One thing we have found is that most Chinese bosses have a bad image of consultants. When a customer says "we are sending a consultant to help you", their first response is "no thanks".
Why is that?
In China, consultants act as, and are perceived as, teachers. This is unfortunate for several reasons:
- They have the knowledge and are not to be challenged. Just like in any Chinese classroom.
- They talk a lot and everyone around listens. The focus is not on collecting information and make an informed diagnostic, but at telling universal truths.
- They try to look sophisticated and explain complicated theories. But hands-on managers in China are always very concrete and have no interest in conceptual issues.
How does this work in a factory setting?
Here is a typical scenario:
- A factory feels a need and calls a consultant, who is expected to come up with the “one best way”.
- The consultant stays in a meeting room, which serves as classroom. He is often called 老师 (professor).
- He does not go on the production floor. He looks at documents, says what to change, and then reviews new versions.
What is the problem with this approach?
No fundamental and long-lasting changes can be driven from a meeting room. Most of these consultants’ work is the preparation of an audit — either from a client, or from a registrar (to get/renew a certification). They know the auditors will tend to look at procedures, forms, and records first. That’s why these consultants focus on documents. But preparing nice procedures without ensuring that everybody follows them is ineffective. Worse, it teaches factories to cheat: "just prepare some records before the auditor comes, appear very confident, and it will be fine".
How do we proceed, in order to improve a factory?
Quality problems derive from problems on the production floor. Similarly, a high cost structure is due to the way work is done. One cannot see these issues, much less solve them, by sipping tea in an air-conditioned room. What we do is go to the production workshops as early as possible, understand the flow from the first to the last process steps, and take notes about what we see. An experienced consultant can quickly grab the structural problems and bad habits of an organization. Observation, along with pointed questions, can lead to a good understanding of serious issues, often in a few hours. Once the root cause(s) of poor performance is identified and confirmed through observation and data collection, a remedy can be prescribed. But this step can only take place after the diagnostic is complete! The Japanese have words for this: going to “gemba” (the place where things happen), and “genchi gembutsu” (go and see for yourself). Going straight to a conclusion is considered a big mistake at Toyota and many other companies.
Are “meeting room improvements” a purely Chinese thing?
Definitely not. We observe that our American and European clients also love meeting rooms. They want people to introduce themselves and then go into detailed discussions about the approach to take, the tools to implement, and so on. We typically have to insist several times before we can go on the production floor, because that’s where clients can see the problems and fully grasp the solutions we suggest.
