A Hatred of the Current State

“Raise your hands. Do you have a hatred of the current state?”

A couple of hands went up. It was the last day of the Kaizen improvement event.

“You just said you found that 60% of the tasks done on the receiving dock were tasks that the customer is not willing to pay for — they are waste. Is that okay or do you have a hatred of the current state?”

“Isn’t hatred a bit strong?” asked Mark, one of the supervisors.

“Is it? If rearranging the dock to get the next truck in, and trying to find the next pallet because the dock is full, is something that you put up with time and time again, are you really motivated to improve it?”

“Let me ask again. Do you have a hatred of the current state?”

Now most of the associates and all of the supervisors had raised their hands, but not the Warehouse Manager and her Director.

“If your leaders do not show this passion every day, then why should you?  I’ll ask the question one last time. Do you have a hatred of the current state?’

This time all the hands went up. The Director smiled and finally spoke.

“I’m glad to see you all raised your hands. I don’t like what we saw either out there today because I know we can improve it. A healthy hatred will encourage us to always challenge each other on what we do and why we do it. Let’s focus that passion on what we saw on the dock and elsewhere.”

Waste isn’t personal or judgmental. It just is. Our job is to see and eliminate it. Be passionate about improving your workplace every day.

By Bruce Trippet, President, OpportunityLinks LLC. All Rights Reserved.