Choosing the right tool - for the right job!

When not just any tool will do…..

One of the "core tenants" of Lean that resonates so strongly for me is the concept of eliminating waste, while driving up customer value.  And while that seems as intuitive as breathing in and out, it can sometimes be challenging.  In particular when you are considering the 8^th waste, “skills”.  It is widely held and understood that our “human capital” is the most valuable capital we have, but far too often, it is misused – or “wasted”.   

But I only had a screw driver! 

There are times when you may be tempted to try and fix or do something, when in fact, you are ill prepared or ill equipped for the job.  For example, when you are assembling that new piece of Scandinavian furniture you just bought, but all you have is a screw driver. Or when you go to take that locking-nut off the wheel on your car because you have a flat tire, but can't find that special socket made to fit that locking nut. 

Does that look right? 

Or when you need to tighten that little tiny screw that holds the arm of your sunglasses to the frame, and you just don't have a screw driver small enough. 

There are so many examples of where you just need the right tool for the job. The tool that is designed and proven for the task at hand. The tool that was made to do what you need.  Where coming at your sunglasses with a hammer (either because that’s all you have, or it’s the first thing you pick up because you have lots of hammers!) is just not a good idea.   

That’s not to say a hammer is not a good tool.  In fact, it’s a great tool - as long as you are driving in a nail (or pulling one out). But it really isn’t terribly useful for fixing your sunglasses, or a lot of other jobs. 

But it kinda looked like a nail! 

So why do we tend to often default to the same tool or method to fix problems when they arise? In other words, why do we reach for a hammer so often when we are faced with a new problem?  Well – it could be because we have a really great hammer, and since it has done such a great job driving nails, it just makes sense that it has to be as good at driving in screws for example.  We “see” the hammer in the light of what it does so very well for us, and through transference, assume it will be as good at everything else.  

And I am sure to no one’s surprise, this is true of  people as well  – or more precisely, people’s skills. 

For a moment, think about your mechanic or dentist or hairdresser.  They are all people with very specific skills and talents.  People that you trust to perform a service or deliver a product for you.  But now consider this; you wake up one morning with a sharp pain in your lower abdomen.  It hurts to sit up straight, never mind stand up.  The area is hyper sensitive to pressure. You have a low grade fever. Nothing seems to give you any relief. You quickly realize you need medical attention, so you head to the hospital to go to the emergency ward.  And when you get there, the triage nurse quickly determines you have an acute case of appendicitis.  A fairly routine ailment in the medical field.  But for you, this means you are about to face surgery.  

Sponge...forceps....catalytic converter.....

You are about to entrust someone to literally slice you open and take out your appendix.  And after prepping you for surgery, and getting you on the gurney and rolling you into the operating room, you look up and see your mechanic.

Are you worried?  Are you concerned?  You know this mechanic well, and you know he can do magic when working on a combustion engine.  But you are being asked to entrust him with your life!  You are starting to think that this isn’t such a great idea after all. 

Admittedly, that is an extreme example – we all hope!  But the same thing happens all the time in our day to day lives.  Whether at home, or out enjoying some sport or outdoor activity, or at work.  There is a natural tendency to reach for familiar tools when you start a new job.  The tools that we have had success with before, even though it may have been in a completely different context. 

Maybe it's not the hammer! 

The point is, we should make a conscious effort to use the right tool (person/skill combination) for the job.  This requires of course the ability to adequately and accurately assess a situation to truly understand what skills and other attributes contribute to the activities’ success.  And that's not always easy. We don’t always have all of the information we need before making that choice.

Have you ever heard the expression “the reward for good work is more work!”?  Well it’s true.  If faced with a critical, highly visible project that has a tight timeline, are you going to approach someone that you are unsure of in terms of completing on time and with quality outcomes, or are you going to go back to that same person or persons that you have relied on successfully before?  I think we all know the answer to that.  But far too often we are reaching for the “success” attribute rather than the “contextual” or “skill” attribute that is needed for this particular activity.

One tool to rule them all!

