monday when Beth next met with Linda to discuss her
progress as a lean thinker. Although they usually met in the office,
Beth had asked to meet at a coffee shop near her house, as she had to
take Connor to a dentist appointment afterwards. They ordered their
coffees and found a quiet corner. As usual, Linda asked Beth what her
overall goal was in her path as lean leader. Instead of answering, Beth
asked Linda a question. “Why do you always ask me that question?”
Linda looked Beth in the eye. “Why do you think I always start with
that question?” Beth laughed. “And you always answer my question with
questions! Well, standards are important in lean, so I guess it is a standard
way for us to start.”
Linda took a sip of her coffee. “It is, but why that question? What might
be the reason to start by reminding ourselves of your goal?”
“Because I need to recall where I am aiming to be as a lean thinker.”
Linda nodded her head. “Why is that?”
Beth laughed again. “Because, for me, especially, it is easy to get off track
and lose focus on where I am headed.”
Now it was it was Linda’s turn to chuckle. “Fair enough. What is the next
question I always ask?”
Beth paused to think for a moment. “I know! What is your target
condition for this coaching cycle?”
Linda nodded her head again. “And the next question?”
“What is the current condition?” Beth had heard the questions so many
times, she was ready with the next ones as well. “And then, what did you

91
92 ◾ Creatively Lean

plan to do in the last week? And what was the result? What did you learn?
And what is your next experiment? You always ask the same questions!”
Linda reached in her pocket and pulled out a dog-­eared card and handed
it to Beth.

IMPROVEMENT KATA
1. Understand the direction or challenge.
2. Grasp the current condition.
3. Establish the next target condition.
4. Experiment toward the next target condition.

“So, the questions you ask me take me through these steps. But what is a
kata?”
“Okay, we will have a conversation about kata today. But we will get
to those questions about your lean leadership growth before our coffee
gets cold.
“In 2009, Mike Rother published the result of his research into the
underlying thinking pattern at Toyota – he called this ‘The Toyota Kata.’
In martial arts, a ‘kata’ is a pattern that is practiced repeatedly, until it is
encoded into muscle memory. Mike’s thesis is that the thinking pattern
of the ‘improvement kata,’ and an accompanying thinking pattern of a
‘coaching kata’ are encoded into Toyota’s muscle memory. This means that
every employee is always getting better and better at a scientific approach
to problem solving. The improvement kata consists of the four steps on
the card:

1. Understand the challenge (this is where you want to go and is usually a

big lofty and hard to achieve goal).
2. Grasp the current condition (this is where you’re now).
3. Set your next target condition (this is how far you want to go in
the timeframe you have set).
4. Experiment toward your target condition.

“Let’s use a real problem that you’re facing right now as an example. The
work in the warehouse?”
Beth thought about Keisha’s A3 and the progress they were making
on building trust. “That is really Keisha’s work. I want to get back to the
 Creativity and the Improvement Kata ◾ 93

contact center. We have been so occupied with the warehouse that I haven’t
addressed those problems yet.”
“What is the problem you’re trying to solve?”
“What isn’t the problem there?” Beth mused. “They are overworked,
understaffed, not meeting customer needs …”
She thought about it for a moment. “I think cross-­training would make a
big difference there. The staff get a lot of calls that need knowledge of the
new customer app to solve, and a lot of them can’t answer questions about
the app.”
“That sounds good,” said Linda, “for an example. You would start with
1. Understanding the challenge. Can you state it for me? – and write it in
your notebook.”
Beth thought for a moment. “It would be great if all the contact center
staff could respond to every type of customer inquiry so that customers get
all the services they are seeking in one call with one representative.”
Linda didn’t look very happy, but she said, “Okay we can use that as a
place to start. Now you need to: 2. Grasp the current condition.”
This felt easy for Beth, as she had been thinking about this problem a
lot. “I know that no employee is trained to answer all types of inquiries,
especially the app questions; I do know that if someone calls with a
question that can only be answered by one person, they may wait days to
get an answer. Also, something we don’t know is the types of calls we get
each day. We do know that a lot of calls are being abandoned before they
are resolved.”
Linda nodded. “Write that in your notebook. and then you will 3. Set
the next target condition.”
Beth paused. “Isn’t that the goal?”
“Do you think you can achieve your goal by tomorrow? Think about the
warehouse. What did you learn there?”
“We’re going to be working on that for a long time. Building trust doesn’t
happen overnight. And the contact center issues have been going on for
months, so they won’t be solved by tomorrow. But why tomorrow?”
“One of the benefits of the improvement kata is that it keeps your
learning cycles small. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, but it should be
soon. When you talked about the current condition, you mentioned several
obstacles. Do they help you think about your next target condition?”
“Okay, so we need to know what type of inquiries we get. That will take
a little time to track, but I can make a tracking sheet for the contact center
folks to fill out.”
94 ◾ Creatively Lean

“Hold on!” said Linda, “Let’s write down the target condition first.”
Beth scribbled in her notebook, and after writing and crossing out a few
sentences she said, “By next Monday, be able to track incoming requests.”
Linda nodded. “Now we can talk about how you’re going to
4. experiment toward that target condition.”
“I can set up an easy tracking system so we can track the inquiries for
the next week or so. Experiment – that means I will run this like a PDCA
cycle, right?”
“Right! And how soon do you think you can show me the results of your
experiment?”
“We meet again on Wednesday. How would that be?”
“Wednesday would be good. Are you really going to do this? This was
intended to be an example, to explain the improvement kata to you.”
“I have to solve this problem, and can’t we build this into our coaching
sessions?”
“This is a good way for you to develop your skills as a lean leader. But
tell me what else you learned in the warehouse.”
Beth smiled ruefully. “I almost did it again. I am so excited by what
you just taught me that I was ready to run off and foist this on the contact
center staff. My leadership is not about what I do, or what I think is right.
It is about how the people who report to me are learning, so they can
make improvements. My goal is: ‘It would be great if I were a lean leader
who created trust so that her employees and supervisors could see and solve
problems.’ ”
“Which means what?”
“I need to meet with Mo and find out what he is thinking first.”
“What does that mean for the goal for improvement in the contact
center?”
“We’re going to have to work together to determine and set the goal. But
I like the idea of the kata for the contact center. I can’t see them doing A3s.
Well, maybe Mo can do an A3 or two …”
Linda nodded. “With the kata we can make a visual board, which we call
a story board, that will work kind of like an A3. And Mo might need an A3
or more than one A3 for the larger problem. When are you going to have
that meeting with Mo?”
“I will set it up for tomorrow. Can you coach me to coach Mo on the
kata?”
“Yes, I can.
“Of course, I will be asking you those questions I always ask.
 Creativity and the Improvement Kata ◾ 95

1. What is the goal?

2. What is your target condition?
3. Where are you now?
4. What did you plan to try in your last step?
5. What was the result?
6. What did you learn?
7. What is your next experiment?

“This coaching interaction would be guiding you to deeper thinking

about the challenge you’re working on. It would also help to encode the
improvement kata into your mental muscle memory.”
“Let me guess,” Beth responded. “There is a book on this I should read.”
“There is more than one book on the improvement kata, and I will send
you some titles in my follow-­up email. But for now, let’s get back to today’s
questions and work on building your muscle memory for this pattern!”
After the meeting, Beth pondered this discussion. She was very excited
about finally getting to work on the nagging contact center issue, but
she wondered how her learning on creativity would align with her new
knowledge of the improvement kata. The next morning, she called Carlo.
She got right to the point.
“Carlo, have you ever heard of the improvement kata?”
“I have. It is an interesting way of making sure that you don’t get stuck in
solution-­based thinking, and for making small progress that adds up to big
changes.”
“But how does it work with creativity principles? Does it work with
creativity principles?
She could hear Carlo taking a deep breath. “Well, I haven’t really thought
that through. But I would love to think it through with you.”
Beth told him about the problem that she and Linda had discussed, the
issues in the contact center, starting with the example goal. She had written
it out in her notebook. Even though she and Linda had agreed she needed
to meet with Mo before proposing any goals, she had already tried to put
together a tracking sheet. Then she thought better of it, after she imagined
what would happen if she had tried to get the contact center associates to
use the tracking sheet. She sent Carlo a picture of the notebook page so he
could follow along.
96 ◾ Creatively Lean

What is the goal? It would be great if all the contact center staff could respond
to every type of customer inquiry so that customers get all the
services they are seeking in one call with one representative
Where are you now? No employee is trained to answer all types of inquiries. We
(Current condition) don’t know if and how inquiries vary day to day
What is the target Know how many inquiries we get, and what type
condition?
What did you try to do By tomorrow, set up an easy tracking system so we can track
in your last step? the inquiries for the next week or so
What was the result? The team didn’t think the tracking tool I came up with was
easy to use
What did you learn? I need to get the team’s input to design a good tracking tool
What is your next Sit with a team member to see what points in the process
experiment? might be easy to track

Carlo listened carefully and then asked: “What are all the ways that
creativity could be injected into this process to make it more effective?”
Beth laughed. “What is it with you coaches and asking questions?”
Carlo let that one pass. “Beth, I believe that creativity is vital in each
step of the improvement kata. Let’s start with the ‘goal.’ First, we need to
recognize that in the improvement kata, the goal is often something handed
down from higher in the organization – but where does this goal come
from?”
“It comes from me, the associate director. So, yes, it is handed down from
management!”
“How did you state the goal?”
“I stated the goal as: ‘It would be great if all the contact center staff could
respond to every type of customer inquiry so that customers get all the
services they are seeking in one call with one representative.’ ”
Carlo didn’t answer for a moment.
“You still there?” Beth asked.
“Beth, is that a goal?”
“I think so. We want customers to get all the services they are seeking on
the first call to the contact center.”
Beth looked at the goal statement again. “I see why you’re asking though.
There is a solution built into that goal – that cross-­training is the answer. By
stating the goal in that way, I’ve already mentally eliminated some creative
solutions. I fell into the solution trap again! I haven’t really understood and
 Creativity and the Improvement Kata ◾ 97

Figure 14.1 Deep Thinking.

clarified the goal. And as a leader, it’s not a good idea for me to try to enroll
my employees in going after a goal that hasn’t been clarified. And as I
realized yesterday, it isn’t the best thing for me to set a goal that they haven’t
had input to.”
Beth thought about her meeting with Linda yesterday. It was going to be
harder than she had thought to change her habit of jumping in and trying to
solve every problem herself.
“I converged too quickly on a goal. You know, Linda gave me a funny
look when I stated the goal, but she was only thinking of it as an example,
so she didn’t ask me to think more deeply.”
Carlo wanted to be reassuring. “Remember that your CPS tools can always
be relied on to take you in the direction of deeper thinking. And deeper
thinking is creative thinking.”
“Carlo, do you agree that I’d better clarify the challenge before I get going
with an improvement kata? What if I started with a question? What are all
the ways that we might ensure customers get the services they need?”
“There you go,” said Carlo, “this is an opportunity for divergent thinking.
Exploring this question could result in a better outcome than jumping on the
assumption that the solution must rest with the cross-­training.”
“So, I would create a set of options around this question, and then use
convergent thinking to select the goals to work towards.”
Beth heard Carlo clear his throat, but he didn’t say anything.
98 ◾ Creatively Lean

She realized she had done it again. “I could engage the contact center
employees as well. I already have a meeting set up with Mo this afternoon.
But the folks in the contact center …”
“They might have some ideas for you.”
Beth sighed. “All of this takes time.”
“And what if you don’t spend that time? Do you have time to chase after
the wrong goal or a poorly stated goal?”
“No,” said Beth. “No time for that.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

Are you using the improvement kata? Think about how your goals/
challenges are set. What is the value of taking the time to ensure your
goals are well-­thought through?
Chapter 15

Goal Setting in the

Contact Center

Mo and Beth met in the hallway outside the contact center bullpen the next
afternoon.
“How’re things going?” Beth asked. She noticed that Mo didn’t have his
usual smile.
“They haven’t improved,” he answered. “And today I got this.” He handed
her a printed-­out email.
Beth scanned it quickly. “Julie resigned?”
“I wasn’t surprised. She was showing signs of getting ready to leave.
It’s been hard on her. She has been such a mainstay of the group, but that
means she has had to pick up a lot of extra hours to cover for other people’s
absenteeism. Our sick days are completely out of control.”
“Mo, I’m really sorry. I haven’t been the support you need.”
“Beth, I understand, I know what happened in the warehouse. I’m
hoping this meeting today means you have some time for us now.”
“Things are improving in the warehouse, and I’ve learned a lot. I keep
thinking back to that day I spent here and what I saw, and frankly, what I
didn’t know how to see.”
Mo looked at her quizzically. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m guessing
you’re not here to tell me that there is more funding for headcount.”
Beth laughed. “I wish! But no.”
“So how are you going to help us?”
“I’m not. At least not directly. You and your team are going to learn to
help yourselves. With my support, and Roberta’s.” Beth walked over to the
contact center door. “Let’s go in.”

