The modern world is full of distractions, and technology often makes it much easier for distractions to find you. It’s easy to want to tune out and go low-tech just to keep people from getting sidetracked. When it comes to the internet, educational institutions have long been weary of students logging in during class time, but this is changing. More teachers are realizing the benefits of online learning, and so too must industry trainers. The idea of letting your trainees bring smartphones and tablets to the workplace might seem risky, but like many things in management, it is not the tools, but the culture that drives activity. So it is with online kaizen training. The right approach will get people familiar with the tools of process improvement and ensure that they are using technology in the right way.

Every day, the internet gives us choices. We can get the latest international news, find out what our friends had for breakfast, learn a new skill, create cute animal memes, buy an anniversary present, or have an affair. Obviously some activities are a lot more virtuous than others. Technology gives us the choice but it doesn’t make it for us. Just like a kid hiding a comic book behind their biology textbook, people in the workplace can try to appear productive while “liking” pictures of dogs in Christmas sweaters on their smartphone. A culture of Kaizen, or continuous improvement, will keep people engaged and motivated in their job, so using online training programs should do the same. In fact, showing this kind of trust in the workforce by letting them take command of their own learning process will get the ball rolling toward a culture of empowerment. This is a major factor for sustaining continuous improvement. If employees don’t feel trusted, they wont feel empowered, and they wont seek out solutions on their own when faced with a problem.

Allowing employees to access online kaizen training material in their own way and at their own pace sends the clear message, “We believe you have the power to improve, and we trust you with that power.” In this way, training itself becomes an act of continuous improvement, and the method of training becomes the first lesson. Ultimately, if you want people to learn to manage themselves, you have to let them manage their own learning. Online learning management systems are great tools for achieving this. People should be held accountable for how they use their time online, but you shouldn’t automatically assume they would spend it on Facebook.

Lean Communication is not Lean Vocabulary

A slight change of verbiage can make a big difference, especially in professional organizations. Hierarchies, rivalries, and other negative factors can influence the way employees and co-workers interpret even the most common phrases. Take “training” for example. At best, this can be interpreted as “apprenticeship.” It can be looked at as a mentor and mentee relationship. At worst, the trainee can feel like a beast of burden, being forced to follow commands. People use the word “training” to describe both types of relationships. To avoid misunderstanding, one solution is to change your phrasing; use “learning” instead of “training.” However, this only scratches the surface and applies a Band-Aid to the problem. Like any sort of Kaizen or problem solving, it is better to look for the root cause when dealing with Lean communication issues.

Training or Learning?

If people respond to the idea of training in a negative way, there is probably a deeper issue to deal with. If people think of “training” as a correction or punishment, they will probably react similarly to the phrases “skill acquisition” “professional development” or “workplace learning.” Employees need to know that workplace training is meant to benefit them, not just the organization’s bottom line. When people work better, they live better. It’s not one or the other. Carefully selecting words is not the most effective way to communicate this message. Instead, a company culture of Kaizen (continuous improvement) needs to be created through actions. Its not enough to tell people you want to help them, you need to prove it. Developing your company around its people is a great strategy, since better employees achieve better results. Many managers worry that if they train their employees too much, they will leave and seek better opportunities, but this is backward thinking. Richard Branson sums this up in a great quote, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” If training you employee’s leads to a more successful company, your company will continue to provide better opportunities for everyone who works there.

Standards or Kaizen?

The same logic for Lean communication can be applied to standards. A lot of people worry that standardizing processes will undermine their professional expertise and creativity. This is because they interpret the word “standard” to mean “rule” or “law.” Once again, this is often because of a company culture that has treated standards as unbreakable regulations. As counterintuitive as it sounds to many managers, the best way to introduce standard work is to simultaneously introduce a system for changing it. That is why many organizations start with current state analysis and a Kaizen workshop. The entire purpose of standards in Lean is to function as baselines, so everyone can see the improvements that are made by changing them. Standards are not “rules” and should not be treated that way.

Lean and Kaizen

The underlying theme in all of this is that Lean cannot be separated from Kaizen. Standardization is not a revolutionary process; it is an evolutionary process. If training and standards come across as commands, then nothing will change. The best way to change is for every individual to reach toward his or her fullest potential.

Moore’s law states that the computing power of circuitry will double every two years. Over the last century, civilization has made huge leaps forward in almost every field. Technology, finance, even soft science fields like psychology and human geography have all changed drastically both in content and their methods. However, if you consider education, especially workplace education, we have been at a standstill.

In the 1900s, if you wanted to learn, you sat at a desk with thirty other students while the teacher told you the information. After that, you would be assigned homework and then the next day you would do it all again. In the last hundred years, that formula has remained the same.

For people learning on the job, if you needed training, a manager or a trainer would take you into a stuffy room, you would sit down at a desk, and they would tell you what you needed to know.

It is time to take learning into the next century. Already, schools are experimenting with the use of a “Flipped Classroom” where the students watch the lecture at home and then spend the classroom time applying the concepts. That way, the students don’t spend their time passively consuming the knowledge but apply it when the teacher can help them with the process.

Workplace learning has just begun to take off. Using the power of video and the internet, people are streaming information directly to the worksite. Rather than being sealed off in a training room, employees can access the skills they need, right when they need it.

üttana is proud to be part of this growing industry. Our courses are meant to be accessed at the worksite. In other words, we are applying the concepts of Just-In-Time to the realm of education. The knowledge becomes accessible precisely at the moment it is needed.

By providing transcripts, videos, downloadable presentations and thought pieces like this blog, we reach the brain in a variety of ways, using a technique called the multiple intelligences theory.

Everyone learns in different ways. For many years, teachers only appealed to those whose brains could best process linguistic or mathematical information. We taught with words and numbers. However, modern psychologists believe that people learn in a variety of ways and the best way to convey information is to appeal to these multiple intelligences.

Finally, after decades of doing the same thing over and over, the field of education is moving forward. Come join us.

This blog will be your one-stop shop for Lean infographics, and video material to get you moving forward on your Lean journey. While you can explore the vast library of training videos and supplemental content by clicking “View Courses”, here is where you can find the fresh articles to keep engaging the active mind.

The world of education is changing, with traditional ideas of being re-examined and new technologies bringing waves of changes to the field. One of the key reasons for introducing üttana to the world was to help revolutionalize how people approach workplace learning. Education should not be limited to dusty training rooms or locked away in a consultant’s briefcase. Learning should be accessible, so that education can happen during the busy work schedule. 

How did we become so focused on providing effective workplace education? We actually began this journey as a publishing company, Enna, that provided Lean books and materials, however everywhere we went, people were asking for a better way to access this information. You can get the full story by reading it here or watching the interview below.