How to Do a Gemba Walk Quotes

“I needed to be managing the process, helping my group leaders, team leaders and team members to solve their problems.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“One key point to remember: Don’t try to do too much on a Gemba Walk! It is just one walk; you are unlikely to change the world with one stroll. Think of it more like a farmer planting seeds and waiting for them to grow than as a tidal wave sweeping across the operation. Have some patience. If a sufficient number of seeds get planted and they are watered and nurtured, there will be a harvest, but it will not happen overnight.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Troy Vellinga, former vice president of Continuous Improvement at W.W. Grainger, said, “It’s important to confirm improvement actions after the walk. Capture all the improvement opportunities, then rank them to select which ones will be acted upon. At the end of many of our walks we would all work together to create a quick white board list of improvements, then we would quickly ICE (Impact, Control, Ease) rank them in an ICE matrix and pick the top one or two for action. This made sure there was action and follow-through, and something to check during the next walk.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Mark Graban shared a quote from Fujio Cho on his Lean Blog on January 20, 2011. Cho said, “We want to not only show respect to our people, in the same way, we want to show respect to everyone we meet in life, we also want to respect their humanity, what it is that makes us human, which is our ability to think and feel—we have to respect that humanity in the way we design the work, so that the work enables their very human characteristics to flourish.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“When you see opportunities, your job becomes to coach the team on how to capture them. Help people develop stronger critical thinking skills:”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Helping people develop critical thinking skills, raising their confidence level and self-esteem is actually the ultimate form of respect.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“All walkers should practice “active listening” and respectfully ask probing questions based on three key activities: Go See, Ask What Then Why,and Show Respect. These three behaviors are all part of Doing the Walk.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“The leader should always look to the process as the source of errors, never at the people.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Asking the appropriate question is one of a walker’s most important responsibilities. Becoming good at Gemba Walks can transform a person from a good leader to a great leader. It is worth the effort!”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“A simple structural model is needed to keep it all in context. Three stages that should be done for any Gemba Walk include: Preparation Prior to the Walk Doing the Walk Debrief Activities After the Walk”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“As Mike Rother puts it in Toyota Kata: “Perhaps the most important thing for a leader to focus on during a Gemba Walk is not the content of what people are working on, but the pattern of thinking and acting they utilize as they improve and strive for goals.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Once an organization begins to stabilize its processes, an amazing thing happens! More time becomes available to concentrate on the longer-term, strategic issues that will move the organization forward, because people have to deal with fewer exceptions and fewer variations from the norm (Standard Work).”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Aristotle said, “Through discipline, comes freedom.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“The Gemba Walker’s goal is to begin to “see” the discrepancy between the way we want to do work vs. the way work is actually getting done.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Essentially, Standard Work should be the best-known way to get work accomplished. It also typically incorporates the pace at which work should happen, when it should occur, and a desire to make it easier to see (make it visual) if the right thing is being done at the right time.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Leaders in companies that are highly effective at improving all seem to have one common trait in the way they behave. They lead with a high degree of humility and a willingness to learn.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“If the student hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“A Toyota Japanese trainer once made the statement, “When you go to the floor for a problem, go with two brains. One to understand the problem that needs to be worked and how to teach the members to solve it, and one to see all of the ‘system’ problems that are occurring, which are ‘your problems’ to work on.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Gemba Walks provide a structured approach for assessing process performance and bringing key issues to the surface”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“If people understand the purpose, the underlying reason why their work is necessary, they are in a much better position to find improvement opportunities.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“The most simplistic definition (formula) of Value Added for a manufacturing company is Sales Price – Materials Costs = Value Added.  In industrial engineering the term “Value Added” is defined as something that changes the form, the fit or the function of a product.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“According to John Shook[1], “‘Go see, ask why, show respect’ is the way we turn the philosophy of scientific empiricism into actual behavior.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“The walkers support changing the culture of the organization when they: Coach people to develop their critical thinking skills executing the above model Provide positive reinforcement supporting the experiments and the learning taking place Seek to better align management support systems to streamline cross-functional performance. Show respect to everyone, at every level participating in the Gemba Walk process”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Once an organization begins to stabilize its processes, an amazing thing happens! More time becomes available to concentrate on the longer-term, strategic issues that will move the organization forward, because people have to deal with fewer exceptions and fewer variations from the norm (Standard Work). As”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Make sure the coach is a good one. With an effective coach, three things should happen relatively quickly. You should: Gain new insights, causing you to change your perspective somewhat. Communicate more effectively with your subordinates and your peers. This typically means you listen more than you talk. See some progress in a relatively short period of time. There should be more wins than losses as a result of the steps you take to change. This is an experiment. You are learning, yet it is important to remember you will not get everything right the first time you try it. If those three things are not happening, get a new coach.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“We want to not only show respect to our people, in the same way, we want to show respect to everyone we meet in life, we also want to respect their humanity, what it is that makes us human, which is our ability to think and feel—we have to respect that humanity in the way we design the work, so that the work enables their very human characteristics to flourish.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“All walks should help the leader learn what is really happening and at the same time focus on helping people to maintain their dignity. This can only happen if the leaders create a safe place to have a conversation, and they show respect to the people they encounter along the way. Why would anyone openly discuss problems in their work area if he or she will be embarrassed once workplace issues are revealed, or if the walker looks as if he or she is trying to catch someone doing something wrong?”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“Dr. W. Edwards Deming said, “Management by walking around is hardly ever effective.” The reason being that someone in management, walking around, typically has little idea about what questions to ask, and usually does not pause long enough at any spot to get the right answer. Dr. Deming also stated quite clearly, “Most problems (85% to 95%) are system (process) problems, not people problems.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“According to John Shook, “‘Go see, ask why, show respect’ is the way we turn the philosophy of scientific empiricism into actual behavior.” It’s an expression he originally learned from Fujio Cho (past president and chairman of Toyota). In an LEI blog, Shook went on to say, “We go observe what is really happening (at the Gemba where the work takes place), while showing respect for the people involved, especially the people who do the real value-creating work of the business.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers

“A Gemba Walk is an alternate expression for the Japanese term “Genchi Genbutsu,” which on a Toyota website is defined as, “Going to the source to find the facts to make correct decisions, build consensus, and achieve goals.” A common slang expression for this is “Get your boots on and go see the reality.” In other words, don’t make dangerous assumptions about things you only know from a distance.”
― Michael Bremer, How to Do a Gemba Walk: Coaching Gemba Walkers