99
100 ◾ Creatively Lean

Because it was late afternoon, the contact center was relatively quiet.
Only the customers on the West Coast, which was their smallest territory,
were likely to call this late in the day.
“Mo, could you give me a tour? Pretend I’ve never been here before.”
“Okay. If that is what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
“In that case, welcome to the contact center.”
“What do you do here?”
“We answer the phone,” Mo said, with the first grin she had seen since
she arrived.
“No, seriously, Mo, what do you do here?”
“You mean like a mission statement? I can’t remember it off the top of
my head. Something something something, happy customers, something
something.”
“Mo.”
“What do we do here? I guess, we try to solve customer problems. And
most of the time we do solve those problems. And sometimes we can’t, and
we do a lot of apologizing because somebody else here in the company or
one of our suppliers or the app developers screwed up.”
“I hear you saying you solve customer problems and you apologize.”
Mo rubbed his chin. “That’s pretty much it. And I spend a lot of time on
contact center analytics, but I am not sure anybody uses the analyses I do. If
I don’t do the reporting though, I get nasty emails from Quality Control.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun. I do look at the reports that you create,
and I am hoping to use those analytics more as we work on solving your
problems. Is Quality Control still listening to recordings of your calls?”
Mo sighed. “That is probably one of the reasons Julie left. QC sends
people these little report cards, and they are not very encouraging. If, for
example, a customer is so angry about an issue with the app that they hang
up, that results in a negative rating on the QC feedback.”
Beth remembered the call she had listened into, and Julie’s calm and
reassuring tone. That customer interaction probably earned Julie a poor
rating. She made a mental note to include someone from QC in the
improvement work in the contact center.
“Hey, Mo, what’s going on with the visual display?” The large screen
was dark.
“We realized that it wasn’t helping us. So, I turned it off.” Mo looked
chagrined. “I know it was expensive and, heck, we asked for it. Maybe we
can figure out a better way to use it.”
 Goal Setting in the Contact Center ◾ 101

“Mo, it is very important that the improvement work we’re going to start
here in the contact center is owned by you and the team. And to do it, we
need to be clear on the goal we’re headed for and how it links with the
company goals. What would it take to get a group together to clarify a goal?”
“That will be tough. But maybe we can start with a meeting after first
shift is over. I can persuade some folks to stay for a meeting, if they will get
paid and probably fed.”
“I can approve the overtime and get snacks. Let’s look at calendars and
see how soon we can get started.”
Beth was happy and a little surprised to learn that the contact center
associates were excited about getting started on improvements. It was only
a few days before a small group of contact center folks, a woman from
Quality Control, Mo, and Beth met in the cafeteria after first shift to get
started. Linda and Carlo were there to facilitate.
Linda kicked off the meeting with an explanation of the improvement
kata. She had brought brightly colored jigsaw puzzles with her for an
exercise called “Kata in the Classroom.”1 She divided the group into two
teams, explained the challenge (to complete the puzzle in 15 seconds) and
invited each team to select a target condition for today (one team chose
45 seconds and the other team chose 52 seconds). In less than 10 minutes,
the teams were competing intensely to reduce the length of time it took for
them to assemble the puzzles. After each round, they asked themselves the
coaching kata questions:

◾ What is the target condition?

◾ What did you try to do in your last step?
◾ What was the result?
◾ What did you learn?
◾ What is your next experiment?

After four rounds, Linda called time, much to everyone’s disappointment.

Neither team had reached their target condition, but they were getting close.
“What was your biggest learning from this exercise?” asked Linda.
Mo raised his hand. “That little kid puzzles are harder than they look!”
Everyone laughed. “No, seriously, that you need to experiment your way to
achieving a challenge or even a target condition.”
“Great insight,” said Linda. “What else?”
“That different people have different skills and ideas.” That was the
woman from Quality Control, Carmen.
102 ◾ Creatively Lean

“Nice,” said Linda. “What else?”

Geoff from the contact center raised his hand. “That it is good to have an
approach, a method for improvement. We didn’t agree what we should try at
first but knowing that we had a way to try was helpful.” He looked directly
at Beth. “But I have a question. I feel like we don’t know what our challenge
is in the contact center. And because we don’t know our challenge, we can’t
set a target condition.”
Carlo stood up. “That’s a perfect segue for what we’re going to do next,
which is to work on clarifying that challenge for the contact center. Thank
you, Geoff.” As Linda collected the puzzles, Carlo distributed materials to
each participant.
Beth was expecting the usual stacks of sticky notes, but today Carlo
had a stack of 8.5 × 11 sheets of paper.2 Each one had rows of sticky notes,
nine on each sheet. Beth did the math in her head. So, nine participants, if
Linda and herself were included, times nine sticky notes per sheet, meant 81
stickies. Eighty-­one ideas. She shook her head. That was going to require a
lot of convergent thinking to manage.

Figure 15.1 Brainwriting Sheet.

 Goal Setting in the Contact Center ◾ 103

Carlo was standing next to a flip chart. “Geoff was very accurate
with what he said. This group needs to understand its challenge before
undertaking improvement work. So today, we’re going to work on that. Does
everyone have a sheet in front of them? And a black marker?”
Carlo wrote a phrase on a flipchart sheet. “It would be great if …”
“Think about the contact center. What are your wishes and desires for the
contact center? Write down three wishes or desires on the top row of your
sheet of paper. For each one, start it with this phrase: ‘It would be great if.’ ”
“Only three?” Beth asked.
“After you have written three, pass the sheet to the person to your right.
You can keep writing your own wishes and desires or look at what is
already on the sheet and see if it inspires other thoughts for you, or if you
want to build on to or expand something you see.”
“Can we write whatever we want?” someone asked.
“As long as it starts with ‘It would be great if.’ You can abbreviate it
to ‘IWBGI’ if you don’t want to write it out. I know I haven’t explained
divergent thinking and convergent thinking to this group yet, so let’s take a
moment to review the guidelines for divergent thinking.”
Carlo asked Beth to provide an explanation for each of the guidelines,
and she felt pleased that she was able to do so.

◾ Defer Judgment
◾ Combine and Build
◾ Seek Wild Ideas
◾ Go for Quantity.

The room was quiet for a while as people wrote and passed the papers
around. The sheets filled up quickly and Carlo placed more on the table.
After a while the energy seemed to ebb. Carlo said, “We find when we
force a connection between something unrelated to the problem that it
spurs ideas.” Carlo pulled a picture from his stack of papers – it was a
photograph of a forest in full leaf. “Think about this beautiful forest and
its attributes – when you force a mental connection between this forest
and the problem we’re trying to solve in the contact center, what desires
and wishes does that suggest?” Later he brought out a picture of an
orchestra, and said, “Think of an orchestra. What are the attributes of an
orchestra? Connect those attributes with the contact center. What does that
bring to mind?”3
Carlo handed out even more sheets with sticky notes on them.
104 ◾ Creatively Lean

As people put their black markers down, some sat back from the table,
Carlo asked them to take the completed sheets and place any stickies that
related to the five company goals on flipchart sheets labeled with the goals.

◾ No safety incidents.
◾ Improve employee engagement by 50 percent.
◾ Improve net promoter score to 80.
◾ Bring 5 innovative new offerings to market.
◾ Increase operating margin to 10 percent.

In a few minutes, everyone had finished writing and most of the stickies
were attached to a goal. Carlo needed to add two flipchart sheets to the
employee engagement goal.
After a flurry of activity at the flipchart sheets, there were seven sticky
notes that hadn’t been added to the goal flipcharts.

It would be great if we could stop doing reports no one reads.

It would be great if we had magic wands.
It would be great if there were no contact center.
It would be great if the contact center ran the company.
It would be great if we could see exactly what inventory is in the
warehouse.
It would be great if we killed the ordering app.
It would be great if we could go out with a customer and see
what they do all day.

“Right,” said Carlo, “We should start by looking at these.”

“I don’t think so,” Beth replied. “These are probably leftovers for
good reason.” She realized everyone was staring at her. “Look, we’re not
going to get magic wands, and this is about saving the contact center, not
eliminating it.”
“You know what,” said Linda, catching Carlo’s eye. “I could use a bio
break. How about everyone else?”
“Sounds like a great idea,” Carlo replied. He looked at the clock on the
wall. “Ten minutes everyone?”
As the group left the cafeteria, Carlo steered Beth toward the windows.
Outside the sun was setting and she realized the increasing darkness
matched her mood.
 Goal Setting in the Contact Center ◾ 105

“Beth, what’s going on?” Carlo said gently. Beth noticed that Linda had
come back into the cafeteria and Carlo motioned her to join them.
“I saw those stickies and I don’t know, I just felt that a couple of them are
out of line. Especially the one about eliminating the contact center. I know
that is the thing that makes the most economic sense. We could outsource
it, and that would be a boon to the bottom line. But I think it is important
to have a US-­based contact center and I know these people. I don’t want
them to lose their jobs. I really don’t want to go there with this group. I am
guessing the woman from QC wrote that.”
“Do you know that?” asked Linda.
“No,” Beth admitted.
Linda continued. “Beth, what did you feel, physically, when you saw that
statement?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did your body tell you? What emotions did you experience?”
“I felt anxious, angry. My heart was beating faster. It was like my stomach
lurched, frankly.”
“Oh,” said Carlo. “Could you have been in fight or flight mode?”
Beth smiled ruefully. “I guess I was. I guess I wasn’t thinking with my
frontal lobes.”
“What was the impact on the rest of the group?” asked Linda.
“I’m the boss … so I guess I probably impacted how they felt about their
ideas. I made somebody think their ideas were bad.”
“And?” queried Linda.
“And I made it unsafe for people to bring up radical and possibly
innovative ideas.”
“Could be,” said Carlo. “But it is not too late. You have a chance right
now to amend what you said. What are you going to do?”
Beth looked at the setting sun. “I’m going to be honest with them about
what just happened. And I’m going to listen to what that statement means to
the person who wrote it.”
“Do you need a moment?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks for the questions.”
Linda put her hand on Beth’s arm. “Beth, do you remember when we
first met, and I talked about lean thinking requiring a change in mindset?
I believe you’re well on your way to that change in mindset. But it is not
visible to your employees yet.”
As everyone gathered around again, Carlo addressed the group. “Beth has
something she wants to share with you all.”
106 ◾ Creatively Lean

Beth took a deep breath. “Hey, everyone, I need to share an insight that
I just had. First, I want you to know that I care a lot about all of you, and
the work of the contact center, and your well-­being and success. So, when I
saw those statements, I reacted hard. My insight is that even though I know
I’m supposed to be encouraging innovation and risk-­taking, I’m not good
yet at listening and asking questions before I make judgments. I need more
practice, and I want you to know that you can say anything to me. I want
to hear it all, even if it is something, I don’t like at first glance. I will be
working on doing better and I hope you will help me.” A couple of people
murmured something and then there was a smattering of applause, led
by Mo.
Carlo smiled. “Thanks, Beth. That was well said. I take it we can go
ahead and look at these statements now?”
“Yes please!”
Carlo picked up the sticky with the statement “It would be great if there
were no contact center.” “Is the person who wrote this willing to speak
about it?”
Everyone was silent. Some people were looking at their feet, while others
looked around the group to see if anyone would confess to owning that
sticky note.
“It’s perfectly safe to do so!” added Beth.
Mo raised his hand. “That was me. And it does require some explanation.
Believe it or not, I wrote this one too.” He pointed to “It would be great if
the contact center ran the company.”
Somebody laughed, breaking the tension in the room. “One of these
things is the opposite of the other!”
Mo nodded. “What I mean is that what we’re doing most of right now is
addressing problems that are caused by other departments and the fact that
the app doesn’t work. We solve problems for customers and then the next
day, the same problems happen again. All of that should be unnecessary,
meaning that we shouldn’t need a contact center, at least not one that
does what we’re doing most of the time. At the same time, we’re talking
to customers a lot, and we learn a lot about their needs, but we’re not
considered to be as smart as the people in marketing who supposedly own
the customer experience. If we ran the company, the company would know
a lot more about the customer experience.”
Geoff spoke up. “He is so right. And I need my job, but this isn’t the job I
need, if you know what I mean.” Others in the group nodded their heads in
agreement.
 Goal Setting in the Contact Center ◾ 107

“Carlo?” said Beth. “Do you have some of those dots you like to use to
show the favored ones?”
“Do I have dots? Of course, I have dots.”
Beth looked at the guidelines for convergent thinking posted on the wall.

◾ Be Deliberate
◾ Check Your Objectives
◾ Improve Your ideas
◾ Be Affirmative
◾ Consider Novelty.

“I’m going to be deliberate, and I’m thinking about our objectives, which
include improving our net promoter score and increasing employee
engagement, and therefore, considering the novelty of these two statements,
I want to give each one a beautiful dot.”
She looked at the other participants. A couple looked puzzled, but most
were smiling.
“We will get to the dots in a minute,” said Carlo. Beth had a moment of
self-­recrimination. “I did it again,” she thought. “I didn’t trust the process, or
my people.”
Carlo continued. “Mo, please think about these two statements. Do you
want to reword them?”
“I think I do. ‘It would be great if the contact center solved company
problems permanently.’ And ‘It would be great if the contact center led the
customer conversation.’ ”
“Are they aligned with the company objectives?”
“Yes, they are.” Mo moved the rewritten statements to the ‘Net Promoter
Score” flipchart. “They both could lead to customers recommending us to
others, because their experience with the contact center is so fantastic, and
the company could respond better to their needs.”
Carlo looked at the clock. “Folks, we’re at the end of our planned time
together. We’re going to have to do some more work to get to a small group
of challenges for your improvement kata. Are you willing to come back and
do the work?”
Geoff looked at Beth and Mo. “If we do this, will Roberta and Brandon
go along with what we come up with?”
Beth nodded. “If we can articulate how it benefits the business, I don’t
see why not.”
“Then I’m in. Let’s pick a time.”
108 ◾ Creatively Lean

“Thanks, Geoff!” Mo replied. “See, Beth, this is the best team in the
company.”
After the session, Beth walked out of the building into the dark parking
lot with Linda and Carlo.
“How do you feel now?” Linda asked.
“I’m good.” Beth smiled. “I should be terrified, because I think we’re
going to create a big ruckus. But I’m feeling very positive about this team
and what they might do. I just have to get Roberta and Brandon on board.”
Linda and Carlo spoke simultaneously. “Let’s talk about that!”
“Tomorrow,” Beth replied. “I’m going home to see my kid.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

What might you do to make sure that the most novel solutions get
appropriate consideration?

