the people side of twi: job relations

Business901 Podcast Transcription

Implementing Lean Marketing Systems

Is Job Relations the Key Program in Training Within Industry?

Copyright Business901

The People Side of Training within Industry

Guest was Oscar Roche

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Related Podcast: Is Job Relations the Key

Program in Training Within Industry?

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Note: This is a transcription of an interview. It has not gone through a professional editing process and may contain grammatical errors or incorrect formatting.

Transcription of Interview

Joe: Welcome everyone. This is Joe Dager, the host of the Business901 Podcast. With me

today is Oscar Roche. He is the Director of Training Within Industry Institute in Australia.

Oscar, I would like to welcome you. And the first question I’d have to ask is, how did you

get started with TWI and how long have you been at it?

Oscar: So about 2009, we’ve been working in Continuous Improvement for five or six

years, and we were being pressured by senior management. One customer, in particular --

what was happening was that we were having too much trouble convincing the workplace

leaders to come along and follow what we were trying to help them do. We were being paid

by senior management of the businesses, so that was okay. The thing we were struggling

with was middle management were becoming a sea anchor in the word we were trying to

do. We weren’t really catering to their needs and building their capabilities if you like. There

was one company, in particular, actually it’s a company you guys would be familiar with. It

was Casella Wines who sell Yellow Tail in America. I was working there, and there was an

operations manager who had a lot time for it and he said to me, you guys do a reasonable

job, but he said you’re missing something, you’re missing something in the middle and it’s







with the development of leaders at lower, floor level, middle manager level. He said; “I don’t

know what the answer is but you’ve got to find something and people like yourselves have

the same issue.”

About two months later, I was getting the Target Magazine from America at the time and

about two months later, I read an article in there about this thing called TWI. This was mid-

2009, and I’ve never heard of it. The odd thing was that I’ve read Toyota Talent about three

years prior, and the penny hadn’t dropped. It should have dropped, but the penny didn’t

drop. I don’t know why the penny didn’t drop but the reality was, it didn’t. I didn’t make the

connection which I should have done. Considering we adopted quite a bit of the stuff in

Toyota Talent; anyway, the penny didn’t drop. There was this article about Patrick Graupp

about TWI in the Target Magazine. I read it, and I thought, this is the same thing that we

see here, and this particular operations manager at Casella Wines had said to me.

I contacted the institute in America, Bob Wrona, and we had some initial discussions with

Scott. As a result we went to the TWI Institute, the TWI Summit in Las Vegas in 2009 or

2010, I can’t remember. The purpose of that was to learn more about TWI and understand

a bit more and also if we were interested to try and see if we can affiliate with an organization

in the States. And at the end of that summit, the institute -- the summit was in Vegas, we

then went over to Syracuse over in New York, and the institute took us around a couple of

their clients. As a consequence of that, we signed an MIU, and they had sent the master







trainer over here.

Actually we convinced two other organizations to partner with us. One of which was Casella

Wines and the other was another winery, the Boutari Wines, and they hosted the training.

So we convinced them to put in some money; we paid about half and they about 25-25% of

the rest I think, if I remember rightly. It might have been a third; it doesn’t matter. The

training was hosted over here, and they sent Richard Abercrombie, the Master Trainer over

here from the institute and he’s trained and we’ve been working in that and that’s how it

developed and started and gone on from there. We were very rural back then. If I look at

some of the stuff we did at the start, I shudder but it’s learned by doing isn’t it, like

everything else and that’s how we’ve developed.

Joe: I find that very interesting on how people attach themselves to things. You know one

of the things, I’m not sure who attached or what attached each other but it seems like Toyota

Kata, and TWI is starting to see a blend or attaching itself in many circles. What do you think

about that? Is that a natural fit or how is that working?

Oscar: Absolutely; very natural. What I understand is one of the realizations and we’ll go

back a little bit, when Lean was discovered by the consulting industry, and it was given that

name, and I would assign that to you guys. The Americans did that from what I understand.