Regardless, we need to avoid the pitfall of the "everyone-is-good-at-everything" syndrome. People are not completely interchangeable, particularly in our more and more specialized business settings.  The days of having a "generalist" that can address any area of the business is pretty much gone.  We can't think of our team members as Swiss Army Knives, with all of the tools you could need for every possible situation or problem.  

Instead, we should be borrowing from some of the Lean tools and methods we have learned over the past years.  In this case, it may be best to think of our team members as items on a "shadow board". They have a very specific use, for a very specific job.  And they don't belong in situations that they are not properly or fully skilled at. 

Chose the correct tool (person) for the job! 

A common example of this is when someone with deep technical skills gets promoted to be the Manager of their area when they really don't have the skills to succeed.  This is sometimes referred to as the Peter Principle. But in fact it is often less structural than that.  This can (and often does) happen when a Manager position becomes available or vacant for a technical team, and there is a member of the team who has been with the organization for a long time.  The temptation to promote someone into Management because "they have a lot of experience with the technical skills the team employs", or "they have been here a long time and really know the organization" can be overwhelming.  But wait - maybe that individual has NO management skills! And worse, they really didn't want to be a manager in the first place.  That isn't setting up our teams to be successful.  That isn't respecting that person, nor the team they are about to manage.  In fact it is the exact opposite.  We waste that person's deep technical skills by having them focus on their management duties.  And sadly, many organizations do this without ever providing the new Manager with the skills and training necessary to be successful. This happens more than you may think. 

And finally, there is one more adverse impact of this kind of waste.  It is to your "brand". Your customers, at least the loyal repeat customers, have come to know and trust you because of the strength of your teams, and the proper application of their skills to drive up customer value for them. 

Years to build, seconds to destroy

Using a person to deliver a service or produce a product that doesn't have the right skills, expected experience, and background your customers have come to expect can cause a loss in trust, diminishing the value for the customer rather than driving it up.  Your intention was good.  You wanted to have someone to take on a particular task or project.  But choosing someone that is highly skilled, at the wrong thing, will inevitably be seen by the customer.  Trust and loyalty takes years and tons of effort to build, but it is very fragile.  It takes only minutes to compromise and destroy.  

Choose your team wisely from the shadow board. Use them to their strengths. They will be successful, you will be rewarded, and most of all, your customers will see and receive the value that they are expecting.  Ask yourself - what can I do to "wow" my customers?  Let's start by making sure we have the right people on the bus in the right seats from the get-go. (Jim Collins - "From Good to Great")  

The power of reflection

Without learning – we can’t improve…..and without looking back, we miss a huge opportunity to learn.

I recall someone telling me many years ago in a Leadership workshop that “great leaders pause and reflect on a regular basis”.  It seems to me that great leaders often need to find the wherewithal and energy to at least ‘renew’ themselves daily. True self-reflection, and the ability to make changes based on that is a skill that requires inquisitiveness, humility, optimism and persistence.

You have to be willing to ask the “what” questions (“What is, and what isn’t working well?”), as well as the tough “why” questions (“Why is it like that? What could I do differently to improve the situation?”).  You need to be willing to put ego aside and take a good hard and humble look at your actions and interactions for opportunities to improve yourself.  When something isn’t going well – always ask yourself “what part of this do I own?”.  And you need to do all of that without feeling overwhelmed or dejected. Instead, like a prospector, mine those moments and reflections for the “gems” that you can work with and go after those with a renewed vigor and optimism.  And then, on a regular basis, do it again.  And again. And……

Additionally, they need to often be prepared to adapt and even reinvent themselves and/or their organizations – based on situation, circumstance, and again, largely through those insights and self-awareness of “what’s working, and what isn’t”.   To quote from an article I was reading by Margaret Wheatley (www.Margaretwheatley.com/writings.html): “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, often creating more unintended consequences that intended and useful ones”. 