Notes
1. You can get instructions and materials for Kata in the Classroom at: www.
katatogrow.com/instructor-­materials.
2. This tool for group brainstorming is called ‘brainwriting.” See Appendix 2.
3. Carlo used a tool for divergent thinking called “forced connections.” Read
about it in Appendix 2.
Chapter 16

Gaining Acceptance

Beth and Mo met in the hallway outside the meeting room where Brandon
and the directors were holding their monthly business review meeting. Mo
was wearing a tie and a dress shirt. He looked nervous and paced the small
space.
“Mo, are you okay?” asked Beth.
Mo made a scoffing sound. “My whole career and the future of my team
hang on the success of this presentation. So, I’m doing just fine!”
“I’m here to support you. And Roberta is too. And you’re very well
prepared. You have done a good job preparing the ground for the idea
of transforming the contact center into a customer experience center with
strong connections to sales, marketing, and the strategic direction of GPS.”
“Preparing the ground.” This was a term that Beth and Mo had learned
from Linda. She had used a Japanese word, “nemawashi,” and had explained
that it literally meant to prepare a plant for transplantation by “going around
the roots.” In business practice, it meant to get stakeholders on board with a
new proposal by informally sharing it with them and getting their feedback.
Linda and Beth had supported Mo and his team in developing a proposal
A3, which Mo had shared with almost all the directors individually in
preparation for this meeting.
Carlo had added his perspective from CPS. “It does you no good to
have the best ideas or solutions in the world, if you can’t get people to
accept them. Planning for implementation starts with identifying the path
to acceptance. And this might require further cycles of divergent and
convergent thinking. You need to identify the people and other factors that
will assist in implementation, and, just as importantly, identify the people
and factors that will resist or hold back implementation.”

109
110 ◾ Creatively Lean

Mo had used this advice. He, Beth, Roberta, and several members of
the contact center team had brainstormed on assisters and resisters. He
paid special attention to directors who might support the change, but
just as much attention to those who might resist. Several times, when
a director had an objection to a component of the proposal, Mo had
rephrased their objection as a question: “How might we ...?” Spring-­
boarded by the question, the director and Mo were able to develop
options to address the concern. The A3 he was about to take into
the director’s meeting was enriched by the creativity of the directors
themselves.
Brandon opened the door and invited them into the conference room.
“Hey there, Beth and Mo. It’s great to have you join us today. We have been
looking forward to this part of the meeting.”
Beth and Mo took seats at the table. Beth sat next to Roberta, while Mo
was given a seat next to Brandon. Mo passed around the updated copies of
his A3 proposal. Beth noticed that each director had a stack of sticky notes
in front of them, and black markers were strewn around the table. Someone
waved at her from the side of the room, and she saw that Linda and Carlo
were seated in chairs along the wall.
“I hope it is okay that Linda and Carlo are here,” said Brandon. “They
have been integral to this work, and I thought they might enjoy seeing some
of the fruits of their labors.”
“It’s okay with me,” said Mo.
“Likewise,” Beth said in agreement.
“Mo, thank you for sharing your A3 with us before the meeting,” said
Brandon. “I know you have been working hard to get feedback and input
from most of the directors. I’m going to let them ask you any final questions
before we move forward. Was there anyone you didn’t meet with?”
“Only Jeremy. I think I met with everyone else. Um, Brandon, do you
want me to go over the A3?”
“Only if you have significant updates that we haven’t seen.”
“Not really. I added some ideas about communication after I met with
you.” Beth knew that Mo had been rehearsing what to say to the directors
all week, so while this was a relief, it was also perhaps a let-­down.
“Well, then, let’s go around the table and hear what questions people
have.”
George Windrow, the marketing director, was first with a question. Beth
knew that their proposal was very likely to step on marketing’s toes, and
George was known for his forceful personality.
 Gaining Acceptance ◾ 111

“Thank you, Mo – and Beth – for sharing this very interesting proposal.
Mo, you know that in marketing we want to really know the customers, and
we work closely with Roberta’s sales team to gain a lot of the information
we need. The concern I raised with you was that we would be getting a
flood of information that we wouldn’t be able to make sense of, and I see
here that you have some plans to manage that. The only question I have
now is, how soon can you run some experiments to validate this approach?”
“Is tomorrow okay?”
“Tomorrow?” George sounded skeptical.
“Well, tomorrow we can give you a report of the suggestions for new
product lines that customers have made over the past month.” Mo paused.
“There will be other reports, but this one is ready now.”
“Any other questions, George?” asked Brandon.
“No, I’m good,” said George. “Glad to see these guys stepping up to
contribute.”
Beth was about to defend Mo and the contact center but stopped when
Roberta patted her hand. “George is trying to work in the new way,” Roberta
whispered. “He is a slow learner.”
“Like me,” Beth whispered in reply.
Roberta smiled. “Like all of us.”
Sandy, the head of IT, spoke up next. “Mo, you know we have spent
a huge amount of money on the GPS ordering app. You have proposed
discontinuing most use of the app, and I see that proposal is still in here …”
Carlo, still sitting quietly in the corner, happened to clear his throat.
“I am getting to a question,” said Sandy. “Can you provide any data that
will help us redesign the app, if and when funding is available?”
“We can provide you with data, Sandy,” Mo replied. “We can also connect
you with customers willing to continue to use the app and test future
versions. Some customers are happy with it and want us to continue to
move in a digital direction. But some customers are not going to be able to
make that switch. That’s why we want to work with sales and the marketing
team to ensure that the customer experience is customized to the individual
customer.”
Roberta spoke up. “I don’t have a question obviously, but I do want
to say that I’m very pleased that the contact center is planning to work
more closely with sales. Frankly, even though they have both been in my
department for a long time, there hasn’t been a lot of cross-­fertilization.”
Brandon looked around the room. “Any other questions?” He included
Linda and Carlo in his gaze. “Linda, Carlo, any comments?”
112 ◾ Creatively Lean

Everyone shook their head. “Because this is such a big change, and has
impacts far beyond Roberta’s department, I’d like to hear from each one
of you that you support and are committed to advancing this initiative.
Carlo?”
Carlo stood up and drew a target on the whiteboard. Above the target he
wrote “Create a Center for Customer Engagement.”
“Would each of the directors, and you, Brandon, write your initials on a
sticky note. Then come up here and place your sticky on the target. If you’re
100 percent on board and willing to support Mo’s proposal, place your
sticky right in the center of the target. If you have concerns, or problems
that need to be solved before you can commit, place your sticky on the
appropriate ring of the target. We will discuss and address the concerns
before we leave this meeting.”
“Is that a threat?” ask Brandon. “It’s getting pretty late in the day.”
“It’s really a promise,” replied Carlo, “that we will work on this until all
the directors can support the path forward. This is not about achieving
consensus, and compromise, but about strengthening the proposal so that
it can be implemented successfully, with full acceptance of the leaders
of this company. The goal is to get everyone on the bullseye for full
commitment.”
“Well, we still have a lot to learn before full implementation,” said Mo.
“I don’t think what we end up with will be exactly like the proposal on
the A3.”
“True,” said Carlo, “and let’s start that learning now.” Beth watched as
each director added their initialed sticky note to the target. Almost all were
in the center. One was in the ring outside the center, and one was at the
very edge of the target. Carlo picked that one up first. “Who is SN?” he
asked. “Is that you, Sandy?”
“Yes, that’s me.” Sandy, the IT director, raised her hand.
“Is this about the app?” asked Carlo.
“No, it’s not about the app,” said Sandy. “I am disappointed about the app,
after the dollars and the effort we put into it, but I’m not going to push it if
the customers are not getting benefit from it. My issue with not being able to
fully support this proposal is about the people in the contact center. These
are not the highest-­level people in the company, if I can put it delicately, and
I’m not convinced they can take on the level of problem solving and analysis
that this proposal requires.”
Beth glanced at Mo. He didn’t react.
“Let’s phrase that as a question, Sandy,” said Carlo. “In what ways …”
 Gaining Acceptance ◾ 113

Sandy paused for a moment.

“In what ways might we support and educate the contact center
associates to perform analytics and problem solving?”
Brandon looked at Sandy. “You have some pretty good analysts on your
team. Maybe you could help?”
Mo spoke up. “We’d be happy to get the support and maybe even some
training.”
Carlo addressed Sandy. “If we could find ways to develop analytical skill
in the current staff, would you be able to move your sticky note closer to
the center?”
“I could move it. Not to the center but closer. Close enough to move
forward.”
“I will add training on analytical skills to the A3,” said Mo. “What else?”
Sandy leaned forward, scrutinizing the A3 in front of her. “You may need
to hire some different skill sets, Mo.”
“I have some openings to fill. Can you help me with position
descriptions?” Mo chuckled to himself. “No, wait a minute. How might you
help me with position descriptions?”
Sandy shifted her attention from the A3 to the calendar on her phone. “I
have time tomorrow to discuss that with you. How is 2 p.m.?”
“Sandy, where is your sticky now?” asked Carlo.
“Getting closer to the center,” Sandy admitted. “Close enough for me to
be on board.”
“Show me where to put it,” Carlo said, picking up the sticky note.
“Right on the innermost ring. Yeah, that’s it.” Sandy smiled. “If Mo and I
can work together, that will be good.”
“Which leaves us,” said Carlo, “with this one.” He picked up the other
sticky note that was outside the center circle.
“That’s mine.” This was Jeremy Wong, the HR Director. Beth had been
wondering when Jeremy would weigh in. “My concerns are like Sandy’s. I
don’t believe this group can pull this off. They are just not the talent that
can do that.” He spoke directly to Brandon. “Brandon, we need to talk about
this without Mo and Beth in the room.”
Roberta spoke up. “We’re committed to transparency here. I would like
Mo and Beth to stay.” Beth looked at Mo. His hands were shaking as he
organized the materials in front of him at the table. Brandon nodded. “How
about we give Mo a break, but Beth will stay. Mo, don’t go too far, we’ll
need you back here in a few minutes.”
114 ◾ Creatively Lean

Mo looked relieved as he stood up and left the room. Brandon turned

back to Jeremy. “What is your issue? And please state it as a question inviting
a creative response.”
Jeremy glared at Brandon. “Brandon, I’m tired of this stuff. I would just
like to say what needs to be said. What everyone in in the room is thinking
but doesn’t have the guts to say.” He looked at Beth and Roberta. “Look, Mo
is a nice guy. But he has run that contact center into the ground. He doesn’t
have an MBA – heck, I don’t know if he even has a degree. The people in
the contact center are mostly high school graduates. They are not capable of
delivering this kind of a change, and Mo is not the kind of leader who can
lead a change like that.”
Roberta stood up. She was holding a copy of Mo’s A3. “Jeremy, do you
believe this is a strategic and valuable change?”
Jeremy nodded. “It’s quite brilliant. Very strategic.”
Roberta continued, an angry note in her voice. “Do you know who came
up with this idea? It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Beth. It was Mo. And Mo and
his team developed this proposal and strengthened the ideas in it. I have
complete confidence in them. The question I would ask is, how might HR
support Mo to continue to develop the leadership skills he needs for this
change?” She sat down.
Carlo turned to Jeremy. “Jeremy, what would get you on board? You didn’t
place your sticky note all that far outside the center.”
“I was going to say all that is needed is to replace Mo with a more
qualified leader. I get the sense that is a non-­starter.”
Roberta started to speak, but Carlo interrupted. “Jeremy, may I rephrase
that for you?”
Jeremy sighed. “Sure, go ahead.”
“How might we ensure that the leadership of the contact center is ready
and able to lead this change?”
“I agree,” said Roberta. “I have no desire to put Mo into a position where
he is set up to fail. But I think we can support him, and I also believe that
with Beth’s engagement and coaching, using the improvement kata and
more A3s as needed, Mo will succeed. And if he doesn’t, it will be our
failure, not his.”
Brandon turned to Jeremy. “Thank you for sharing your concern. I want
you to know I heard it, and I understand what you’re worried about. I
appreciate the efforts you have been making to upgrade the talent in the
company, and to hold us to high standards.” He looked at Carlo. “Let’s do
 Gaining Acceptance ◾ 115

some brainstorming on this question. Beth, please ask Mo to join us. I

would like his input on what support he needs.”
In the hallway, Beth quickly told Mo what had happened. Mo laughed
out loud. “That is pretty funny! Jeremy said what I was thinking. I don’t
know if I can lead this change. I was more than half-­expecting to end up
being replaced.”
“You were? That never crossed my mind.”
“None of us are ready to lead this change. But we’re all ready to learn
how to lead change. And I think you have a head start on some people in
that room.”
They went back inside to find Jeremy moving his sticky note to the
center of the target. “What happened?” asked Beth, a little afraid to hear the
answer.
Jeremy looked chagrined. “I’m on board. It looks like I’m going to be
Mo’s leadership mentor. If he will have me.”
“Great!” exclaimed Brandon. “Let’s come up with some other ideas for
supporting the leadership of this change.”
By the end of the meeting, half a dozen strategies to support Mo and the
contact center had been added to Mo’s A3. Beth stayed to help Carlo pack
up his supplies. Mo had gone ahead to report back to his team before they
left for the day.
“Carlo, what was that you did with the target?” Beth asked.
“That is a CPS tool called ‘targeting’. It is a convergence tool often used
in planning for implementation. It works very well for gaining acceptance of
an idea, and at the same time strengthening the idea. I also love it because
it is so simple. Everyone understands a target. It does work best in the
kind of culture that Brandon is building here. One where people are free,
like Jeremy was, and Roberta was, to state their truth. Speaking of which,
Beth, I didn’t hear your voice much in this meeting. Why not? What was
stopping you?”
“I know.” Beth considered the reasons for that. “I know I can be
‘intimidating’ but I find all the directors together intimidating. And Roberta
was speaking up very well for our group.”
“I think you always have valuable things to say. Do me and Linda a favor.
We won’t be here forever. You’re our legacy in a way. Speak up. Share what
you know.”
“I will,” said Beth. “Thank you.”
The next day, she went to HR and knocked on Jeremy’s door. He looked
up from his computer, surprised to see her. “Hi, Beth, what can I do for you?
116 ◾ Creatively Lean

“Hey Jeremy,” she answered. “Do you have time this afternoon? I’d like to
take you on a gemba walk of the contact center. I think you will learn a lot
if you spend some time there.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

What approaches and methods do you use to gain acceptance of new
ideas? What might you do differently?
Chapter 17

Small Steps, Long Journey

Now that the contact center had a challenging goal, the team was eager to
start using the improvement kata. Linda ran a few more sessions with jigsaw
puzzles and handed out the cards with the questions to everyone. Mo and
Beth and the people who had attended the first session, augmented by
Erica, an associate from IT, as well as an associate from marketing, and one
from sales, set up a meeting with Linda to write a handful of measurable
objectives in support of the challenge of transforming into a customer
experience center. Beth had asked Jeremy for a representative from HR and
was astonished when Jeremy himself appeared in the doorway just as the
meeting was ready to start.
Jeremy laughed when she questioned his presence. “Well, you know,
HR is really only two people. I just assigned the least useful one to this
meeting.”
Beth sat in the corner. She had decided to simply observe this meeting
and let Mo step into the group leadership role. She knew it would be an
effort to keep her mouth shut, and she was determined to succeed.
Linda wrote the challenge on the whiteboard. “Create a Center for
Customer Engagement.”
“Mo, we’ve all read the A3, and many people here have contributed to it.
But please tell us in your own words what it means to create a Center for
Customer Engagement.”
“For one thing, it means we’re the center of the company. We interact
with customers every day, we delight them, help them get their problems
solved, and learn what they need and want. What we learn from customers
drives the company strategy, directs which problems need to be solved in
other departments, and provides valuable data to sales and to marketing.”