Took a picture of what they visually liked, took a picture of the Japanese in the mid-eighties







from 30,000 feet, but they saw the good manufacturing companies needed to sell it, so they

gave it this word Lean to try and help sell the concept. I think we’re all realizing now that

the mistake made there was that we took this photo, and all we have to do is teach

companies just to copy that photograph. I think what we’re all -- copy what they see in that

photograph. 5S and Kaizen events, and Heijunka, and blah-blah-blah. I think what we’re all

realizing now is that that photo was a product of what had been going on for the previous

30 or 40 years and was enabled by what was going on the previous study for years.

I think what we also realize now is that one of the things and certainly not the only thing,

but one of the things that was embedded was the TWI mentality, and the TWI culture, and

the TWI thinking within Japanese industry, and I think Kata’s the same. What is Toyota Kata,

it’s the way they think; it’s the way they think through improvement. Mike Rother has done

a great job of identifying that and putting it into something that the world can understand,

but I think you’ve got to think the same way. The reason that he’s been out to identify that

and see that is good, but what was happening in the previous 34 to 40 years, it’s enabled

that to be so successful in their organization. Again to think it can just be copied might be a

little bit risky, a little bit dangerous. My view is that TWI lays very strong foundations for

whatever mode of continuous improvement you’re going to deeply. It really doesn’t matter.

It really doesn’t matter to all PDCA-based.

Joe: How would you go about introducing TWI to a company then? Do you need to go to







training first or should you do it all together, or should you try implementing it yourselves

and then find out what you don’t know? How would you go about it?

Oscar: Well you got to be driven by the need first; there must be a need. What we do is we

go into an organization, and we spend two days there first to identify where they needed to

go and what they’re basically doing first. Well that’s starting with. And the point is, you just

got to get started. What you start with is very dependent on the situation at the time and

what’s driving them forward and what problems they can solve by deploying whatever tool

they use, because at the end of the day, JI and JR, and JM -- the three skills or tools used

to solve problems.

But to answer your question, one of the things I find and I certainly found it when I’ve come

to the States and I’m finding it elsewhere is that people talk about TWI and really what

they’re talking about is JI, Job Instruction. So when I say TWI, they’re referring to JI only. I

had a view in 2009 or 2010, whatever it was, when we came to the States that JI was going

to be much more important for us. I had been in trouble convincing Bob of that, and I’ve

discussed it since. It was not something -- we couldn’t find anywhere in the States that

deployed JR or used JR. What I’m now finding over here is we’re starting with that more and

more and more. In fact we’ve just started with the County Council doing some work with

them, and all we’re doing is JI for the first six months – first four months, sorry and

particularly focusing on the four foundations. The more work we do, the more I see the need







to start with Job Relations and particularly the application of the four foundations. I think

and certainly in this country, we’ve become very good at training managers in the technical

sense of whatever work they do, but I think we’ve just forgotten all about training them and

how to lead people. You can write millions and millions of books about that, I’m sure there

is, but what I see is that JR’s four foundations are a very, very start point, and they’re not

rocket science.

Joe: I smile when you say that because one of the questions there, a couple down here

that I have here is how quickly do you start with JR, Job Relations?

Oscar: Well that’s changing and quicker and quicker, and more and more often, we’re

starting with Job Relations. I was at a company; I went to New Zealand last week. We’ve

just started over there with a guy, an institute guy over there and we went to four different

places initially and I would say three of them if we proceed, based on the one hour discussion

which is only scratching the surface, we had an initial one hour discussion, there will be a

need for JR. That’s no surprise for a couple of reasons. One is we tend to promote our good

operators to be leaders and assume they’re going to be able to manage people, assume

they’re going to be able to manage through people which is what they have to do if they’re

a leader. We assume they don’t have that capability which is a drastic assumption. Our

training our universities and our vocational education are not focusing on helping someone

how to get results through other people, so the need for Job Relations is huge.







Joe: Can TWI coincide with human resources or is it at odds with HR? I mean how does that

dynamic work?

Oscar: No, 100%. My best customer over here is a company called Tatura Milk Industries.

What they recognized was that if their supervisors and middle management got a handle on

Job Relations, then what the Human Resourced Department in Tatura Milk realized was that

if the supervisors and middle managers in that organization got the heads around Job

Relations and practiced it, then the Human Resources Department jobs would become easier.

Because what the Human Resources Department was doing was receiving hand passes of

people problems. So people problem wouldn’t be addressed, it would get out of hand, and

then the HR would get it as a big fire ablaze and they would have to deal with it.