Reflection is definitely a form of learning.  It is a form of learning that is very personal, and that can have significant impact on our actions and outcomes. Unfortunately, when we are busy, and under pressure to meet deadlines and deliverables, it is one of the things that is too easy to give up.  A great deal of emphasis is put on the ability to make quick-decisions and react fast to changing environments.  While no one could argue that this isn’t a valuable skill, when used on its own it too can result in unintended consequences. Leaders at all levels of an organization need to consciously put aside enough time to reflect not only on current decisions their department or organization needs to make, but also to review past decisions to learn from that experience. I believe that if people consciously make time for it, they are likely to discover that regular time spent in reflection will bring greater perspective and clarity, and help guide their decisions and actions to new levels of continuous improvement.

By relearning how to use your reflecting skills as a tool in your toolbox, you can increase your ability to see possible challenges early, and seek alternative solutions before you are forced into a corner. You become pro-active. Making time to reflect on past decisions and outcomes, both good and bad, and allowing yourself the opportunity to learn from it, is a critical step to continued growth and development.

So what does  this have to do with Lean and Continuous Service Improvement (you might ask)?  One critical tool in the Lean practitioners’ toolbox is something called “Hansei”.  Hansei is a Japanese word that means to “look back”.  When visiting a number of very advanced Lean organizations in Tokyo and Nagoya in late 2013, it was clearly evident that Hansei is a cornerstone of Japanese culture and behavior.  In Japan, it is practiced inherently and in almost every walk of personal and professional life.  It is a simple exercise, but needs to be practiced with rigor in order to fully assimilate it into our culture so we all reap the benefits of this powerful methodology.

Hansei has to be based in a ‘no blame’ environment, and requires everyone to accept a level of humility so they can not only reflect on what the team or workgroup could improve upon, but also legitimately ask themselves “what could I have done differently to have improved this (project / outcome / customer service interaction / etc).    Hansei doesn’t need to be an onerous task – in fact, it should be designed to be quick and easy.  A five minute stand up meeting with your work group, department, project team is all that is required – but do it often.  Have someone “own” the Hansei process.  Have them facilitate the 5 minutes. Rotate that responsibility around the group. And ask those 3 simple questions, encouraging everyone to be brave and to truly reflect deeply on the situation. 

Always start with the positive: “what went really well today?”. Encourage participation. Ask the quiet ones to speak up – often they are by nature reflective and may have some real gems!

Next, ask “what didn’t go as well as we hoped or planned?”.  Remind everyone that this is a no-blame exercise. It is ONLY about finding opportunities for improvement.  Mature companies like Toyota, who have been practicing Lean for decades and have matured their practices to expert levels still do this, and still look for improvement opportunities.

And finally, ask “what can we (or I can) do differently to improve the situation?”.  Don’t struggle to find huge transformative ideas.  Look for small things that could make a difference.  Share the ideas in the group and ask for feedback. And ask for commitment to try to implement the ideas.  Together, those simple actions, repeated on a regular basis will result in continuous improvement over time.  And each small improvement is compounding the benefits realized by all of the prior small improvements. 

Reflection is about learning. Learning from the past.  Learning about the things that worked, and the things you may want or need to do differently.  Try to make room in your day, or in your department, or in your project for this happen on a regular basis.  It’s about changing habits for most of us.  You need to practice the new behavior a lot before it becomes a “new habit”. Go ahead – give it a try.

There is a reason the past is often clearer than the future,. It's because you have already been there - so use it to help guide your journey forward.

Thinking like an explorer!

Think like an explorer......

Admittedly, we are still at the very beginning of our Lean journey as part of a program of Continuous Service Improvement (CSI).  And in that sense - I'm feeling right now that we are facing the same kind of challenges that Lewis and Clark faced on their expedition of the early 1800's. Leaving St. Louis Missouri and heading west to the Pacific Ocean across a vast expanse of unsettled, and at that point, undocumented geography - to discover the riches and rewards of the territory. 

Setting out into new territory can be daunting and even perilous at times. But with the belief and commitment that the rewards will far outweigh the risks, that is how new lands and the associated rewards are discovered.  As the French author André Paul Guillaume Gide is quoted as saying in 1925: "One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore".  What I think Gide was saying here is it takes courage to leave the familiar and explore the new - to consider and embrace change. Not news to any of us I'm sure.

