Kaizen Creativity: Breaking Preconceived Notions

One of the harder things for people to do at work is to really cut their creativity loose. Industry as a whole tends to reward successful creativity, but when ideas, especially ones that have just a sprinkling of ‘crazy’ on top, don’t pan out, the person can be viewed in a less than positive light.

Lean, especially kaizen events, requires a lot of creativity to be successful. In effect, Lean is a very broad approach to problem solving. And often, the most effective solutions to problems require a healthy dose of creativity.

Use your creativity to break preconceived notions in kaizen events

Once your company develops a Lean culture, everyone will be more comfortable bouncing around off-the-wall ideas. Until then, your best strategy is to find ways to improve the odds of your ideas working.

I often do a little assumption-busting exercise to find creative solutions. For example, an ID card retractor has a few built-in assumptions. First, that it has to hold ID cards. And second, that it has to be hooked to a person’s body. Take a look at the things around you and break them down to the core functions, not the accepted use.

When you break your preconceived notions, you broaden an item’s usefulness. During a kaizen event I was facilitating years ago, I happened to be wearing my ID card on a retractor, and ended up donating it to a new workstation. It had just the right pull on it to hold a little test fixture. It became a very small tool balancer at a price tag of under $2 at the time.

Kids are great at shattering assumptions about how things are ‘supposed’ to be. When you get a little of that 10-year old mindset, you open up a whole new range of possibilities.

I’d love to have you share some of that creativity of yours. What are some examples of times you have used an item in a far different way than it was intended?

(Note: This article is one of the 17 Lessons I Learned from Japanese Consultants.)