For those who have studied the Toyota production system, or lean, the concept of going to gemba is a recurring theme. I recently returned from a study mission in Japan where I was taught how important it is to go to the place where work happens to see firsthand real processes, real failures, and real gaps to facilitate real problem solving. I was taught to go to the place where the answers are versus talking to the person who thinks they have the answer. This concept of actually seeing the problem has always made sense to me. Over time I have realized that there is more to going to gemba than improved problem solving. From a leader's perspective it's much more important than that. Going to gemba will result in peace of mind, confidence, gratitude, and respect for others. It will establish a safe environment where a continuous improvement culture can thrive. The absence of leaders at gemba will result in the undermining of the very foundation of your improvement culture.
I recently participated in a plant tour at US Synthetic where a guest made a comment after observing and listening to employees on the shop floor. The team members spoke of their problem-solving process, including following a standard, seeing deviations from expectations, signaling that there was an opportunity to improve, and then initiating a joint problem-solving process. They spoke of how often they encountered abnormalities. This guest, thinking about typical performance pressures combined with their frequency of abnormalities, thought their demeanor and motion didn't match the circumstance. He eventually asked, "How come they are so calm?"
Where does calmness or peace come from? At first, one may think it comes from apathy toward performance. But this was not the case — this is a high-performance continuous improvement team. Their calmness came from their confidence. This confidence stemmed from knowing what was expected and their performance relative to those expectations. They could see opportunities to improve, and understood the system or methodology for closing performance gaps. They knew where they had come from, how much improvement they had made, and expected that they would always have opportunities to get better each day. Their calmness came from confidence in their improvement systems, each other, and their leaders. Their continual presence at gemba allowed them to mutually see, experience, and appreciate their ability to perform and improve despite the poor work processes. They knew they would succeed.
The opposite of peace is anxiety. Anxiety comes from lack of confidence and is amplified by the visibility and responsibility of business gaps. This visibility and responsibility causes stress, especially when the leader is disconnected from gemba. The disconnection from gemba drives leadership blindness. Leaders become oblivious to the goodness of employees and the reality of the poor work systems. Instead, an inaccurate story of people and worksite forms through connecting the dots of personal beliefs, past experiences, and snapshot worksite perspectives. The essence of this story is often that we have a people performance issue. This story does not include the data points of appreciation or visibility for progress, thinking, methodology, skill, and effort — it only highlights performance gaps and what has not or is not being done. Leaders who tell themselves these stories find themselves engaging people with criticizing and condemning tones and resort to dictating action. It demoralizes and under-appreciates people. It leads to lack of ownership and poor problem solving. It leads people to become defensive and resort to using excuses. These interactions reinforce the story of the leader: that we have a people problem. The blindness to gemba ultimately undermines the safety and trust necessary for a continuous improvement culture.
When leaders go to gemba, they honor reality. They see the performance and complexity of the work systems. This reality gives leaders compassion and appreciation for those who are in the work. They ultimately realize and believe that they have great people who are outperforming poor processes.
Being connected to gemba results in gaining an accurate perspective of where a team is at, where they have come from, how the team will move forward, and how they think. Regardless of how bad things are, a leader will have confidence that the team has and will continue to move forward in a methodical and urgent way amongst the chaos. Being at gemba will result in a deep sense of appreciation and confidence for the people.
When leaders gain these perspectives and feelings from being at gemba, they treat people in a very respectful and grateful manner. They are also more likely to approach problems with humility instead of an all-knowing, directive mindset. When leaders establish this mindset, a culture where it is safe to expose problems evolves.
These beliefs and perspectives also sustain the leader when they are away from the worksite. When they hear of problems, their thoughts first go back to the appreciation and knowledge that the team is seeing and solving problems. They recall the fact that the team has encountered similar problems before and has successfully navigated them. They find comfort in their proven improvement methods. They know that all will be well. This is the confidence you want as a leader. Being at gemba brings this peace.
A team and its leaders can be calm yet urgent. It requires high-frequency visibility or understanding of current vs. expected performance, current vs. past performance, clear target conditions and performance gaps, understanding of the improvement system methodologies, and the support to move forward. Peace comes when we have confidence and respect for each other, our collective thinking, and the systems we all work in. This peace only comes when we, as leaders, spend time at gemba.