So, will we stray a bit along the way - sure.  Will we need to constantly check in to make sure we are still focused on our goals - of course. Will we need to constantly review and adjust those goals to ensure they are still in the best interest of the organization - absolutely.  Will we make an occasional mistake and have to back track a little in order to move forward again - naturally.  But none of that should deter us or impede our desire to constantly improve our processes, our products, and our organization as a whole while ensuring we are always focused on delivering and improving customer value along the way.

Within our Continuous Service Improvement journey, the use of Lean provides us with a framework and a way of approaching continuous improvement through a standardized methodology. The methodology itself is not particularly difficult. But one of the risks of adopting a methodology like Lean, or any other improvement methodology is the inclination for some to think of Lean just as a set of tools that can be applied to a situation and voila, you have improvement.  If it was that easy, I should be able to give you all of the tools that your mechanic has available, and expect you to be able to fix your car as well as the mechanic can.  Of course Lean isn't just a set of tools that can be applied anywhere.  Lean is a philosophy. And yes, it is a methodology that includes specific tools and techniques, but extends into a broad understanding of specific principles, and even more importantly, requires a total shift in mindset. A new way of thinking and looking at things.

It's a focus on the process, not the people doing the process.  It is a way to change the way everyone thinks about and approaches continuous improvement. It's an opportunity to reflect on those "I don't know why we do it this way" moments we've all had. Or to approach things from a "I wonder how I could make this better" perspective.  It is a means and opportunity for practitioners to 'not give up' when things don't go exactly as planned. But most of all, it is something we all must learn - from Senior Managers all the way to the front-line teams that are directly involved in the creation and delivery of value to our customers.

So think back to that statement by Gide above.  Yes - Lean itself isn't necessarily hard.  But accepting Lean as a new way of looking at things, as a new management philosophy, and taking the step to realize that shift in mindset and culture causes us to lose sight of those familiar shores. It does take courage.  And it does take patience.  But without those two things, along with a commitment to try, we are destined to just keep doing what are already doing.

Being Lean in New York City

Being Lean in New York City!

New York City - the bustling metropolis made up of 5 "Boroughs" (Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island) with a burgeoning total permanent population of 8.4Million people.  While the Boroughs are distinct in terms of municipal government, they collectively form the legal city entity known as New
York City.  

The Borough of Manhattan alone has a permanent population of 1,626,159 people, all in an area of 23 square miles located on the island of Manhattan. That’s an average of 70,702 people per square mile.  And believe me, there are many of those 23 square miles that don’t have ANY residential capacity (office buildings, warehouses, streets, parks, etc). As much as 50% of that area is non-residential.  A figure Ihave heard a number of times is a permanent population density in Manhattan of over 150,000 people per 'residential square mile’.  Think of a square, 5,280 feet long and 5,280 feet wide, and stuff 150,000 of your closest friends in there.  It’s going to be a bit tight!  No wonder the prevailing, and only solution in NYC is to go “up”.  Residential towers that are 30 and 40 stories tall, with 3,500 units in them.

It is believed that on a typical work day, the Borough of Manhattan’s population of 1.6Milllion swells to an astounding 2.8Million simply due to
commuters coming into the city for work. That clearly is a logistical challenge, getting them all in, and then out of the city in a safe, timely way. Particularly since Manhattan is an island. So they all have to travel by bridge, subway, tunnel or ferry. Lots of potential bottlenecks.  Add to that the average estimate of over 1Million “visitors” in Manhattan on any given day, and you are dealing with a Borough that has to accommodate roughly 4 Million people travelling, shopping, working, going to school, sightseeing, and just generally going about their business.  As you can see, if ever there was a place that needed to look at how to make things “flow”well – NYC has to be it!

I was in Manhattan a few weeks ago.  Not my first rodeo there. I have been in NYC many times, and each time I marvel at how it manages to just work! 

Walk down 7^th Avenue in midtown and just watch the hundreds, even thousands of people moving and migrating in all directions across busy intersections and sidewalks that are about 8 feet wide – around street vendors carts, fire hydrants, lamp posts, sandwich board signs, and at least 1 in 5 people just stopped, looking around in awe and amazement.  I’ve often thought of fluid dynamics as the analog for this constantly shifting sea of people.  People just continue to move and flow, dynamically
finding pathways through and around the dense crowds, obstacles and other barriers they encounter, moving toward their destination.  It’s like watching a fast running stream find its way around rocks and boulders.