117
118 ◾ Creatively Lean

“If you were to come in here tomorrow and you had magically achieved
your goal overnight, how would you be able to tell?”
“Hmm, good question. I guess, the number of calls related to customer
issues would be much less, a lot of the associates would be helping
customers who don’t want to use the app to easily order parts, we would
be proactively reaching out to customers for input, and we would be
spending more time on analytics and reporting, the reports we provide
would be eagerly anticipated and used by the rest of the company for
process improvement and better marketing and selling, we would spend
proportionally less time on the phone. Oh, and call center associates would
all be happy!”
Linda noted each of Mo’s statements on the whiteboard. “Let’s take these
one at a time, starting with percentage of calls related to customer issues.
What is the current data?”
“Last week, 87 percent of calls were due to customer issues, if you
include problems with the app. If we only look at calls that aren’t about app
problems, 80 percent of those ones are customer issues like late deliveries,
wrong part sent, etc.”
“What are the rest of the calls?”
“We get a lot of requests for parts that we don’t carry, about 15 percent
of the non-­app calls. And some calls we don’t classify. Someone might
call to compliment their delivery driver or to request a catalog or ask for
instructions for a particular product.”
“What would be a reasonable percentage of customer complaints?”
Mo laughed. “Zero, of course. But we don’t have control over road
traffic, or snowstorms in the Mid-­West, for example, so a part might still
be delivered late. Let’s say, 10 percent. But if we can reduce the issues that
lead to the calls, we will make a big difference in the volume of calls, so I’d
rather have that as a measure.”
The team decided that reduction of call volume related to issues or
complaints to half of the current amount would permit time for the new
activities they wanted to take on, including the analytics function, assisting
the many customers who did not want to use the app, and proactively
calling customers.
Linda showed them a visual board she had created on a mobile
whiteboard. “This will be your kata story board for this challenge,” she said,
writing “Inbound Complaint Call Volume less than 500/day” in the upper
right-­hand corner.
“This will be a long journey,” one of the team members sighed.
 Small Steps, Long Journey ◾ 119

Figure 17.1 Starting the Kata Storyboard.

“It may be,” Linda acknowledged. “Remember, you’re also learning how
to improve at the same time you’re working on the improvements. It’s like
learning any new skill. Most people can’t learn a new skill all at once.
Usually you must take small steps, practice them, get coaching on what
you’re doing well and what needs to change, and eventually, you will master
the skill.” She looked around the group. “Who will be working on this
challenge?”
“I will,” said Mo. “And I think we need one other contact center person,
and because we will be reducing the use of the app, IT. So, Erica, you’re
our IT partner, I guess that is you.” A young woman from the contact center,
Elizabeth, raised her hand shyly. “Thanks, Elizabeth!” Beth smiled to herself.
She had been concerned about Elizabeth’s participation. She was quiet, and
had great success handling unhappy customers, but in the team, she was
often passive, seemed unengaged in the contact center social life, and rarely
spoke up in meetings.
Linda wrote the names in her notebook and on the whiteboard.
“Linda, I have a question,” said Mo. “To remember our creative thinking
perspective, can we restate that challenge as a question?”
“If you like,” Linda replied. “How do you want to say it?”
“How might we reduce inbound complaint call volume to less than
500/day?” Mo picked up a whiteboard marker. “I’ll change it on the board if
everyone agrees.” Seeing the heads nodding, he rewrote the challenge.
120 ◾ Creatively Lean

Figure 17.2 Continuing the Kata Storyboard.

Linda turned back to the storyboard. “Let’s do the call volume target
condition. What is your target condition for call volume? And when do you
want to achieve it? Remember when we played with the puzzles? We didn’t
try to achieve the goal, the challenge, right away.”
Mo and the group conferred for a moment. “We’re going to aim for
reducing call volume by 10 percent within one month.”
“What call volume would that be?”
Mo scribbled on a piece of paper. “840 complaint calls a day. Down from
our 980-complaint call average.”
Linda nodded and handed the marker to Elizabeth. “Add that to your
storyboard. And the three of you can add your current data.”
Elizabeth added the data from the A3. The whole group stood back and
looked at the board. “What obstacles are preventing you from achieving
your target condition?” Linda asked. “I know if Carlo were here, he would
advise you to think divergently to generate that list.”
“Ah, I see,” said Mo. “We can use divergent thinking to come up with the
list of obstacles and convergent thinking to select the first one to work on.”
“Right,” said Linda. “You’re going to use your data to spur the divergent
thinking and use the target condition and the goal as the guidance for
‘being deliberate’ when you perform your convergent thinking. And you
can take a similar divergent and convergent thinking approach when you
 Small Steps, Long Journey ◾ 121

determine what experiment you will try first. When will the three of you be
able to work on the obstacles and the next experiment?”
“We’ll do it this afternoon,” said Mo enthusiastically. “You can take a look
tomorrow morning.”
Linda nodded. “Perfect. Let’s work on the rest of these objectives. Mo,
you said, that you expected that contact center associates would be helping
customers with their orders. Tell me more about that.”
“We know that many of our customers are not going to use the app, or
their computer to order parts. So, we would like to offer a new call-­in line
for those customers. But we don’t really know what it will take to do that
effectively.”
“That is like you’re creating a new product, in a way,” said Linda.
“Although you can use the kata for new product development, we should
take a different approach initially. And Carlo could help us as well.” She
looked at the other aspirations that Mo had stated. “You know, two of these
other ones are also more like new products: ‘proactively reaching out to
customers’ and ‘providing better analytics.’ ”
“Does that mean we can’t take a lean approach to them?” Mo looked
worried.
“Yes, you can take a lean approach. It is a little different, but everything you
have learned so far, PDCA, A3s, the improvement kata, and CPS will help.”
Beth smiled to herself again. Mo seemed to be stepping up well to lead
this work. She wanted to see him delegate some of the other objectives to
others to lead, but there was time to make sure he wasn’t behaving like Beth
and trying to drive everything himself.
“When we get to employee satisfaction,” said Jeremy, “I want to be part of
that.”
“Sounds good, Jeremy,” said Mo. “Let’s work on that one next, Linda.”
“Mo sounds like a leader to me,” thought Beth. She was happy to see that
she didn’t need to be part of the conversation for people to make progress.

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

Is it clear to you which segment of your work is “improvement projects”
and which are really about creating a “new product?” What might
you do to improve your approach to the new product work in your
organization?
Chapter 18

A New Product

Beth caught up with Linda outside the meeting room. The rest of the
meeting had gone well, and the contact center now had two teams working
on challenges related to creating a Center for Customer Experience. While
Beth was happy with the progress, and Mo’s leadership, and Jeremy’s
participation, she was concerned about the three challenges for which Linda
had not created storyboards.
“Linda, I need more insight about why those three challenges got left off
the table today. I was hoping we could get multiple teams kicked off.”
“Do you agree that those challenges are more like the creation of new
products than improvements of existing processes?”
“I guess so. But it’s not like we’re setting out to design a new flange or
faucet.”
“True, it’s not a physical product. But the contact center is about to create
something for internal and external customers that essentially doesn’t exist.
There is nothing in place to improve.” Linda sighed. “I believe that there
are new product aspects to the reduction of call volume as well. There will
need to be a new process to let other departments know about processes
that they need to improve. But some of that will be taken care of by the
development of the new analytical function and the new reports, which is
one of our ‘new product’ projects. You and Mo will need to make sure that
the teams working on these challenges stay in communication.”
Beth’s stomach growled and she looked at her phone. It was lunchtime.
“Are you free for a quick bite, Linda? Can you fill me in on lean product
development?”
They made their way to the cafeteria, bought some lunch, and found
Carlo returning to his “office’ from another meeting. He waved to them and

123
124 ◾ Creatively Lean

they sat down together. “How did it go this morning? I missed you guys, but
there is so much going on around here – I can’t be everywhere.”
“It was good,” said Beth. “But we didn’t get all the challenges quantified
and on a storyboard. Linda observed that some of the challenges were
more like new products than improvement projects. I asked her to give me
a quick explanation of lean product development, so I know what is going
to happen next. I guess I’m also wondering how CPS would play into that.
Although I’d guess that divergent thinking is a key part of coming up with
new product ideas.”
Carlo nodded vigorously; “Yes, of course, and convergent thinking as
well. But it all starts with understanding and clarifying what problem you’re
solving for the customer.”
“I think this is where CPS and lean have tremendous synergy,” said Linda.
“Lean product development is focused on developing people who can create
products that bring value to their customers. And, of course, to do that,
you need to understand the customer well, and know what problem you’re
solving for them. In my opinion, when you look at approaches like lean
product development, lean start-­up, design thinking, and Creative Problem
Solving, there is a tremendous amount of overlap.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that,” said Carlo, “but I don’t think our
methodological arguments are helpful to Beth.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about anyway,” said Beth.
“What do you know about product development?” asked Linda.
“Not much. It’s not really a function we have at GPS.”
“Have you observed what happens when companies come out with new
products? Are they all successful?”
Beth thought about recent news stories she had seen. A new soda flavor,
announced with a lot of hype, disappearing from the market in a couple of
months. A blockbuster movie that had lost millions. A new aircraft plagued
by technical problems.
“No, I guess they are not. Some even cause their companies to lose
money.”
Linda pulled her notebook from her bag and pushed her lunch tray aside.
“Think about this idea of a dedicated call-­in line for customers to order
products over the phone. Sounds like a great idea, right? Everyone here at
GPS loves it. But to Carlo’s point, we don’t know yet if it solves a customer
need.”
Beth was taken aback. “But we know some of our customers are not
going to use the app, even if we fix it.”
 A New Product ◾ 125

“Hmmm … have you asked any customers? Do you know what problem
they need to have solved?”
“I know I have heard some customers say that they don’t use
smartphones and that they can’t access computers when they are at a
worksite, so it seems logical that a call-­in line would be great for them. But
I get what you’re saying, because I have done this so many times myself,
confusing a favorite solution with understanding the real problem. Shouldn’t
we tell Mo and the team?”
Linda shook her head. “We can trust the process to do that for them, and
they will learn better because of it, and they will learn pretty soon.”
“Then what is the process?”
Linda drew a picture in her notebook. “This is a typical product
development process. In this process, decisions about the products, its
features and how to deliver it are ‘locked in’ early, and if any of those
decisions are wrong, the product will be late, and may not be successful.”
She drew a large arrow above the process. “Developing a new product
involves a lot of learning, and in the typical process, the learning happens
late in the process and can be very expensive. You can think of it as doing
all the learning in a large batch.”
Beth leaned forward to look at the drawing. “And, in lean, we try to
avoid large batches.”
“You got it,” Linda said. “So, in a lean product development process,
we try to keep our learning in small batches, by performing short learning
cycles. These are basically PDCA cycles. Another principle has to do with

Figure 18.1 One Large Batch of Learning.

