Every employee of every company in the world is involved in value creation and impacts one or more value streams either directly or indirectly. Unnecessary complexity, over-engineered processes, extraneous approvals, and myriad other blockers impede flow and therefore constrain value addition to any process.

To be “bankable” requires an understanding of how the business functions, what your role is in the value streams that you influence, and how the value you help create generates revenue and operating income.

A gemba walk is an opportunity for leadership to see how work is accomplished with their own eyes, listen carefully to the challenges and opportunities the team faces, and ask questions with the intention to seek to understand challenges and opportunities so they can be an advocate for and supporter of the team or department.

My goal in introducing the eight wastes of Lean and the two additional wastes of emotion and meetings is more about developing the ability to see wastes clearly than it is about properly classifying them. As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets managed.” This ability to see waste is key to the adoption of a continuous improvement mindset. After all, if we can’t see waste and inefficiency, how can we continually improve our standard work?