But I digress. While there are so many examples of both well working and intentional “flow”

as well as even more opportunities to improve “flow”, I want to focus on a particular example of a specific application of Lean we experienced on our recent trip. What would Manhattan be without a shopping trip!

Macy’s flagship store is in Manhattan at 34^th Street and Broadway, bounded on one side by Herald Square. It is 2.2Million square feet of shopping. 

The 2^nd floor “Shoe Salon” is a whopping 139,000 square feet alone.  That particular retail floor underwent a complete makeover in 2010.  Redesigned by Charles Sparks + Company, Macy’s Manhattan now boasts the world’s largest shoe floor! Not only was it upgraded aesthetically,   but also the way the floor works.  How it runs.  How it flows. This link will take you to some pictures of the redesigned floor.

On a normal business day (eg, not a big sale day), Macy’s can sell in excess of 2,500 pairs of shoes through that floor.  In order to sell 2,500 pairs of shoes, they estimate that 3 to 4 times that many pairs of shoes are tried on.That means that 7,500 to 10,000 pairs of shoes are pulled from stock, brought out onto the floor, and then collected and returned to stock every day.  While it was and isa shopping mecca on the surface, there were a number of operational issues that Macy’s needed to sort out to make the best use of that space from when                                                                         considering it from a retail perspective. 

Some of the challenges that they faced included:

• Retail \space used for stock - the cost (and value) of retail space in mid-town Manhattan is extremely high – as much as $75/square foot (compared with $6 to $10 square foot in many other large urban area markets).  Up to 7,000 square feet on that floor used to be reserved “behind the wall” as stock space on the shoe floor.
• Shoe Safari – in order to get a shoe for a customer, the sales associates 
  would have to leave the floor, and take the sample shoe that was on display back into the depths of the stock room to try and locate the same shoe in the size/colour that the customer asked for.  That
  depended of course on being able to navigate their way through the stock-room-jungle, and hope that they could find the right section, locate the right model, and find the right size and colour, and return safely to the location they last saw the customer – of course, often while waiting, the customer has moved on to somewhere else on the floor and that is a whole new safari.
• Multiple sales distraction – when a sales associate was asked “do you have this in a size 8”, they would start their safari to the stock room to check for the shoe, only to be approached by an average of 3 other customers while on their way to the stock room asking them to look for a shoe for them as well.  Even with minimal distractions, it was often taking 5 minutes or more to get back to the customer with an answer (and preferably, the shoes they were looking for).  They were losing sales because customers got tired of waiting.
• A sea of un-loved shoes – with all of the time spent on shoe safari, shoes that had been brought out to the floor often stayed there, accumulating, piling up, and not going back into the stock room until after the store closed.  That caused an unsightly mess on the retail floor, AND meant that if someone else was looking for that shoe in that size and colour, they couldn’t find it, because it wasn’t on the stock shelf but rather out under a chair or piled in a corner waiting to go back into the stock room.
• Close, but….  – Once the sales person would return to the customer with the shoe, at least one third of the time the customer would then ask if they had it in a different colour, or a half size in either direction – which would start the process all over again. 
  
