LeanTips for Lean Managers

Change Management Lessons from Big Trees Transplant

Avatar photo By Jon Miller Published on October 14th, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-10-14 at 8.31.55 AM

This may be the best unintentional video on nemawashi ever. For those new to nemawashi, it is a Japanese word meaning “preparing roots of a tree for transplant” but is known to us as part of the consensus-building and change management process most often associated with hoshin planning or any type of culture change or major transformation. In management terms, the “tree” can be the living idea, initiative or vision which must be transplanted from one person’s mind to another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i49gWvKZGQ8

No, I didn’t link the wrong video. This is not a video about management, lean or hoshin. At least not intentionally. Big Trees is a company that literally transplants big trees. This video shows their professional approach to this task. If only we took as much care when we tried to transplant big ideas from one mind to another.

The video is 4 min. Set aside half an hour and you can use it to stimulate discussions around your change management and consensus-building practices. Here is how I recommend having fun with this video during your next problem solving, hoshin planning or project status review or operational excellence steering meeting:

1) Ask people to watch it silently

2) Everyone notes any good management practices they see and at what time in the video

3) Review findings together

4) Watch parts of the video again so everyone picks up on the key points

5) Discuss together which of these practices your team or organization does well

6) Identify one thing you agree as a team that you could do better

7) Think of a small, concrete way to being working on this one thing

How many change management tips can pick up from this video? How does Big Trees achieve their 98% success rate? What is the success rate of transplanted ideas in your organization?


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