A new type of “flow” in Lean: know-how vs know-why

Having worked in and led many kaizens, and by coaching executives and managers about the principles of Lean, I have always asked the question: why do we focus only on the process “flow”, how about workers’ flow?

I once came across a business book that had more (positive) psychology than numbers! Fascinated by the title “Good Business,” the book talked about “flow” from the operator/worker perspective. I thought that is a good source to tap in while attempting to extend the concept of “flow” in Lean. The book author, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, argues that the quality of experience is a function of the relationship between skills (x) and challenges (y). Optimal Experience, or “flow”, occurs when both variables (x, y) are high.

“We have to grasp not only the Know-How but also ‘Know-Why’” -Shingo

It is fundamental in Lean to implement process flow, as it is a pre-requisite to have “pull” if a process is to be optimised. However, that is all true from the process perspective. In many industries, especially process-intensive ones like energy, healthcare and retail, the flow of the product and the work of the operator are on two different planes, as Shingo showed us in his network of processes vs operations model. Hence, what is needed here is to think of “flow” in Lean down two dimensions: process flow and operator flow. The former is a very well documented in Lean literature. I think we need to shed some light on the latter, let’s call it operator flow.

Operator experience is optimal when the job at hand present the worker with challenges that match their skills, as Csikszentmihalyi eloquently demonstrated in his aforementioned book. This calls for the whole discipline of organisation design to be employed for this discussion – and rightly so. As part of my experience working within huge business transformation programmes, I learned first-hand the importance of sequencing the steps of implementing change: first, design processes to ensure Lean flow/pull: simple, streamlined, standard processes, then and only then, design roles to operate the processes. Bundle related roles together logically and hey presto; you will have job descriptions ready to be published to hire the right people for the right job. If all goes to plan, workers will be able to do the right thing, the right way first time and every time, that was the inspiration.

Csikszentmihalyi neatly summarized the steps required to achieve flow:

• The task at hand is challenging enough – “just right” neither boring nor frustrating
• Focus: you will need to concentrate without interruptions and/or noise
• Crystal-clear goals: if you aim at nothing you will achieve it all the time
• Immediate feedback provided
• Task at hand is meaningful enough to be front and centre and absorb you into it so that everyday life recedes into the background. In other words: know-why not only know-how.
• Sense of self disappears for a while (loss of ego) and when it comes back, you are refreshed. Sense of inspiration and harmony
• You are in control over your actions – autonomy

While Maslow professed “self-actualisation” as the ultimate human achievement, Csikszentmihalyi goes further to say that we need to contribute beyond one’s self as integrated individuals – every worker is unique in their own right but can achieve much more when part of a team – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Some ideas have energy of their own, but we need to harness that energy. Most people think Edison and Ford where geniuses who worked alone. Wrong! They were supported by their team and networks and that’s why they were able to turn vision into reality on a continuous basis. They created industries on the back of their innovation. Therefore, in process design, we need to create workplace to be amenable for operator flow to occur.  Letting creativity juice flow is one way of creating such workplaces. By enticing operators to work better together and together better, and encouraging them, especially front-line staff, to come up with new ideas to make their job more efficient and more effective, ie to process-innovate not just product-innovate, we will have a more conducive atmosphere for flow to happen in (at least) two dimensions.

Innovation success factors

• Quality of business ideas – rigorous selection
• Education program – unique, tailored
• Delivery – state of the art- excellence
• Mentors – strong network, wide, world-class
• Inspiring role models

This is one of the risks process standardisation presents to any organisation-redesign programme. Where do you draw the line between locked-down “gold standard” processes and the provision of “sandbox” for workers to innovate? Well, one answer is in the organisation’s vision statement that Csikszentmihalyi wants us to call it the “soul” of the organisation: “if a vision is genuine and is carried into action, it becomes a powerful attractor for members of the organisation. It provides a goal that is worth pursuing over and above the extrinsic rewards that can be provided by the job.” 

I tried discussing Csikszentmihalyi flow when I worked at one of companies in the Middle East. The aim was to increase KPIs to new unprecedented levels – stretch goals if you like. During the session where I was announcing the new targets, I told my team that we need to have jobs to be challenging enough to match your skills, which, after working with my team for several months I was convinced they were to ready to shift gears upwards. And I recall the message worked very well. However, this was also coupled with launching “team collaboration” and “process innovation” awards, which got everyone buzzed, and all wanted to achieve more by working/innovating together.