• Are you speaking my language? – with a shoe floor the size of two massive New York City blocks, sales associates were expected to be familiar with a particular ‘territory’.  Shoes were organized in clusters by manufacturer with the associated stock in the behind-the-wall stock room near the display of shoes from that manufacturer.  So if you were in the Cole Hann section, and asked a sales associate to go on a safari for you for a Cole Haan shoe, they were at least “in their territory”.  But if you happened to have picked up a shoe from the Franco Sarta collection at the far end of the floor while looking around, then handed it to the Cole Haan guy – he would have to hike all the way down to the far end of the store to look for unfamiliar stock in an unfamiliar stock room, using unfamiliar stock codes and styles – abandoning his customers while he went to a foreign land. 
• What about Hoboken? – and if the sales associate finally came to the conclusion that they just didn’t have the exact shoe the customer was asking for, and if the customer had managed to stay patient that long, the customer would often ask “do you think the store in Hoboken might have it?” (replace “Hoboken” with a list of any Macy’s stores!).  The sales associate would then go to the computer at the sales station, and start to search the master stock list – knowing that it was at least 24 hours old and just because it says there’s a pair of black, size 8 boots in Staten Island – it doesn’t mean they are still there.
• What exactly do I do here? – With all of the time on safari, and having to retrace the steps for minor customer change requests (half size bigger, black instead of blue), etc – the sales associates spent much more time searching than doing what they are hired for – selling!

It was pretty clear that this wasn’t the best way to sell shoes.  So what was Macy’s to do next? 

Macy’s decided that it needed to think about this from a customer perspective (great start!).  They sent a team in to discretely follow customers (at a distance) as they first came on the floor, through to when they left (they went to the Gemba), recording what was really happening on the floor. They decided to ask shoe floor customers what they liked about shopping at Macy’s (gathering the Voice of Customer), and more importantly, what frustrated them.  And that’s just what they did.  They sat down with some customers,  some sales associates  (Voice of Employee), and some vendors (Voice of Stakeholders) from their supply chain and asked them what they felt could make the shoe buying experience not only better (future state) – but the best experience they could imagine (dream state).  Their focus was on how they could increase the value they created for their customer.  

After working through multiple focus groups, performing environmental scans, engaging their retail design teams, looking at and understanding other shoe store innovators, and also purposely other non-shoe store retail innovators, Macy’s redesigned the floor, how it flows, and the whole process behind the sales experience. They did that based on some emerging desired state objectives:

• Never let a customer spend more than 1 minute looking for help (a target they set based on customer feedback)
• Provide each customer with a complete experience from inquiry to sale
• Don’t limit any sales associate to one brand or manufacturer
• Don’t leave the customer – stay engaged
• On the spot, give customers options with up to the minute information on availability, colour, styles 
• Maintain a clean and organized retail space
• Real time master stock inquiry – ‘closest to me’ searches
• DON’T WASTE RETAIL SPACE FOR STOCK!!!!

Now all they had to do was make it happen.  One of the non-shoe-store retail innovators they looked at was Apple.  They knew that if they walked into an Apple store, whomever they engaged with could search any stock they carried, locate it easily, and complete the transaction on-the-spot without having to send you to the “sales counter”. 

Apple had started doing this back in 2005.  Why not at Macy’s too???

Make it easy for me as a consumer to spend my money.  That should be one of the retailers’ primary focus areas.  Find a way to take payment on the spot.

  Next, Macy’s proceeded to implement their plan:

• They moved all of the stock on that floor to a non-retail basement level – recovering up to 30,000 square feet for more retail (and revenue generating) activity
• They redesigned the layout of the retail space (including the recovered 30,000 square feet). The display areas were updated, new brighter lights, quality decorative accessories, and most important, they laid out the display areas to optimize shopping. Based on sales history, they knew which manufacturers were complementary to others for any given demographic, and they located the ones that tended to be shopped by the same demographic next to each other in order to make it easy for the customer.  They essentially discovered and “paved the cowpaths”.  
• They move to a wifi enabled bar-code hand held scanner for all sales associates 
  
• They updated their inventory system to tie into the Point of Sale system so that inventory levels were current and up-to-the minute
• They empowered their sales associates to sell “any stock” – not just that brands that they were in close proximity to
• They implemented mobile payment capabilities on the sales associates hand held scanners, allowing them to take payment directly from the customer – no more passing them on to the line ups at the cash register counters.
• They designed and implemented a process stream for the handling of stock and inventory as a “pull” model – based on customer demand.

  So how does it all work now? What actually happens on the Shoe floor? 