What they’ve done is they realized that if they helped their people become better at handling

people issues and leading people, they would get far fewer people problems come to the HR

Department that they then had to deal with and at that point, it was out of control. They

started working with JR about 18 months ago or two years ago and we’ve trained about 35

or 40 of the middle managers, and it’s had a huge impact on the HR Department. They’ve

got data showing how the drop in HR incidents if you like, they get on a monthly basis, and

it’s significant. They get very few now.







Joe: I’m not sure how your unions are set-up in Australia but does TWI work in a union

environment?

Oscar: Tatura Milk is a union. It’s not heavily unionized, but there’s definitely union

presence.

Joe: You have a tendency it seems that you really like the Job Relations part of it, what

had made that different than all these other leadership books and how to lead and how to

train? Is it because it’s so central to maybe middle management?

Oscar: I think there’s a couple of things. I think one thing is its simple. There’s not a 150

to 200-page book on it because it doesn’t need to be. You look at the four foundations and

a lot of the training that we do, in a group of 10 which is the group size, generally there

would be someone in there who reads the card and says, “Yes but I do this. This is common

sense.” It might be common sense to 1 in 10, but it’s not common sense to 10 out of 10. So

one thing is it’s very, very simple and straightforward, particularly the foundations. Two is;

good leaders do that stuff anyway. Job Relations in my experience helps a good leader

become even a better leader, and it helps an average leader become a good leader, and a

poor leader become an average leader. There’s not a silver bullet, but I think its simplicity

is probably one of the things it can offer.







Another bit of feedback we’ve had from an HR person is that there’s a tendency to look for

complexity. So we’re having leadership issues, so we look for weak causes or six-month

part-time course or something in how to build leadership and respect, but what we doesn’t

do and it’s all good concept and great knowledge, but what the leader has difficulty is when

I walk out of the training is, what can I actually do now? Whereas that pocket card gives

them something that when they walk back into the workplace, they can actually do some

specific things that will change that Job Relations line. So it’s very focused, it’s very simple,

and it’s very direct and its four things are not complex, and I think that’s the value it adds.

Joe: Is Job Relations something that you do just when there’s a problem or is it something

that you really should review and use it every day in the way interact with the people you

supervise and other leaders?

Oscar: Well there’s two elements to Job Relations. One is the four foundations of good

relations, and those four foundations are things that you can practice hour by hour, day by

day that will reduce the chance of people problems. Then the other side of the pocket card

is the four-step method for how to handle a people problem. One of the learnings I’ve had

in the last probably 6 to 12 months is I’m pretty sure I used to say how to resolve a people

problem, well you don’t always resolve them. There have been excellent cases with the

companies I’ve worked with where they’ve applied the four-step method, and they haven’t

actually solved the problem. The method is actually a means of handling the problem. And







sometimes and it is PDCA; the four-step method for JR is PDCA. So what that implies is you

may not always resolve the issue. You may have to go around two or three times, and that’s

normal PDCA. So to answer your question Joe, there’s two sides of the card. One is the four

things you should do on a daily basis to reduce the chance of people problems.

Joe: Could you name them?

Oscar: The four foundations are, let each worker know how he or she is doing -- that’s

prime, and then each of them has sub-foundations. That’s the first foundation. The second

foundation is to give credit when due. The third foundation is to tell people in advance about

changes that will affect them. The last foundation is to make best use of each person’s ability.

Joe: That’s being proactive in things you should be doing all the time.

Oscar: That’s exactly right. Every minute of the day thinking is one of these -- many will

get it, but that’s what I’ll try and do. Which one of these foundations need to be used -- is

there an issue now? I’m working with people now, which one of these foundations if they

need to, I need to be practicing right now?

Joe: And then when you do the reactive on how to handle a problem, the four steps there

is get the facts, weigh and decide, take action, and then check the results. Those are good







things, and I think the one intriguing thing that you really said about that is that handling a

problem is at iterative as a hypothesis as PDCA is. It’s something that you may not get it

right the first time.

Oscar: You may not, and one of the instances I’ve had recently was a supervisor followed

it and didn’t get it right. Let me go back a little bit. The key thing you’ve missed there Joe

is, you’ve obviously got a card in front of you, what does it say at the top of the card, just

under how to handle a problem?

