Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 8 – “The A3 isn’t a magical tool”

When I was back in Japan last month for a visit – my second visit since moving back to the U.S. in June 2016 – I spent the day with my friend and Toyota mentor, Mr. Isao Yoshino. As always, I keep my notebook at hand to capture the many insights from our rich conversations.

You can click here to get a PDF of the top 10 Toyota leadership lessons that Mr. Yoshino shared me in 2015 & 2016. I’m due to make a new edition, as the learnings and insights keep coming each time we get together.

My Tokyo-Nagoya learning route

It was great to be back on my familiar travel route from Tokyo to Nagoya:

• Taxi to Shinagawa station (including traveling under the almost unpassable tunnel that burrows under the expansive array of railway tracks),
• single file escalator up to the second level to purchase my non-reserved ticket (bullet trains in that direction come at least every 10 minutes!),
• stop at City Cafe for a latte and a pretzel croissant (delicious),
• navigate the stream of people pouring out the station and down the platform to be awed when the Shinkansen pulls into the station, which never fails to thrill me,
• 92 minutes exactly to Nagoya Station, 400 kilometers away.

But back to Mr. Yoshino

Since moving back to California in June 2016, I’ve missed my regular visits to Nagoya to spend time with Mr. Yoshino. At least I was lucky to have him visit the U.S. twice in the past twelve months, including this March when he was out for the Lean Transformation Summit.

On this visit in Nagoya, we met for lunch as a small local restaurant near his office at Nagoya Gakuin University that I’d been to with him before, followed by more conversation in his office.

I was honored to see that a photo of the two of us was on his door, along with three other photos including one with John Shook. We decided to take the same selfie as he did with John (see photos).

Over the course of the afternoon, we covered many topics, which I’ll share in upcoming posts.

In this post, I want to some insights and stories from our discussion about A3 thinking with you.

Mr. Yoshino’s insights on A3 thinking

Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile will know that Mr. Yoshino was John Shook’s first manager at Toyota in Nagoya, when Toyota had made the decision to expand operations to the United States and acquired the NUMMI plant.

Mr. Yoshino was one of the managers John Shook modeled his manager character “Sanderson” in his book about A3 thinking “Managing to Learn”.

The A3 isn’t a magical tool

I was most struck by a comment that Mr. Yoshino made early in our conversation, which first steered us onto the topic of A3 thinking:

“The A3 isn’t a magical tool!”

A3 Thinking was even a challenge to get started at Toyota

Mr. Yoshino went on to share a story with me from 1979 when he was the assistant manager in the group that was responsible for teaching A3 thinking to Toyota’s non-manufacturing areas.

This program, called the Kan-Pro program, was Toyota’s countermeasure to bring A3 thinking and the Toyota Production System to their office and knowledge management areas.

For more history and context about the Kan-Pro program and A3 thinking, see my earlier post: “A3 Thinking and Insights from John Shook and Isao Yoshino” and the Lean Post article Shook and Yoshino wrote “How the A3 Came to Be Toyota’s Go-To Management Process for Knowledge Work”.

Write your A3 by your own hand

One of the requirements in the Kan-Pro program was that every manager had to write his A3 in his own hand (and yes, it was only men pretty much who were managers back in these days in Japan- and even today!).

But I’m too busy….

Yoshino rememebered one manager who was particularly resistant to writing his own A3s. He recalled this manager complaining to him that he didn’t have time to work on an A3.

This manager would tell Yoshino:

“You send me another requirement [“do an A3”] when I am so busy with my work!”

“It looks like a waste of time, but it works”

Mr. Yoshino and his team would respond to this manager and others that,

“Yes, sir. We are asking you to do this. It looks like a waste of time, but it works.”

Mr. Yoshino and his colleagues insisted that the managers write their A3s and get coaching from them.

Thinking cannot be delegated

Even though many leaders complained like this one manager, they ultimately complied.

The Toyota managers came to realize that by working through an A3 with their own hands and minds, that they were actually solving problems and getting their work done even better.

So, like most things in life, Mr. Yoshino found that the ones who complained the most often ended up being the biggest supporters and and promoters of the thing they were once resistant to.

It isn’t magic – it takes dedicated practice to become a habit

I find it reassuring that A3 thinking isn’t something “magical” that “just happened” at Toyota.

It started as a top down requirement that managers would use the A3 process, and required dedicated practice with a coach, to engrain the thinking process as an organizational habit.

Does this Mr. Yoshino’s experience sound familiar to any of you? 

It did to me and felt like Mr. Yoshino could have been describing my own experiences trying to introduce A3 thinking in organizations.

I’ve had to politely, but firmly, tell many leaders that if I were to write their A3 for them, they would be missing out on the most important part of working through an A3 (plus, they are the ones who know – or who should know – the details of their problem, not me).

Share your own experiences in the comments area below.

More thoughts from Yoshino on A3 thinking

Mr. Yoshino also made other comments during this conversation about his experience with using and coaching A3 thinking.

There is no perfect A3

Mr. Yoshino also said that if you look to a Toyota A3 as the “perfect example” (or any other A3 for that matter) you may be disappointed:

“There is no perfect A3.”

Remember: The A3 is not the end goal – it’s about getting started on deeper thinking

Mr. Yoshino emphasized “doing a perfect A3” is not the goal of working through an A3; thinking more deeply is.

“Writing and developing an A3 is only the starting point [to solving a problem].”

Get started, keep working, and you will develop the habit

Developing multiple iterations of your A3 and getting input (through “catchball”) helps develop your ability to think more deeply.

“You have to have something on paper to START the conversation. Keep writing until you have developed the habit.”

Remember – it’s about the thinking!

Remember that the A3 is just is a framework for thinking and communicating. The framework can provide structure, but when it becomes a form or template to fill out or “make perfect”, we lose sight of it being a process to drive deeper thinking.

To quote John Shook

“Never to forget: the A3 is not the point. The point is the science. The PDCA. The problem solving. And the improvement and the learning.”

The important part is to do it (the thinking)!

Want to learn more?

Here are some earlier articles that might be of interest to you:

A3 thinking and other problem solving processes:

https://kbjanderson.com/when-to-a3-3-problem-solving-tools-to-match-the-complexity-of-your-problem/

Toyota & Lean Leadership Lessons from Isao Yoshino

• (Toyota) Lean Leadership Lessons (Part 1) and Gemba Visit to Toyota City, Japan
• Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 2 – Chance Encounter at Nagoya Station
• Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 3 – Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology
• Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 4 – Helping to Develop People
• Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 5 — “If you believe you are perfect, you won’t find the answer”
• Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 6 — “Coach like you are making sushi”
• Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 7 – Insights into how “respect for people” & “continuous improvement” became the pillars of the Toyota Way
• A3 Thinking History and Insights from John Shook and Isao Yoshino in the Lean Post

I hope you enjoy these articles and words of wisdom from Yoshino-san! Stay tuned for further editions to this series of insights from Mr. Yoshino.

You can also click here to get a PDF of the top 10 Toyota leadership lessons that Mr. Yoshino has shared me in 2015 & 2016. A 2017 edition will be forthcoming soon.