INTO THE TRENCHES

With the completion of the training phase of the deployment, the time had come for the project leaders to embark on their assignments. The deployment leadership in each plant stood ready to coach them through the preliminary stages.

At the flagship plant, Paul was back managing his production line, just one of seven in the huge Art Deco building that dated to the mid-1930s. The LEO assignment was on top of his normal workload, but as was true of most project leaders, the project was physically located on his line. He could do the Listen phase of LEO right in his own backyard.

Typically, he chose to pursue his project—to fix whatever was causing a high rate of product rejections—on his own, without the aid of any graduates of the team member classes. Other project leaders often used one or two of the team members to take notes or keep detailed records of each step of the project.