126 ◾ Creatively Lean

Figure 18.2 Many Small Batches of Learning.

waste. In this case, we’re talking about waste of knowledge gained during
the learning. There is no value to customers or to product developers if
we must keep learning the same lesson. In lean product development,
we capture as much learning as we can in each learning cycle, often in
A3s. This helps to speed up the development and delivery of subsequent
products.”
She drew another picture in her notebook. “A lean product development
process will look like this.”
Beth tapped the picture. “How do we know what we need to learn, and
when?”
“Great question, Beth!” Linda looked at Carlo. “Many lean product
development practitioners do a divergent thinking exercise at the beginning
of the process, listing all the questions they have about the customer, the
product, its features, technical issues, etc. They then use a convergent
thinking approach such as an evaluation matrix or a risk assessment to
determine which questions are most important to answer early, and to
decide whether any can be answered concurrently or with information they
already have. This allows them to plan the key decisions they need to make,
and that drives which learning cycles to perform, and when. Of course, as
they learn, they may generate additional questions, and that might change
the plan. In a typical product development plan, the focus is on execution,
and new learnings are not accounted for.”
“Interesting,” said Beth, “and because the learning cycles are PDCA
cycles, there will be times when CPS tools can help with the thinking. And
 A New Product ◾ 127

you could use the improvement kata as well. But it seems all this upfront
work would make the process longer.”
Linda shook her head. “Haven’t we had this conversation before?”
Beth knew what Linda was talking about. “I guess if we deliver entirely
the wrong product, it doesn’t matter how long the process takes, all our
work is wasted. Which kind of reminds me of the ordering app. We spent so
much time and money on that and it’s almost all been wasted.”
Linda nodded her head in agreement. “Right. And once you’re locked
into major decisions – say, implementing a new app or hiring and training
people to take customer orders over the phone, and you find that it is not
going deliver the value you expected, it will take you longer to get to the
right answer and it will be considerably more expensive.”
“We would have to figure out what to do with those people we hired.”
Carlo leaned over to look at the drawings. “I have to say, this is
fascinating. I can imagine a lot of ways to use CPS tools in this process. A
natural fit. It needs to start with customer knowledge, right, Linda? What are
the ways the team can get that customer knowledge?”
Linda and Beth both laughed. “Where are your sticky notes, Carlo?” Beth
exclaimed. “We need to brainstorm!”
“Let’s get a few more people together to do that. I will check with Mo to
find out who he wants and when.”
Linda tapped the picture she had drawn of the lean product development
process. “Beth, I have given you a very high-­level explanation. There is a lot
more to this. If you’re interested, I can recommend …”
“Another book, right? I’ll take it. Even though I’m not a product
developer.”
“Ah, but you are,” said Carlo. “You and Mo and the contact center
are bringing something entirely new to the company. You’re a product
developer.”

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

How does the creation of new offerings or products work in your
organization? How early do you make decisions and what is the
result of making those decisions early? Where are you using divergent
thinking? Where are you using convergent thinking?
Chapter 19

Not A Typical Monday

“Did you hear?” asked Georgia, in a low tone, as she pushed the button on
the coffee machine. “We have an all hands meeting this afternoon.”
Beth had her head in the refrigerator, looking for half-­and-half. “Why
don’t we have a kanban for the coffee supplies?” she thought to herself.
“Yes, I know, Georgia. It is not a big deal. Well, Brandon does have an
announcement to make, but it is a good one.”
Georgia stirred her coffee so vigorously it spilled on the counter. “Can
you tell me?”
“No way!” Beth laughed. “If I tell you, it will be all over the company
by lunch time, and then Brandon won’t need the meeting, and all the
refreshments he ordered will need to be sent back.”
Beth couldn’t find any half and half, so she settled for a cup of cold
water. She walked briskly through the building and entered the warehouse.
The warehouse team was already circled around their visual board. She had
almost missed the daily meeting.
“Hi, Beth!” exclaimed Keisha. “You’re just in time. Judy is going to lead
the meeting today.”
“Judy looks great,” Beth thought. Judy had been back at work for three
months now and had recently given up the cane she had been using since
her return.
Judy spoke to the assembled group. “Good morning, everyone, and
happy Monday! First, let’s do the numbers from Saturday. We had 2,165
orders on Saturday, and they were all picked and shipped by noon.
We had no safety incidents and received no complaints about wrong
shipments. It was a good day!” There was a smattering of applause. Judy
continued. “Today we have 4,003 orders to pick and expect to receive

129
130 ◾ Creatively Lean

another 400 or so rush orders from the contact center. We’re fully staffed
today …” there was another wave of applause, “and today we welcome
our high school summer intern, Connor Brickell.” Beth smiled at Connor,
who ignored her pointedly. “Are there any issues to report?” Judy looked
around the group.
Keisha pointed at a card held on the board by a red magnet. “Who owns
this one?”
A young woman that Beth didn’t know raised her hand. “We’re
running low on the SKUs from Neptune Industries. Their shipment was
due Thursday and it hasn’t arrived. A couple of those SKUs are in the
supermarket and are below the kanban for replenishment.”
Judy asked, “What do we know about this problem?”
The young woman continued. “I contacted Neptune and they said
that their invoices are not getting paid on time, so they are withholding
shipments until they are paid.”
Keisha picked up the card. “I will take this to the managers’ meeting, and
make sure that Accounts Payable is up to speed.”
Judy looked around the group. “Who can work with Letitia on options for
managing this situation until we can get a shipment?” Several people raised
their hands. “Letitia, how soon can we hear what the viable options are?”
“We will have an answer this afternoon. 2 p.m.”
“And I will report back on what Accounts Payable says this afternoon as
well,” said Keisha. “Don’t forget we have an all hands meeting at 3 p.m.”
Beth thought back to how this would have been handled a year ago.
Most likely, no one would have known about the shortage until a customer
had requested some of those SKUs and they wouldn’t have been able to
fill the order. If they had learned that there was an apparent issue with
invoices not being paid, there might have been angry emails or phone
calls to Accounts Payable. Beth would have been drawn into the emails
and phone calls, and perhaps difficult meetings where blame was passed
around the room like a hot potato. Now they were able to see the problem,
communicate it effectively to Accounts Payable, and help each other with
creative solutions. She expected that Accounts Payable would take the
information from Keisha with equanimity and quickly work to solve the
problem, and Beth wouldn’t need to be involved at all.
She took another look at Connor. She realized he wouldn’t appreciate
being told how adorable he looked in his hard hat and safety glasses. That
was another thing. A year ago, she would not have wanted her son working
in this warehouse. Now she was confident in his safety, and that he would
 Not a Typical Monday ◾ 131

learn valuable lean thinking and creative thinking tools that would only
benefit his future education and career.
She stepped outside and walked briskly across the parking lot to the
Customer Experience Center. The first shift was just finishing their morning
meeting when she arrived. She hung back until the meeting was finished.
“Mo, can you give me a quick review of today’s meeting?” she asked.
Mo reviewed their visual board with her. Like the warehouse, they had
no absences, and most of the metrics were within the expected range. Mo
showed her one graph he was especially happy with: call handling time.
“As you can see, Beth, incoming call volume is continuing to decline.
Now that we know what the most common customer issue are and have
eliminated them, we’re close to our goal. But look at call handling time!”
The line on the graph was getting steadily higher. “As you can see, the
call handling time is continuing to increase. We’re finding that customers
want to spend more time on the phone with their Customer Experience
Representative, and we think that is translating into more sales and more
positive referrals.”
“Do you know that relationship for sure?” Beth asked.
“We’re still exploring that. The sales folks think so, and sales are going
up, but I can’t say for sure yet.” Mo took her around to see several kata story
boards. In the early spring, the Customer Experience Center had invited
sales, marketing, the warehouse, IT, and HR to a workshop on integrating
process across the functions. Several projects were underway, and almost
everyone was involved in a project, either as a participant or as a coach.
Beth could tell that one of the groups had been brainstorming together
because one wall was covered in colorful sticky notes.
“Are you excited for this afternoon?” Beth asked. Mo was one of the few
people outside the directors who knew what was going to be announced at
the all hands meeting.
“I am! And nervous. How do you like being a director?”
“It is a big change. I still have a lot to learn. New types of problems to
solve. I miss Roberta every day, but I talked to her last week, and she is very
happy out there on the West Coast.”
Beth checked the time on her phone. It was almost time for the
managers’ morning meeting. “Want to walk over with me, Mo?”
Outside, it was beginning to get hot, and the air was humid. They were
glad to get back into the air conditioning. Beth checked her fitness tracker;
she had already walked a mile and half. That was another difference from
a year ago. Now she was no longer shackled to her computer, answering
132 ◾ Creatively Lean

emails and juggling meetings. After the managers’ meeting, she would head
to the directors’ meeting. By 9:30 a.m., she would know almost everything
going on in the company. She planned to go back to the Center for
Customer Experience and sit in on a brainstorming session and later she had
a coaching meeting planned with Mo.
At 3:00 p.m., the cafeteria was packed. Brandon stood on a small
platform, looking relaxed and happy. Beth found a spot near the platform.
“Hello, GPS!” Brandon greeted his employees.
“Hello, Brandon!”
“I’m very happy that so many of you could be here this afternoon and
a big hello to our new West Coast team who are joining us on video.” A
screen behind Brandon showed the small group of West Coast employees
waving to the camera.
“About a year ago, we started on a journey to improve our company. The
directors and I had an off-­site meeting, and we set some ambitious goals
for the company. And I need to tell you that we had no idea how we were
going to reach them. But I knew how smart you all are, and I knew we
could all learn to learn better together, to be more creative together, and
most importantly, come together to serve our customers.
“I’d like to tell you today that we have achieved all those goals. But we
haven’t – yet. Those goals are three-­year goals and we’ve only been on
this journey for one year. Our progress has been outstanding this far, even
though we have faced some enormous challenges, and we will have more in
the future. I’m so proud of all of you for everything you have done, and the
changes you have embraced. I’m looking forward to what happens next.”
Brandon motioned to someone to join him on the stage. Beth smiled
as she watched Mo emerge from the crowd and step up to the platform.
“One year ago,” Brandon said, “we were considering some pretty drastic
moves. We knew there was at least one department that needed, let’s say,
a lot of change. But this guy,” – he indicated Mo, “and his team took on
that change, and they changed all of us. They took a bold step, decided
to get out in front and lead, with a heart for the customer and the courage
to be creative. So, Mohammed Khan, I would like to present you, and the
Center for Customer Experience, with the first annual GPS change-­maker
award.” Mo looked thoroughly thrilled, and completely embarrassed by the
applause and cheering. Brandon handed him a large trophy shaped like a
J-­bend pipe.
“In honor of this team’s accomplishments, we’re celebrating with ice
cream sundaes. I think you folks in San Jose have ice cream too?”
 Not a Typical Monday ◾ 133

Beth slipped out of the room, and found Carlo and Linda chatting in the
hallway. Carlo waved her over. “Our favorite student!”
“Did you see the presentation?” Beth asked.
“We did,” said Linda. “You must be very proud of Mo.”
“It wasn’t me; it was you two that made it happen.”
Linda shook her head. “No, it was Mo and you. We gave him a way to
think, and tools to work with. You supported and coached him well. You
listened to him, gave him space, and safety, and got out of your own way
and his way so that he could innovate.”
“Well, thank you, I guess,” Beth responded. “I feel as if I have learned
more than anyone.”
“Beth, you know, our contracts are almost over. We will always be
available to you, but going forward, GPS will be standing on its own feet.
Will you keep learning?”
“Can I get you back to facilitate if I need you?”
Linda reached out and patted Beth’s shoulder. “Probably. But our job has
been to build your capability, not be your capability.”
“What am I going to do without you?”
Carlo cleared his throat. Beth knew what that meant. “No, what I mean
is, ‘how might I continue to build my skills?’ ”
“Good question, Beth. Need some sticky notes?”
“That’s okay,” said Beth. “I already have some ideas.”
Afterword

Beth’s story is a fable. It is not a recipe for a lean transformation. Few would
attempt to teach and implement all these lean approaches and CPS across an
organization in less than a year! It is also a fable because lean transformation
is hard.
GPS has the benefit of engaged leadership and people at all levels willing
to make a change in the way they work and think and even care about
each other. Wherever you are in your lean journey, be prepared to test
every assumption you have about how organizations work and how people
should behave. And be prepared to use creative thinking to move your lean
transformation forward.

135
Appendix 1

A Brief History of Creative

Problem Solving

You have undoubtedly been in a meeting and somebody has said, “Let’s
brainstorm on this.” Or somebody has started to list some ideas and said
(often as an apology), “I’m just brainstorming.” Or perhaps you’ve heard,
“Brainstorming doesn’t work!” Where did that term come from?
Before 1939, a “brain storm” meant a sudden fit of melancholy, or an
epileptic seizure! But in 1939, something happened to change the definition
to a more positive meaning. An American advertising executive, Alex
Faickney Osborn, started to get groups of his colleagues at the agency
BBDO (Batten, Barten, Durstine, & Osborn) together to generate creative
ideas for advertising campaigns.1 The groups followed specific rules for
these sessions, which they started to call “brainstorm sessions.” The results
of these sessions provided their clients with innovative advertising that made
BBDO a leading agency in the US.
Osborn realized that there was more to learn (and teach) about creativity,
and in the 1950s, he partnered with Sid Parnes, a professor of psychology
at Buffalo State College to develop and document the “Osborn-­Parnes
Creative Solving Problem Process.” It was this process that evolved into
“CPS.” Osborn and Parnes founded the Creative Education Foundation
(CEF ), a non-­profit organization, whose mission is to “spark personal and
professional transformation by empowering people with the skill set, tool
set, and mindset of deliberate creativity” (www.creativeeducationfoundation.
org/about-­cef/). They also founded the International Center for Studies in
Creativity at Buffalo State College (now SUNY Buffalo State), which offers a
master’s program in Creativity Studies.

137
138 ◾ Appendix 1: Brief History of CPS

Amazingly, Osborn and Parnes and their successors saw this as a gift to
the world and did not copyright or patent the CPS process. At the Center for
Creative Studies and at CEF, research continues into human creativity and
its use to solve problems of every size. Every summer, hundreds of learners
meet in Buffalo, NY, to advance their knowledge of CPS and share their
learning from implementation across a wide range of industries, educational
institutions, and even governmental organizations. Elements from CPS have
found their way into many other methodologies.
Brainstorming was a key ideation technique in the new CPS process, but
brainstorming was only one piece of the creative thinking puzzle. Osborn
and Parnes thought through and experimented with how and when to use
brainstorming and related approaches to generate and develop ideas, and
how to evaluate, select from, and strengthen the many ideas generated.
They determined that it was critically important to separate and balance
the work of coming up with ideas (divergent thinking) from the work of
selecting ideas to move forward, which they referred to as “judgment”
(convergent thinking).