The Sales Associates:

• Sales associates are still positioned throughout the shoe sales floor – though they are less confined to a single manufacturer or brand.  
• They each have a wifi mobile device to look up stock, request stock to the floor, search real-time inventories, and take (non-cash) payment.
• There are at least 2 sales associates per brand collection at all times on the floor, sometimes three.
• Sales associates have been trained to watch for customers carrying single shoes around in their hands so they can approach the customer to ask if they can get a particular size for them.
• Sales associates are trained in advanced customer service skills and focus on customer engagement (as opposed to stock-safaris).
• Because they don’t need to leave the floor, they can spend more time engaged with customers and actually selling shoes.
• When a sales associate tells a customer they will get the shoes they are looking for, they encourage the customer to continue looking around (anywhere on the floor) and tells the customer to just bring any shoe they are interested in back to them – this keeps the customer occupied, and enhances sales
• If a customer decides to buy one or more pairs of shoes, the sales associate offers to complete the transaction right there.  They scan the product again as a
  ‘sale’, and take payment by scanning a credit card into the mobile Point-of-sale system.  This both completes the cash transaction, and removes that item from the stock inventory list in real time.

Supporting the Sales Associates:

• There is an inventory management “stock-picking” team located in the basement area where all shoe stock is now located.
• The stock-picking team have mobile devices too. When a sales associate clicks on a particular shoe (size, colour, style) – that gets immediately transmitted to the stock picking team who find the shoe, scan it off the shelf (indicating in the inventory system that it has been pulled but is not yet sold), and puts the shoes in the dumb-waiter for transport to the shoe floor.
• There are a team of discrete “shoe-runners” on the shoe floor, discretely located near 3 dumb-waiters. 
• Shoe-runners have mobile devices that indicate which shoes are on their way up, and which sales person they are meant for.  The shoe-runner takes any shoes
  that have come up the dumb waiter, scans them (to indicate that they are now on the floor) and then makes a loop dropping them off to their respective sales
  associates.
• Once a “drop off” run is complete, the shoe-runner makes one more circle of their area picking up any shoes that had been delivered but not taken by the customer. 
  These are scanned and sent back down on the dumb waiter.
• The stock-picking team will take the returned shoes off the dumb waiter, and replace them on the stock shelf, with one last scan to indicate they are back in the stock room location again.

What does it all mean? 

For the Customer: Now, when a customer comes off the escalator onto the 2^nd floor of Macy’s flagship store in downtown Manhattan, they are greeted by bright, neat and tidy, enticing and appealing visual layouts and displays across the 139,000 square feet of shoe shopping.  The sales associates are attentive, engaging, and are focused on helping you from “just looking” to “thanks for your purchase today”.   Once you are on the floor, find a shoe and ask the sales associate if they have your size and/or colour, you will be trying your shoe on in less than 3 minutes. The sales associate scans the shoe and immediately knows if they have the shoe is in stock, in the right colour, in the right size.  The average time for the simplest transaction (getting a customer looking for a single pair of shoes the ones they want to try on) has been reduced to 3.5 minutes. At first, it was thought to be too fast!  It meant the customer wasn't continuing to shop while they were waiting. 

  

For the Sales Associate: They spend their time engaging and meeting the needs of the customers.  Doing what they were hired to do, sales.  Resulting in a much higher level of job satisfaction and morale.

  

For Macy’s: They are leveraging the best use of one of their most expensive assets, floor space. No longer tying up valuable retail space for non-retail use.  They are selling more shoes. They are satisfying customers.

The shoe salon on the second floor of Macy’s flagship store in Manhattan  

is an aesthetically pleasing, neat and tidy, well-choreographed ballet now.  And to the typical customer, they don’t even realize it.  Which is the point.  It runs so smoothly, and engages the customers in a superior sales experience. And for shoppers, whether on a mission or just casually looking around, they make it easy for you to spend your money.

When I asked the shoe sales associate we interacted with about these changes since 2010, he said they were ‘purposeful’ and ‘designed to
improve the customer experience’.  I asked if he had ever heard the term “Lean” used in relation to the redesign. His answer: “I think I am less “lean” than before because I don’t have to hunt the 139,000 square feet of store for every pair of shoes a customer asks for!.”  Doesn’t matter what you call it,
it’s the results that will speak for themselves.