Joe: Oh, get the objective.

Oscar: Exactly and I look back on my time when I was a manufacturing manager and a

production manager, and me of course had people problems, that’s the thing I never did. I

never sat down and thought before I open my mouth, before I do anything here, what’s my

objective? So actually, if you want to think of it as a five-step method because you must

determine your objective and that must happen before you open your mouth; before you

write anything down, you got to sit and think that through. It’s very challenging because

when you do that, people think, “Ooh, hang on…” People find that difficult and the reason

they find it difficult is because they’ve never done it before, and it’s critical to this.

What occurred in this particular case, it was that the supervisor determined their objective,







followed the four-step method perfectly and didn’t achieve the objective. I said to the

supervisor, “You haven’t failed. Please don’t think you failed. You have not failed. You’ve

actually been very successful because you followed the method. What you have learned is

that you now have to change your objective, which you did. So you change the objective

and follow the method again.” I said, “Don’t think that’s failure. That is PDCA. That is exactly

what this is about.” You’re not going to get it right the first time every time, but follow the

method, and you’ll be consistent in the way you apply method, and not only you but your

peers will as well and that’s the value in it. Then the worker sees consistency in the way that

there being treated, and managed, and handled.

Joe: That reminds me of the Toyota Kata, and when you think about that a little bit is that

target condition, and maybe you did pick an objective that was too big of a step. Maybe you

had to break it down a little bit and get a few more steps in line to really get to the end and

solve maybe that target problem versus the objectives along the way. Is that correct

thinking?

Oscar: 100%. What’s Toyota Kata? It’s PDCA. So Toyota Kata is determine your target

condition, your objective. Step one in JR, get the facts. Toyota Kata understands the current

condition. Is that any different? Step two in JR, weigh and decide. In the Kata, locate an

obstacle. And then step three in JR, take action and Kata is do something with PDCA to

address the obstacle. So is it any different? No, of course, it’s not because it’s PDCA based.







And that’s one of the things I love about TWI is it goes JR or JI, they go back to fundamentals.

They’re not a reinvention of something that’s out there. It’s just fundamental stuff that’s

based on something that’s extremely solid for many, many years ago, and that’s PDCA.

Joe: I think so many times that we are doing the same things, but we’re putting a different

wrapper on it, but it’s basically very similar to the roots of it; the roots of TWI maybe and

Charles Allen’s 4-Step or even before that. One of the things we talked to just briefly about

Job Instructions and Job Relations primarily, but Job Methods seems to be a forgotten child

sometimes. It’s where an engineer definitely typically wants to jump to right away. We want

to solve problems. But what’s different about Job Methods and let’s say regular improvement

efforts? Is there anything?

Oscar: No, I don’t think so; not in principle. Again, not in principle. It’s PDCA. I guess the

real value for me in the Job Methods is the 6 Questions and the order in which those 6

questions are asked. So that’s the value I believe in Job Methods. Look reality over here, say

for I don’t know how many JI and JR’s we’ve done, I know I’ve got it on the database, but I

couldn’t answer this because it’s quite a lot. We’ve done two JM courses in three years and

four years, and the reason for that is because most companies are not stable enough to start

this and to get into JM anyway to start with. Those that are, usually have some method of

driving improvement anyway and perhaps JM would just confuse the issue. We haven’t done

very much JM at all. But the value in JM is I believe understanding the detail of the work







even more than JI, but also asking those six questions and in order which they should be

asked.

Joe: Why is the order so important?

Oscar: The reason the order is so important is because the first two are why is it necessary

and what’s its purpose. In our experience of applying and half the time, you find out that it’s

not necessary, and it has no purpose in terms of delivering value to the customer. So what

we tend to do is improve what we’re doing now rather than question whether we should be

doing it at all. So we tend to run in blind and just improve what’s happening rather than first

saying, do we really need to be doing this at all.

Joe: Okay, so it’s really kind of a focusing to step to begin with and starting there, it’s sort

of the Theory of Constraints type thing is really concentrated on what we need to or in Kata,

defining those objectives along the path that we really need to concentrate on to reach that

target.

Oscar: The last four questions ‘were, when, who, and how,’ we tend to launch straight into

those without saying, “Hang on, do we really need to be doing this at all? So the value of

the why and what sometimes define that you don’t need to be doing what you’re doing.