Separate Divergent Thinking

from
Convergent Thinking

They also realized that they could waste a lot of time and effort if they tried
to solve a poorly understood problem.
Alex Osborn initially proposed a problem-­solving process with seven
stages which were later condensed to three stages (fact-­finding, idea-­
finding, and solution-­finding). Note that there is no stage to “plan for
implementation.”
In early versions of CPS, the focus was on divergent thinking, so much so
that in 1953, Alex Osborn added a chapter to a revision of his work “Applied
Imagination,” stressing the importance of “judicial thinking,” although most
of the chapter is apologetics for the necessity of focusing on divergent
thinking in earlier versions of the book.2
CPS’s evolution led to creative thinkers using both divergent thinking
and convergent thinking in a more balanced way, tapping into both their
ability to ideate and their skills of judgment. As CPS has evolved over the
years, different versions and models of the process have been created, with
 Appendix 1: Brief History of CPS ◾ 139

varying numbers of steps displayed using linear models, spirals, and many
other creative graphical approaches. (To read about one modern version of
CPS, see Appendix 4.) As new models for CPS were developed, practitioners
also developed dozens of tools to assist in divergent and convergent
thinking. These tools are powerful when used inside the creative problem-­
solving process, and they are just as powerful when used with any of the
lean problem-­solving approaches. Learn more about some of these tools in
Appendices 2 and 3.
Osborn and Parnes did not stop with tools. Over the course of their
collaboration, they investigated many factors potentially impacting creativity:
age (older people make more interesting connections between ideas,
perhaps due to longer experience), gender (they found women to be better
than men at brainstorming), education, emotions, exposure to the arts,
habits, the need for the subconscious to incubate ideas; all this before
neuroscience began to delve into creativity. One key creative thinking
concept woven through their work regards questions.
Every discovery starts with a question. “What is over that hill? Why
does the sun appear to travel across the sky? How might we prevent
people from falling ill?” The practice of affirmative inquiry is woven
through CPS. Challenges, problems, issues are stated as questions inviting
a positive and creative response. CPS practitioners use sentence starters
(stems) like “How might …?” or “What are the ways …?” together with a
positive outcome statement to state challenges and issues. There is a big
difference between saying “I am always late to work,” and “How might I
get to work on time?”

Affirmative inquiry elicits a creative response.

In preparing to write this, I acquired a copy of Alex Osborn’s Applied

Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking (the 1953
revision). The copy I got from a used bookseller is slightly musty and
the pages are yellowed. In one sense, it is dated: most of the time, he
refers to “men” rather than to people. But how modern this book seems
otherwise! Like the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review, Osborn
tells of companies that have benefitted from creating climates that permit
risk-­taking and which value the creative ability of every employee at
every level.
140 ◾ Appendix 1: Brief History of CPS

Why so little is known by lean practitioners of the work of Osborn

and Parnes is a mystery; is it because once we learn about lean, we focus
exclusively on learning more about lean?

Notes
1. Osborn, Alex F., Your Creative Power: How to Use Imagination (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948).
2. Osborn, Alex F., Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative
Thinking (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957).
Appendix 2

Rules and Tools for

Divergent Thinking

All tools for divergent thinking are based on brainstorming. Divergent

thinking tools can obviously be used to generate ideas when we need
a solution or countermeasure, or a product idea, and we need to think
divergently in many situations and steps of the Creative Problem Solving
process. Tools for divergent thinking can also be used to generate
everything from vision statements to data, to ideas, to lists of assisters and
resisters when planning implementation. In this Appendix you will find
descriptions of brainstorming and three other tools. You can find more tools
for divergent thinking in the Creative Problem Solving Tools & Techniques
Resource Guide (www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/wp-­content/
uploads/2015/06/ToolsTechniques-­Guide-FINAL-­web-watermark.pdf ), which
you can download free from the Creative Education Foundation website.
CEF has more free tools at www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/resources/
facilitation-­tools/
Brainstorming and the other tools for divergent thinking are often used
as described in this book in a group or team setting. You can of course
brainstorm on your own too!
The Rules (Guidelines) for Divergent Thinking are critical to success.
If you are facilitating a divergent thinking session, teach the rules
before you start, and refer to them frequently. As a facilitator, the rules
apply to you too. Even saying “good one!” when you hear an idea can
dampen people’s creative output, as they may then want to compete in
pleasing you.
If you can, post the guidelines in the room.

141
142 ◾ Appendix 2: Rules and Tools for Divergent Thinking

Guidelines for Divergent Thinking

Defer Judgment
Combine and Build
Seek Wild Ideas
Go for Quantity

Brainstorming
A brainstorming session requires at a minimum one human being and a
topic that needs ideas or options, but brainstorming is usually performed in
a group setting.
You probably noticed that Carlo used sticky notes. These are easy to
display, and easy to sort and rearrange when it is time to practice convergent
thinking. Using sticky notes also has the advantage of allowing more
introverted or shyer members of your group a little cover for their initial
ideas. If you need to brainstorm and you don’t have a pad of sticky notes,
scraps of paper or index cards will do just fine.
Begin the session by stating the goal for the session and reviewing the
rules for divergent thinking. You can give the group a warm-­up exercise,
such as coming with ideas for using a shoebox, or improving a bedroom.
During the warm-­up, encourage the group to keep coming up with ideas.
(You might want to give them a goal, like 100 ideas, which helps them
to strive for quantity.) Read ideas out loud as they are generated, and ask
questions like “What does that make you think of?” Periodically ask “What
else?”
If you are posting the sticky notes on a flipchart sheet or wall, keep them
organized in neat rows and columns. This will help you count the sticky
notes and make them easy to read when it is time for convergent thinking.
Read as many of the ideas out loud as possible as you collect them and
place them on the wall or flipchart sheet. For your convenience, number
flipchart sheets and make sure the topic of the brainstorm is written on each
sheet. Once you have generated several flipchart sheets on several topics,
you will be very glad you did this!
Once the group is warmed-­up, make sure the topic of the brainstorming
session is clearly displayed, and announce it. Make sure that you use the
correct statement starter depending on the step you are in. (For example,
 Appendix 2: Rules and Tools for Divergent Thinking ◾ 143

when stating challenges/issues, make sure they are using a “stem” that will
allow them to state the challenge as a question.)
How do you know when to stop? Pushing beyond initial ideas is often
necessary to get novel ideas or combinations of ideas. So, don’t stop when
you first feel the group energy slowing down. You can go back and read out
previous ideas/options out loud to spur twists on those ideas. Ask the group
to think how ideas might be combined. Or use one or more of the tools
below to keep ideas/options flowing.

Brainwriting
Brainwriting is a modified version of brainstorming developed by Horst
Geschka. Unlike brainstorming with stickies, which involves saying ideas or
options out loud as they are generated, brainwriting is done silently. Prepare
by applying sticky notes to sheets of paper in rows (three rows and three
columns). Participants write ideas/options on the stickies, and after they have
completed a row, they exchange sheets or pass them around. Seeing other
people’s thinking on the sheet and building on their options then spurs
another round of divergent thinking.

Forced Connections
Forced connections is a tool used in a brainstorming session to help
participants see the topic from a different perspective, which then invites
novel ideas/options.
Show participants an object or a picture and ask them to consider and
if needed, state out loud, the attributes of the object or picture. Then ask
them to force a mental connection between those attributes and topic they
are working on. (Carlo used forced connections in Chapter 17.) Forced
connections is a tool that is handy for spurring more ideas/options when a
group seems to be lagging in energy, and when a group seems to be stuck
on conventional ideas. Be ready with some pictures, objects, or concepts to
share. Brainstorming by yourself? You can still use forced connections. Look
at the pictures on your wall, or an object in your office or home. Even a
stapler or a tennis ball will do.
144 ◾ Appendix 2: Rules and Tools for Divergent Thinking

SCAMPER
Scamper was developed by Robert (Bob) Eberle from a set of questions
originally used by Alex Osborn (Eberle, 1971). Scamper stands for:

Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify
Put to other uses
Eliminate
Rearrange
Ask questions based on these themes to help a group generate variations on
their ideas/options, or if a group seems to be stuck. For example, ask, what
could we substitute for a component or feature? How might we combine
options? Is there something we could adapt from another field of expertise?
How might some options be modified (or made bigger, or smaller or more
flexible)? Which ideas might be put to other uses? Is there a feature/process
that could be eliminated? What would happen if we rearranged some
components/steps? Prepare by generating your own list of questions.

SCAMPER
Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify
Put to other uses
Eliminate
Rearrange

References
Eberle, R. F. (1971) Games for Imagination Development. Buffalo, NY: DOK.
Osborn, A. F. (1963) Brainstorming and Forced Connection. In Applied Imagination:
Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem-­Solving (3rd ed.). New York:
Scribner.
Vehar, J., Miller, B., and Firestien, R. (2001) Creativity Unbound: An Introduction to
Creative Problem-­Solving. Evanston, IL: THinc Communications.
Appendix 3

Rules and Tools for

Convergent Thinking

Creative problem-­solving practitioners have created many tools for

convergent thinking. Convergent thinking includes:
◾ Evaluating ideas or options.
◾ Selecting ideas or options.
◾ Strengthening ideas or options.
◾ Prioritizing options.
Each of these operations demands a different type of tool. Five tools
are described here. You can find more tools for convergent thinking in
the Creative Problem Solving Tools & Techniques Resource Guide (www.
creativeeducationfoundation.org/wp-­content/uploads/2015/06/ToolsTechniques-­
Guide-FINAL-­web-watermark.pdf), which you can download free from the
Creative Education Foundation website. CEF has more free tools at www.
creativeeducationfoundation.org/resources/facilitation-­tools/
The guidelines for convergent thinking should be reviewed before using
any tool.

GUIDELINES FOR CONVERGENT THINKING

Be Deliberate
Check Your Objectives
Improve Your Ideas
Be Affirmative
Consider Novelty

145
146 ◾ Appendix 3: Rules and Tools for Convergent Thinking

Highlighting
Highlighting is a tool for selecting and in some cases prioritizing ideas or
options. It is very useful when there are many options to work through.
The first part of highlighting is selecting Hits in order to reduce the
number of options. Many people use dots for selecting hits, but you can
use anything that allows you distinguish the highlighted ideas or options,
such as marking a colored mark on a sticky note. It is a good idea to
review all the options before highlighting starts. Participants are asked
to mark the option that they like best or are most novel or somehow
sparkles for them. Sometimes you will want to generate and select
criteria to help select options. (Make sure that everyone has the same
number of dots.)

Clustering
Clustering is the next step in highlighting but can also be done
independently of highlighting. In clustering, ideas or options that are
related are grouped together. It is very important to do this carefully. It is
easy for participants to try to cluster based on similar words. Help them
to discern items with related meanings, not just similar words, by asking
what an item is about or what it means to the person who wrote it. Once
a group of ideas or options has been clustered, restate the cluster with the
appropriate type of phrase to the stage you are working in (for example,
if you are working on issues, restate the cluster as a question). The goal
is to only cluster those options that are closely related. Some options will
stand alone.

POINt
POINt is a variation of the PPCO technique that was developed by Diane
Foucar-­Szocki, Bill Shepard, and Roger Firestien in 1982 (Vehar, Miller, and
Fierstien, 2001). POINt is a tool for evaluating and strengthening ideas or
options. Because it starts with praise, it is useful whenever an idea, option
or proposal may face resistance before a fair evaluation. It is best used
when only a small number of options are in consideration – two or three
at most.
 Appendix 3: Rules and Tools for Convergent Thinking ◾ 147

POINt stands for:

Pluses
Opportunities
Issues
New Thinking.

Start by asking participants to state what they like about the idea or option
Then what it could lead to (Opportunities). Opportunities can be stated
with the stem “It might.”
Issue are stated as affirmative questions, “How might?” or “In what ways
might?”
New thinking is generating ideas for solutions to the issues (a divergent
thinking activity in a convergent thinking tool!).
Finally, the original idea or option is restated to include the result of the
“new thinking” activity. POINt can be a lengthy activity but it can also be
run through quickly when an idea or option needs some support to get it
past initial skepticism.

The Evaluation Matrix

The evaluation matrix is a useful tool for selection and evaluation and
even strengthening of options (Noller, Parnes, and Biondi, 1976). You can
use it to compare several ideas and to evaluate them against pre-­selected
criteria. Start by selecting criteria important to the problem or project (you
might need to go through a cycle of divergent and convergent thinking to
determine the criteria). Ideally, state each criterion as a question requiring
a positive answer for success. For example, “Can it be completed in six
months?” or “Will it be possible to build using existing technology?”
You also need to decide how to rate each option against the criteria (you
could color-­code them, for example). Once the matrix is filled in, you can
compare your options. You may see some that could be easily strengthened
(back to divergent thinking!) and you can also see when options might be
combined to create a set of complementary countermeasures.
A Risk/Impact matrix is a version of an evaluation matrix that is helpful
for prioritization in product development, once a list of development
questions has been generated. Each question is evaluated according to
whether a negative answer to the question is perceived as having a low,
148 ◾ Appendix 3: Rules and Tools for Convergent Thinking

medium, or high risk of occurring, and whether the impact of a negative

answer would have a low, medium, or high impact to the success of the
project. Questions with a high-­risk score and a high impact score should be
answered as soon as technically feasible.

Targeting
Targeting was developed by Blair Miller and Gerard Puccio of the
International Center for Studies in Creativity. Targeting is a tool that can be

Figure A3.1 Evaluation Matrix.

Figure A3.2 Risk/Impact Matrix.

