A new management book has landed on Western shores: The Harada Method: The Spirit of Self-Reliance. A joint effort by Lean movement gurus Takashi Harada and Norman Bodek, the work aims to empower employees while simultaneously improving productivity.
The Japanese Perspective
According to a December 17 press release at Marketwire, the book is now available to Western audiences for the first time. In it, the authors delve into the Harada Method and how, in conjunction with Lean methodology, businesses can see significant gains.
The method is ranked by the Japanese Management Association as the top strategy for developing employee capability. Harada developed the Lean method in his work as a track-and-field coach, empowering students to become self-reliant and improve their own performance. Harada now views the method as an extension of Lean movement practices, which focus on limiting expenditures for any goal other than end value to the customer.
Bodek has spent the bulk of his career learning from Japanese management masters and, after meeting Harada, saw the potential for this human-centric method to integrate with existing methods like Six Sigma, Hoshin Planning and Lean.
Waste Not, Want Not
Lean thinking deals with different kinds of waste. One is muri, which addresses any unreasonable work imposed on employees by management. In the Lean framework, this kind of work often involves dangerous or stress-heavy tasks or those that take a toll on workers’ bodies. In the Harada method, muri can be viewed as unreasonable – and costly – oversight of employees by superiors because they don’t trust workers or because those workers don’t have the training necessary to perform their tasks independently.
While initial empowerment may cost both time and resources, much like the proverbial “teaching a man to fish,” studies show that workers with autonomy not only improve on task performance but also display increased job satisfaction. This, combined with eliminating much of the review and approval process for simple tasks, means increased productivity and limited waste for companies.
Personal performance and self-reliance are the ultimate goals of Harada’s method and, when combined with Lean movement thinking, provide a streamlined, systematic approach to increase productivity. His new book offers a step-by-step guide for managers that doesn’t require a paradigm shift but instead builds on existing methodologies.
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