At a recent Lean Cluster NI event, Russell Watkins gave a talk on the habits he’s seen in the strongest lean leaders that he’s watched on the shop floor, over and over.
Here are the main points from his talk.
Gemba Walks Are Not a Spectator Sport
Watkins is direct about this. If you walk the floor and just observe, you’re not doing a Gemba walk. You’re watching one.
The leaders he rates get involved. They pull a thread. They stop at a problem countermeasure board or a kaizen kanban board and ask someone to walk them through it. They’re not doing this to check a box. They want to know:
- Is the countermeasure actually being followed
- Is it working
- Is anyone thinking about how to improve it further
That’s the difference between confirming something is in place and confirming it actually works.
People Are Always Watching You
Before he gets to the walk itself, Watkins makes a point about how leaders show up in general. The best ones don’t leave conference rooms or meeting rooms in a mess after they use them. They understand that everything they do leaves a trail other people will model.
Whether you like it or not, people watch what you do more closely than they listen to what you say.
The Habit Behind the Huddle
Putting huddles in place isn’t enough on its own. Watkins calls this out directly. If you set up a huddle and walk away, you’ve started something and let it run without you.
The habit that actually makes huddles stronger is watching them regularly, seeing how well they’re going, and giving feedback one to one afterward. That’s coaching, not just checking attendance.
Confirm Control, Confirm Kaizen
When Watkins talks about confirming, he means two specific things:
- Are we in control right now
- Is there a live kaizen habit happening
Both get confirmed the same way, by getting hands on. Pull a thread. Ask someone to walk you through a problem on the board. That’s how you find out if the depth of the work is real.
Draw Your Line: What You Can’t Walk Past
Here’s where Watkins gets practical about the old lean line, “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.” He agrees it’s true. But he also points out the problem with taking it literally.
If you stopped at everything on your floor that wasn’t up to standard, you might not get around the building in a day. So you have to draw a line.
His personal line, the things he never walks past:
- A safety concern
- A defect being made
- A part sitting in an unidentified area
And when he says unsafe act, he means someone in visible distress, someone struggling, someone sweating through a task they shouldn’t be. Everything else can wait until the walk is done.
This is the part worth sitting with. The standard isn’t “stop at everything.” The standard is knowing exactly what you personally won’t let slide, and being consistent about it.
Recognition Is the Missing Piece
Watkins closes on something that came up across the whole panel, not just his talk. Recognition and gratitude are part of lean, and most organizations don’t do it well enough.
It’s a short point, but it’s the one he chose to end on.
Takeaway
None of this is complicated. Get involved on your walks instead of observing them. Coach the huddle instead of just starting it. Know your personal line for what you won’t walk past, and hold it consistently. And recognize people more than you probably do right now.
Simple habits, applied consistently, is the whole talk in one sentence.