 Appendix 3: Rules and Tools for Convergent Thinking ◾ 149

used to evaluate how well options meet pre-­selected criteria or, as shown
in this book, to help drive support and buy-­in for a planned solution or
countermeasure. Draw a target on a wall and determine or state what
the center of the target means (full support for the proposal or complete
satisfaction of project criteria, for example).
In the case of ideas, discuss where each idea should be placed on the
target. Ask, “What would it take to move it to the center of the target?”
Similarly, when using the target to develop support for a proposal, ask,
“What would it take to move your support for this proposal to the center
of the target?” Note that what brings one participant closer to full support
may cause another participant to withdraw their support. You might need to
affirmatively restate a question such as “How might we meet both people’s
needs?” after which you will need to further strengthen the proposal to get
full agreement.

References
Firestein, R. L. and Trefinger, D. J. (1983) Highlighting. Journal of Creative Behavior,
Ownership and Converging: Ingredients of Creative Problem Solving, 17(1):
32–38.
Miller, B. and Puccio, G. (2001) Creativity Unbound: An Introduction to Creative
Problem-­Solving. Evanston, IL: THinc Communications.
Noller, R. B., Parnes, S. J., and Biondi, A. M. (1976) Creative Action Book. New York:
Scribner’s Sons.
Vehar, J., Miller, B., and Firestien, R. (2001) Creativity Unbound: An Introduction to
Creative Problem-­Solving. Evanston, IL: THinc Communications.
Appendix 4

Creative Problem
Solving in Practice

Creative Problem Solving (CPS) is used widely across industry, government,

non-­profit organizations, academia, and in education. Because it is so
widely used, there are many published versions of the CPS process. If you
are a lean thinker, using a lean problem-­solving approach, understanding
how CPS is used in practice may enrich your understanding of your lean
problem-­solving approach.
The Creative Education Foundation proposes a ‘learner’s model” with
four stages (clarify, ideate, develop, implement) and six steps, starting with
identifying a goal, wish or challenge and ending with exploring acceptance
and identifying assisters and resisters of implementing the selected solutions.
In each of the six steps, there is a phase of divergent thinking and
convergent thinking. Like a PDCA cycle, this is visually depicted as a cycle.1
A CPS model like this can be used to help an organization find
and plan to implement a strategic direction, or to create and plan to
implement solutions for new products. In a lean organization, PDCA
cycles might then be used to implement the strategy or to develop the
new product. But this process doesn’t need to be used as part of a formal
initiative or project.
Where there is a need to solve a problem, and you own it, and it requires
some imagination, you can apply CPS. The following is an example of an
individual application of CPS. Imagine you are faced with a decision about
your career.
You could start by identifying your goal, wish or challenge.
Brainstorm using the stem, “It would be great if …”

151
152 ◾ Appendix 4: CPS in Practice

Now do some convergent thinking to select the goal that you want to
work on at this time. Which ones are the most exciting to you? Which would
be best for your family? Once you are clear on your goal/wish/challenge,
it is time to gather data about the situation. For example, what kind of
jobs are there that would satisfy your goal? Where are they? Who has a job
like this? What education, training, and experience do they require? Use
convergent thinking to sort through the data. Use the data to formulate
key challenges (problems) you need to solve in order to achieve your goal.
State the challenges as questions which implies that they can be overcome
with new thinking (for example, “How might I find connections in Tahiti?”).
For each challenge, generate ideas to answer the question. Use
convergent thinking tools to select the best ideas, develop them into
solutions, then evaluate and develop the solutions.
Finally, you will need to plan to implement your solution. Think
divergently. Who can help you? What will help you? Who might resist? Think
divergently again: how might you overcome that resistance? Now you are
ready to generate all the actions you need to take. Use convergent thinking
to select and prioritize your actions. Now you are ready to complete your
plan for implementation.
Much like the use of CPS tools can enhance your lean thinking
approaches, lean thinking can be used to enhance CPS. As a lean thinker,
you will find points in this process to run PDCA cycles. You might want to
verify your data, run some iterations on a solution that looks promising, or
experiment with various approaches to overcome resistance. If your career
exploration leads you to develop new skills, you could use the improvement
kata to support and track your progress in developing those skills.
Like lean thinking, there are several models and frameworks for Creative
Problem Solving. One that some lean thinkers will find interesting is the
“thinking skills” model proposed by Gerard Puccio and his colleagues
Marie Mance and Mary C. Murdock. This model places “gathering data” and
“assessing the situation” in the center of a three-­stage process presented as
a circle.2 The three stages (clarification, transformation, and implementation)
include six steps. Puccio, Mance, and Murdock assert that one may enter the
circle at any point, and move either forwards or backwards, depending on
the situation. For lean thinkers who work in product development, where
the goal is to build knowledge, this model is intuitively akin to Allen Ward’s
LAMDA model (Look, Ask, Model, Discuss, Act,) in which new knowledge
is to be preserved in each step and the new knowledge informs the next
step to be taken.
 Appendix 4: CPS in Practice ◾ 153

In the thinking skills model of CPS, the data and knowledge gained as
you move through the rhythm of divergent and convergent thinking are
used to inform the executive function of “assessing the situation.” As you
learn more about the situation, you must make decisions about what is the
right step to take to continue to solve the problem. Perhaps you need to
go back and gather more data, or you need to develop additional options
for your solution. Constantly assessing the situation means that you do not
blindly move forward through the process if the knowledge you have gained
indicates you need to repeat or advance a step or move back to a previous
step. From a lean thinking perspective, especially in product development,
we know that when a PDCA cycle is run that the purpose of the “check”
(or “study”) step is to ensure that we decide on our next action based on
what we have learned, and not on what a previously created plan or process
might say.
I’m not suggesting you give up lean thinking for CPS! Far from it. But do
you think there might be situations when following a CPS process is helpful?

Notes
1. www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/creative-­problem-solving/the-­cps-process/.
2. Puccio, G. J., Mance, M., and Murdock, M. C. Creative Leadership: Skills that
Drive Change (London: SAGE, 2011).
Appendix 5

A3s and CPS

An A3 is essentially a storyboard for solving a problem. Each step of the

problem-­solving process is documented on a large piece of paper (ledger
size in the US, A3 in the rest of the world). The A3 is a tool to not only
solve a problem, but also to make the thinking of the problem-­solver visible,
and so it is ideal for a manager to understand their employee’s thinking
approach, and coach them to “think more deeply.” If you’re not familiar
with A3 problem-­solving, John Shook’s Managing to Learn, gives a brilliant
description of both the problem-­solving and the coaching process.
Not all problems require an A3, and some problems are too thorny for
a single A3. A3s are living documents – the first version of an A3 will look
very different from the final version, because the A3 process drives learning
and deeper understanding, which results in many updates to everything
from the title, to the goals, to the planned countermeasures.
How might creative thinking be used with an A3? The divergent thinking/
convergent thinking heartbeat of creative thinking fits well with the A3,
because:

◾ the A3 is built on the PDCA cycle;

◾ the A3 format requires effective convergent thinking in order to
provide succinct and clear summaries in every section;
◾ the A3 demands deep thinking – which is creative thinking.

At its simplest level, there are opportunities for divergent and convergent
thinking and using CPS tools in nearly every section of an A3. Let’s look.
Every A3 looks different – there are no “required” sections of an
A3, so the examples in this book are just that, examples. But all A3s

155
156 ◾ Appendix 5: A3s and CPS
Figure A5.1 A3 Template.
 Appendix 5: A3s and CPS ◾ 157

start by describing the problem to be solved and end not only with
countermeasures to the problem but also with a good summary of what
should happen next.
In our example, the A3 has the following sections:

◾ Title
◾ Name of owner
◾ Date and version number
◾ Background
◾ Current conditions
◾ Goals/Targets
◾ Analysis
◾ Proposed countermeasures
◾ Plan
◾ Follow-­up

Title
The title describes the problem to be solved. Remember when Beth was
trying to decide what problem she wanted to focus her PDCA cycle on? She
had to use both divergent and convergent thinking to discern the problem
and narrow it down. People who use A3s will tell you that the title they start
with is rarely the title they end with. As they work through the A3, they
see the problem through different perspectives and update the title of their
A3. But why not start with acknowledging that the initial impression of the
problem is probably inaccurate? Spending time, especially with colleagues,
to clarify the problem, is a beneficial way to initiate the A3, and start to
build buy-­in for the eventual countermeasures. This is an opportunity to use
CPS tools.

Owner
The person who is the owner of the A3 is responsible for learning what
needs to be learned for the problem to be solved. This doesn’t mean that
they do it on their own. The A3 owner must get input from others. They
can do this by going to see what is going on (going to the gemba), by
interviewing people, and by sharing their A3 in progress. Each of these
158 ◾ Appendix 5: A3s and CPS

activities is an opportunity to ask for more ideas and to engage others in

deliberate convergent thinking. The owner always has an A3 coach, often
their manager, who can encourage them to follow the rhythm of creative
thinking as they coach them to think deeply at each step.

Background
This section of the A3 is used to describe how the problem came to
attention. This might include a new business strategy that requires a change,
or an incident that needs attention. The owner needs to decide what are
the most important points to include in the background. She/he can use a
deliberate convergent thinking approach to identify the factor that will be
most meaningful to understanding the problem.

Current Conditions
This is a place to document data known about the problem. This might be
measurements that are currently available, or the result of a data-­gathering
exercise like the “Five Whys” interview Beth and her team conducted. A full
cycle of divergent and convergent thinking may be required to identify data
related to the problem and to select the key data to include on the A3.

Goals/Targets
Goals may be provided by the organization, or they may need to be
developed specifically for this problem. The use of CPS approaches can
be very valuable in goal setting – to create a vision of the future, and to
decide which key data will let you know you have solved the problem. In
the divergent stage, the owner can brainstorm (alone or with colleagues)
to generate goal statements. Starting each goal statement with a stem like
“It would be great if ” is very helpful. Ignore the temptation to be too
practical, too soon. This is a time to think about what has never been
done before, what could be done if money were no object, what should
be done to ensure that the organization succeeds or that employees are
fully engaged.
 Appendix 5: A3s and CPS ◾
159
Figure A5.2 Creative Problem Solving A3.
160 ◾ Appendix 5: A3s and CPS

Convergent thinking, using tools like clustering, dot voting, and finally
formulating the goals into “SMART” (Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant and Time-­Based) goals, closes the creative thinking cycle in this
stage. Take the “A” in SMART with a grain of salt. There are times when a
goal that is not apparently “attainable” is necessary, especially when safety is
involved. For more on this, explore the story of the transformation at Alcoa,
led by Paul O’Neill.

Analysis
In this section, the owner documents the results of their investigation
into the problem. There are many lean tools to use in analysis – for
example, the fishbone diagram, “the Five Whys,” value stream mapping,
Pareto charts. Remember that the rhythm of creativity continues during
analysis. CPS tools and approaches enrich the use of the lean tools. For
example, the owner of the A3 could lead a brainstorm session on factors
to be included in a draft fishbone diagram. Convergent thinking can aid
the owner in selecting which factors to explore first. As the owner and
colleagues explore the factors and come to understand their relationship,
key factors will stand out as potentially being the root causes of the
problem. Validating these factors will require testing – and again, the
owner must use divergent thinking (what are all the potential ways to
test this?) and convergent thinking (which is the best, fastest test that will
get me the data I need?) to move forward. Of course, these are PDCA
cycles!

Proposed Countermeasures
Countermeasures are the changes that the owner will recommend to
solve the problem. A complex problem often will require more than one
countermeasure. It may be that there are known and tested solutions for the
problem the owner is working on. But if the problem is complex or new,
she/he is going to need to seek innovative countermeasures, and that will
require deep, creative thinking.
It is very important to recognize that the owner may not be the person
who comes up with the ideas that eventually solve the problem. The owner
of the A3 has the responsibility to find the countermeasures – but they may
 Appendix 5: A3s and CPS ◾ 161

come from many potential sources. A well-­prepared A3 is an excellent way

to bring colleagues and stakeholders up to speed on the problem, its history,
and the results of the owner’s analysis. The owner can review the A3 with
colleagues, and then facilitate a brainstorming session to identify potential
countermeasures.
Once the group comes up with a good set of ideas, they can use
convergent thinking and tools to select the countermeasures to test. As in
the Analysis section, selecting and planning tests may require their own
creative cycle.

Plan
Although the “Plan” section is often used through the life of the A3 to
document the steps the owner will take, this section is most critical when
the owner is planning to implement the new countermeasures. It is common
knowledge that most projects fail in the implementation stage. Despite
every effort the owner has made to include others in the process, it is often
unlikely that every person impacted by recommended changes will have
been involved or will agree with and support the changes. In one sense,
this is a new problem for the owner to solve. Indeed, if making the change
is not treated as a problem to solve, the owner may find that understanding
the factors that will assist and resist the implementation, working on
getting others on board, and finally getting to the goal state may be more
challenging than “solving” the problem. When preparing for implementation,
there are many opportunities to think deeply by using divergent and
convergent thinking.

Follow-­up
The owner uses this section to describe what should happen next. How
will the changes be maintained? What might be the next improvements?
What key learnings from solving this problem need to become part of
organizational documentation? Deciding what are the key topics to include
in the follow-­up section is a convergent thinking activity. A well-­composed
follow-­up section is a gift to the organization, because it encapsulates the
powerful learning accomplished during the A3 process.
162 ◾ Appendix 5: A3s and CPS

PRACTICE THIS TODAY

If you’re using A3s, identify where in your A3 you could have used
wider divergent thinking to ensure you considered a more impactful
range of options. Where could you have used stronger convergent
thinking to drive focus and simplicity, and strengthen your options?