Joe: TWI, standard work. Leaders standard work, Kata, okay? We have all these kind of

new names flowing into Lean now and not necessarily new but becoming more the front end

of Lean that we hear about. Is there a natural thread or something that’s causing these types

of descriptions coming forth and kind of bubbling to the top now?

Oscar: Do you mean why have they bubbled to the top?

Joe: Yes, it is a short way of putting it. Yes.

Oscar: I think the reason for that is because most people will have a crack at Lean, whatever

that is, fail and therefore people have started to try and understand why are we not able to

achieve the goals that the Japanese were able to achieve back in the 80’s and 90’s. Why

have we not been able to improve it when they were able to improve this? People have

realized that there had to be something missing. So what’s now being discovered is these

are the things that were missing.

Joe: Is there something maybe you’d like to add that I didn’t ask you?

Oscar: A question to ask in the end, we’ve got to be careful, we’ve got to be careful that

we don’t make the same mistakes with Kata and TWI and those other things that are around

and just then become a brand if you like and a tool, and understand that what they are --







and one of the things I’ve spoken to Mike Rother in emails is one of the things I remember

him saying to me was that Toyota Kata is not a methodology. It’s a pattern of thinking; it’s

a way of thinking. One of the fears I have and what I see now in the development of Kata is

it’s being marketed and sold as a methodology and one of my understandings from Mike a

couple of years ago was that it was not his intent. His intent is to get people to the point

where it’s a habitual way of thinking through whenever you have a problem. What’s my

target condition? Where am I now? What’s in my way? What have I got to do to remove it?

PDCA.

JI and JR are the same. We have these pocket cards for JR. I’m not expecting someone who’s

very practiced in JR to be picking up a pocket card every five minutes. What I want them to

do is become very practiced in the habit so that they daily they are practicing those four

foundations without even realizing they’re doing it. And then when JR needs to be applied,

innately they think, “Oh hang on, what’s my objective here? What do I know about this?

What are the facts? What are my options? I could do this, this or this. Yes, that doesn’t

contradict company practices and policies. Okay, now I’m going to go out and do it.”

So we’re not expecting through any of these that people have pocket cards and tools for the

rest of their life. What we’re expecting in these fundamentals is they become innate, and I

think we’ve got to be careful we don’t lose sight of that and we don’t brand these things and

they join the list of all the other Lean tools that are out there.







Joe: What is upcoming for you? Are you going to the TWI Summit?

Oscar: Yes, so I’m going to the summit in Jacksonville in the States and on the Friday I’m

doing two breakouts. If you have a look at the TWI Summit program, Jim’s been very kind

and given us the opportunity to -- Jim Huntzinger has been very kind and given us the

opportunity to do two breakouts. Also earlier in the week, the institute is running a JI class.

Curtis has said that I can be the trainer for that. And on the Wednesday, Scott and Patrick

are doing a TWO Workshop. I’ll be participating in a small way in that as well.

Joe: Put on by Lean Frontiers and that is in May. Where is it at and what are the dates

again?

Oscar: I’m pretty sure it’s the 14th and 15th of May which is a Thursday, Friday, and it’s in

Jacksonville in Florida.

Joe: What’s the best way for someone to contact you?

Oscar: Our Website address is www.twi-instituteaust.com. Email is Oscar@twi-

instituteaust.com. So those last four letters, a-u-s-t, the first four letters of Australia.



http://www.twi-instituteaust.com/

mailto:[email protected]






Joe: And they can also contact you on LinkedIn, correct?

Oscar: Yes, I’m on Linked In. Correct.

Joe: Well, I would like to thank you very much Oscar. I appreciate it. This podcast will be

available on the Business 901 iTunes Store and the Business901 Blog Site. So thanks

everyone for listening.

Oscar: And thank you Joe. That was good.







Joseph T. Dager

Business901

Phone: 260-918-0438

Skype: Biz901

Fax: 260-818-2022

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.business901.com

Twitter: @business901

Joe Dager is President of Business901, a firm specializing in bringing the continuous improvement process to the sales and marketing arena. He takes his process thinking of over thirty years in marketing within a wide variety of industries and applies it through Lean Marketing and Lean Service Design.

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the people side of twi: job relations

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