It’s Time to Bring Out the Best in Each Other
By Rebecca Snelling and Hal Macomber
The foundation of Lean is Respect for People and Continuous Improvement. Statistics, history, data, and our personal experiences tell us there are plenty of opportunities to get better results with projects in our industry. Yet, our focus on the Continuous Improvement aspect of Lean sometimes allows the Respect for People aspect to take a back seat in our improvement initiatives. Our industry is only as solid and sound as it is because of the quality of people we have. We will spend some time on July 28, learning together and exploring how we can utilize the concept of Respect for People to improve our industry, and more importantly, people’s lives.
To grapple with the challenge of improving Respect for People, we’ll be utilizing the structure and the language of Toyota Kata, which includes:
- Take on a challenge
- Grasp the current condition
- Set an interim target along the way
- Experiment our way to the interim target
We will learn from a handful of exciting and worthwhile experiments that are already underway during this session. First, an owner will share how they are shifting from quotas to building more substantial capabilities. Next, multiple contractors will share how they assess team health for its own sake and as a leading indicator of the project’s success. Finally, an A/E firm will share how they are breaking through to a new paradigm of treating people as people and helping them learn to look out for the good of the whole by developing an outward mindset.
These sessions will include working sessions for attendees to join break-out groups and discuss experiments they may apply within their worlds and how they can best put their learning to use. Through these break-outs, we’ll surface opportunities and commit to actions individually and together. So please join us for a unique opportunity to explore Respect for People with 224 of your peers, colleagues, and friends from around the industry!