Reference
Shook, J. (2009) Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve
Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor, and Lead. Cambridge, MA: The Lean
Enterprise Institute.
Appendix 6

Discussion Questions for

Self-­Study or Book Club Use

1. At the beginning of the story, Linda and Carlo needed to work

out how to align their philosophies, tools, and methodologies.
Were you surprised that they could work together? Where do
you see the opportunities for alignment and where do you see
challenges in aligning lean thinking and creative thinking? Where
do you see conflicts among improvement methodologies? What
drives those conflicts? What could be done to learn from other
approaches? Do you have a preferred system for improvement?
What are your reasons for incorporating (or not incorporating)
other approaches?
2. At the beginning of the book, Beth is mired in emails and
meetings. Is this work? Is this the work a manager needs to do? If
you’re in this state, why do you think it is happening? What are
the root causes? Are they systemic or personal? Contrast Beth’s
workday at the end of the book. Do you believe this is realistic?
What did Beth need to commit to in order to work in this way?
What needed to change at GPS?
3. Beth, Roberta, Keisha, and Mo all experience growth and change
during the story. What do you see as the drivers of that change?
What did each person need to give up? What did they need to
start doing? Compare their journeys with yours. What have you
given up (or will you give up) to become a lean leader? What did
you or will you commit to?

163
164 ◾ Appendix 6: Discussion Questions

4. Throughout the story, Carlo stresses the need to use both

divergent and convergent thinking. When is it necessary to use
divergent thinking and convergent thinking to “think deeper?”
What benefits do you see to looking for opportunities to seek a
wider range of options and ideas as you solve problems? When
is it not prudent to do so? Why is it important to follow the
guidelines for divergent thinking and convergent thinking?
5. All tools for divergent thinking are variations of brainstorming,
but convergent thinking tools come in many varieties. Why do
you think that is? What are the purposes of tools for convergent
thinking? What convergent thinking tools do you use now?
6. It does you no good to come up with a great idea, if you can’t
get it accepted. What tools for gaining acceptance did you see in
the story? What is the difference between gaining consensus and
gaining acceptance?
7. Creativity is more than using tools. What might you do to build
your creativity? How do you or might you feed your mind with
ideas from different fields of study, art, music, and physical
movement? How do you or might you allow your subconscious
to create connections and “bake” ideas? What is the value of
non-­work activities, such as playing an instrument, participating
in sports, singing in a choir, practicing yoga, walking outside,
meditating?
8. Where else do you think Beth might use what she has learned
outside of her professional life?
9. What ideas from this book are you planning to adopt? Where are
you curious to learn more?
Resources: Books and
Websites for Further Learning

On Creative Problem Solving

Books
Miller, B., Vehar, J., Firestien, R., Thurber, S., and Neilsen, D. (2011) Creativity Unbound:
An Introduction to Creative Process, 5th edn. Scituate, MA: FourSight, LLC.
Puccio, G. J., Mance, M., and Murdock, M. C. (2911) Creative Leadership: Skills that
Drive Change. London: SAGE.

Websites
International Center for Studies in Creativity (SUNY Buffalo State): https://creativity.
buffalostate.edu/.
The Creative Education Foundation: www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/
The Creative Problem Solving Institute Conference: http://cpsiconference.com/

On Lean Thinking
Books
These are a handful of the books that Linda recommended to Beth.
Ballé M. and Ballé, F. (2014) Lead with Respect: A Novel of Lean Practice. Cambridge,
MA: The Lean Enterprise Institute.
Morgan, J. M. and Liker, J. K. (2019) Designing the Future: How Ford, Toyota, and
Other World-­ Class Organizations Use Lean Product Development to Drive
Innovation and Transform Their Business. New York: McGraw-­Hill.
Ross, K. (2019) How to Coach for Creativity in Service Excellence: A Lean Coaching
Workbook. London: Routledge/Productivity Press.

165
166 ◾ Resources

Rother, M. (2010) Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and
Superior Results. New York: McGraw-­Hill.
Shook, J. (2009) Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve
Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor, and Lead. Cambridge, MA: The Lean
Enterprise Institute.

Websites
Kata to Grow (Kata in the Classroom): www.katatogrow.com/
The Lean Enterprise Institute: www.lean.org
The Lean Product and Process Development Exchange: www.lppde.org

On Lean Thinking and Creative Problem Solving

Website
www.leanforhumans.com
Index

Please note: page numbers in italic type indicate figures/illustrations

5S Blockbuster, 26
in practice, 61, 64 brain activity
purpose, 9 creative learning and, 39–40
see also five and decision-making, 41
brain-body connection, 40
A brainstorming
assisters and resisters, 110
A3s
the concept, 137
CPS process, 155–62
as divergent thinking tool, 142–3
definition, 5
gendered perspective, 139
examples, 21–2, 83, 84, 85
place in the CPS process, 138
function, 14
in POINt, 59
in practice, 81, 83–9, 94, 110–15, 120–1
in practice, 160
template, 156
brainwriting (divergent thinking tool), 102,
acceptance, gaining, 109–16
143
adrenaline, 39
affirmative inquiry, role of in CPS, 139
Alcoa, 160 C
amygdala, 3–4, 38–40
check your objectives (convergent thinking
analysis section of A3, 160
guideline), 14
applied imagination, 138–40, 144
clarification, 152
Applied Imagination: Principles and
clustering
Procedures of Creative Thinking
as convergent thinking tool, 146
(Osborn), 139
by meaning, 75
assessing the situation, 152–3
observations, 74
coaching
B
as burden, 52
background section of A3, 158 for creative problem-solving, 47–50
“be affirmative” (convergent thinking deciding on goals, 52, 54–5
guideline), 14 meaning of, 50
“be deliberate” (convergent thinking scheduling issues, 51
guideline), 14 two-way street, 49

167
168 ◾ Index

“combine and build” (divergent thinking and lean product development, 124
guideline), 13 PDCA cycle and, 69–71
complaint handling, using standard in practice, 151–3
procedures, 43–5 resources, 141
complementary countermeasures, 147 role of affirmative inquiry, 139
“consider novelty” (convergent thinking stages, 138
guideline), 14 thinking skills model, 152–3
contact center scenario see also CPS tools
improvement kata, 117–21 Creative Problem Solving: The Basic Course
kata storyboard, 119, 120 (Isaksen & Treffinger), 14
lean product development, 123–7 Creative Problem Solving Tools & Techniques
continuous improvement, 2, 5, 26 Resource Guide (CEF), 141, 145
convergent thinking creative thinking
alternating between divergent thinking and the A3, 155
and, 65–6 as basic need/skill, 27
definition, 5, 31 brain activity and the separation of
examples of approach, 126 divergent and convergent thinking,
Five Whys as tool for, 75 41
function, 14 making ‘magic’ happen through, 28
guidelines, 14–15, 107, 145 phases, 6
relationship with convergent/divergent
as phase of creative thinking, 6
thinking, 31
in practice, 120
relationship with deeper thinking, 79, 97
resources, 145
relationship with lean thinking, 8
rhythm of divergent and, 30
creativity
rules and tools for, 145–9, 160
definition, 6
separating divergent thinking from, 41,
and the improvement kata, 91–8
69, 138
improving, 41
countermeasures
Osborn & Parnes’ work, 137
A3 section, 160–1
and the PDCA, 69
anecdote, 25
potential impacting factors, 39, 139
definition, 5 in practice, 110–16
CPS tools resistance to, 1
A3s and, 155–62 culture, 2, 83, 85–6, 115
as aid to creativity, 40 current conditions section of A3, 158
targeting, 115 customer knowledge, role of in lean
why/why not chain, 81n1 product development, 127
Creative Education Foundation (CEF), 137–8,
141, 145 D
creative learning, and brain activity, 39–40
creative problem solving (CPS) decision-making, brain activity and, 41
A3s and, 155–62 deeper thinking, 29–30, 88, 95, 97, 155
coaching for, 47–50 “defer judgment” (divergent thinking
example of an individual application, guideline), 13
151–2 Deming, W. Edwards, 69
historical perspective, 137–40 Deming cycle, 11
lean and, 7–15 discussion questions, 163–4
 Index ◾ 169

divergent thinking example of company goals, 104

alternating between convergent thinking in practice, 99–108
and, 65–6 Gryskiewicz, Stan, 6
definition, 6, 31
examples of opportunities for, 97–8 H
guidelines, 12–14, 103, 142
in practice, 120 highlighting (convergent thinking tool), 146
rhythm of convergent and, 30 hypotheses
role in lean product development, 124, clustered and named, 77
126 testing, 76–7
rules and tools for, 141–4
separating convergent thinking from, 41, I
69, 138
implementation, planning for, 109, 115, 152,
161
E
“improve your ideas” (convergent thinking
Eberle, Bob, 144 guideline), 14
evaluation matrix (convergent thinking improvement kata
tool), 126, 147–8 benefits, 93
coaching questions, 95
F creativity and, 91–8
definition, 6
fight or flight response, 1, 3–4, 38–9, 89, 105 in practice, 92–4, 101–7, 117–21, 152
Firestien, R., 59, 149, 165 steps, 92
fishbone diagram, 83, 160 information sharing, potential impact of
Five Whys, 75, 85, 158, 160 reward programs on, 85
follow-up section of A3, 161 innovation
forced connections (divergent thinking consequences of failure, 26
tool), 108, 143–4 definition, 6
freestyling, and brain activity, 41 role of creativity, 39–40
frontal lobes, 3, 5, 57, 59 role of self-awareness, 2
International Center for Studies in Creativity,
G 137, 148
Isaksen, Scott, 14
gaining acceptance, 109–16 issues, phrasing as questions, 54–6
gathering data, 152
gemba K
definition, 6, 41n1
importance of leaders’ presence, 51, 81, kaizen workshop, 6, 59
116 kanban, 62, 67n3, 129–30
importance of questions asked at the, 80 kata
“go for quantity” (divergent thinking the concept, 92
guideline), 13 resources, 108n1, 166
goal setting story boards, 94, 118, 119, 120, 131
and the A3, 158 see also improvement kata
applying an improvement kata, 101–7 Kodak, 26
brainwriting sheet, 102 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), 62, 76–80
170 ◾ Index

L O’Neill, Paul, 160

Osborn, Alex, 5, 137–40, 144
LAMDA (Look-Ask-Model-Discuss-Act), 69, owner section of A3, 157–8
152
lean
P
definition, 6, 86
‘Less Employees Are Needed’ narrative, 17 Pareto charts, 160
lean deployment, 8, 15 Parnes, Sidney, 5, 137–40
lean leadership PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act), 10–12, 65,
developing, 91–8 69–70, 81, 121
in practice, 62, 81 see also PDCA cycle
requirements, 56 PDCA cycle
lean practice, benefits of, 9 the A3 and, 155
lean product development, in practice, 123–7 “act” step, 66
lean system, purpose, 9, 10
“check” step, 79, 153
lean thinking/thinkers
the concept, 69
definition, 6, 9–11
and CPS, 69–71
enhancing CPS with, 151–2
“do” step, 76
and the PDCA cycle, 69–70
examples of, 160
and the “thinking skills” model, 152
implementing solutions through, 151
lean tools, examples of, 160
“plan” stage, 66, 70
learner’s model, stages, 151
in practice, 66, 70, 81, 125–6
learning
relationship with the scientific method,
brain development and, 38–9
69–70
lean, 125, 126
scientific method and, 11
new skills, 119
PDCA cycles and, 125–6 PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act), 69
the pleasure of, 39–40 plan section of A3, 161
resources, 165–6 POINt (Pluses Opportunities Issues New
thinking), 57–60, 146-147
M praise first principle, 58–9, 88, 146
prefrontal cortex, 39–40
‘magic happens,’ 27–8, 31 problem, definition, 6
magical problem solving, 26 progress boards, 62
Managing to Learn (Shook), 155 Puccio, Gerard, 148, 152
Mance, Marie, 152
Miller, Blair, 59–60, 146, 148–9, 165 Q
Murdock, Mary C., 152
quality control, 8, 100–101
N questions
as objections or issues, 59
nemawashi, 109
new thinking, 12, 56, 58, 147, 152 phrasing issues as, 54–6

O R

observations rappers, brain activity while freestyling, 41

clustered and named, 74 resistance, 1, 4, 146, 152
examples, 73 respect, showing, 88
 Index ◾ 171

risk assessment, 126 thinking deeper, 29–30, 88, 95, 97, 155
risk/impact matrix, 147, 148 thinking skills model, 152–3
risk-taking, benefits of permitting, 139 title section of A3, 157
root cause analysis, 27 Toyota, 6, 9, 12, 92, 165
Rother, Mike, 92 transformation, 152, 160
Treffinger, Don, 14
S
safety, 63–4, 70, 76–81, 86, 130, 133, 160 U
Sakichi Toyoda, 81n1 unfamiliarity, as trigger for discomfort, 39
SCAMPER (Substitute Combine Adapt
Modify Put to other uses Eliminate
Rearrange), 144 V
scientific method, 10, 69–70
value stream mapping, 160
and PDCA, 11
Vehar, J., 59, 146, 149, 165
“seek wild ideas” (divergent thinking
visual management tools, 62
guideline), 13
self-study, discussion questions, 163–4
Shewhart cycle, 11 W
Shook, John, 155
showing respect, 88 Ward, Allen, 69, 152
SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, warehouse scenario
Relevant and Time-Based) goals, 160 applying an improvement kata, 92–4
socio-technical system, definition, 9 context, 61–2
solutions, definition, 6 ‘culture’ and ‘management’ exploration,
standardized complaint-handling, in 85–6
practice, 43–5 fishbone diagram, 83
stand-up meetings, 62 interviews proposal, 75
sticky notes/stickies, 34, 53–5, 78, 80, 87, Keisha’s A3, 84
102–6, 110, 112–15, 127, 133, 142–3, 146 KPIs vs safety hypothesis, 77–80
SWOT analysis, 58 observations, 70, 80
PDCA cycle suggestion, 70
safety issues, 63–4
T
solving the trust issue, 83–9
targeting (convergent thinking tool), 115, waste, reducing, 53
148–9 why/why not chain, 81n1