Double Meanings

There are lots of times when I’m teaching lean and I share a Japanese word, such as ‘Andon’ or ‘Kaizen’ or ‘Hoshin Kanri’, where I say what the word means but then qualify that statement by saying something like “well I can’t speak Japanese, but I’ve been taught that that’s what the word loosely translates as …. plus it can never be a perfect translation of course”.

“Kaizen – ‘Kai’ and ‘Zen’ – where ‘Kai’ suggests ‘change’ and ‘zen’ suggests ‘good’.  So kaizen translates as ‘good change’ or ‘change for the better’. A lean organisation provides the environment, the system, the processes, the trust and the learning to encourage and enable everyone in the organisation to care about and go out and do ‘good changes’ …. so kaizen refers to the pursuit of a series of small wins, everywhere, by everybody, to collectively improve the organisation”.

Philip Holt has written a really great blog on this topic which I recommend reading “Please Don’t Use Japanese Terms” (the title of which presents the opposite opinion to what he thinks) where he offers a position on a perennial problem that lean practitioners encounter, ‘to use or not to use’ the original language of ‘lean’.  This is because organisational sponsors sometimes feel they using them will alienate, or even annoy, their staff. I am completely with Philip on this – I am ‘pro’ using the terms because the Japanese language has a beautiful way of helping the learner to understand the essence of what the concept or tool is trying to instill once you understand the constituent parts of the words and phrases, their syllabary combines together to provide you with clear clues about what the phrase is trying to suggest.

There’s something quite special about how one tiny little word with two little syllables ‘kaizen’, a word that if you whisper it to yourself, sounds so modest and meek, but yet when you unpack what these syllables represent, you can start to see the huge phenomenal force that the concept potentially holds.  Exploring mysterious, small words in this way, with learners, and expanding their significance, helps you as a teacher to explore and expand the word’s potential. Taking the time and trouble to have to explain the word’s meaning helps you to communicate the complexity of what the word is representing and yes, also helps to give a suggestion about how hard achieving ‘good change’ actually is.

It’s not just Japanese which offers up words that have a powerful punch when you start to unpack them. I love the Welsh word ‘Dysgu’ which means not only to teach, but also to learn.  This blew my mind when I first discovered it because joining both sides of the knowledge sharing equation, to teach and to learn, together, is genius!  To hold them simultaneously in the same small space is tremendously powerful and absolutely accurate.

Most of my ‘lightbulb’ revelations have occurred to me when I’m preparing for teaching or when I’m in the process of teaching itself.  I think it’s that act of unpacking and sharing … slowing things ‘down’ to help to catch the people you’re talking to ‘up’, which then offers you an opportunity to really explore what is happening and to make connections in your mind that you didn’t know were lurking there, waiting to be discovered.

So I hate it when people see teaching as a chore, or merely just a device to share what you know about the subject with people who don’t know as much as you – a ‘one way’ transaction. It’s so much more than that, it’s always an opportunity to deepen your own knowledge as you discuss the topic with people who have different experiences and perspectives and as you slow down and seek to explain, so magical connections are unlocked in your mind.

That’s why, when I’m teaching a Continuous Improvement programme, as I am doing now with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, I am so keen to encourage everyone to have a go at teaching lean themselves with their teams.  We ask all participants to undertake an improvement project which encourages them to try out the improvement tools and concepts that we learn in the sessions for real, helping them to examine their work and the work of their teams with a view to improving it.  When they do this work, it’s so important that they take some time to teach the participants before they take them through an exercise.  Doing this not only helps the participants to feel more comfortable with what they are about to engage with, but as a teacher, they’ll also personally experience amazing learning themselves. It will help them to have a better understanding of the concept or tool, building their own confidence in their improvement craft, cementing the knowledge as part of their own personal ‘core operations management’ playbook that gets to live ‘rent free’ in your head FOREVER! (This is a good thing, I promise)

The challenge is whether people are open to trying out teaching, or indeed, whether they are open to learning as they teach.  Does the automatic authority that is assumed by a teacher with their learner encourage the kind of questioning and openness that holding those two concepts ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’ in the same space, demands?

Well it absolutely should, and I hope that you consider the importance of teaching within your own learning. When was the last time you taught someone something? Was it recently, great! Did it teach you anything? Can you not remember? Well maybe it’s time you shared some of your knowledge, and after you do then I’d ask you to reflect, did it teach me anything new?

p.s. You can hear me talking about how important continual learning is in a recent Academi Wales podcast on leadership