One of the very effective ways in which Shingijutsu sensei work is by examining an organization's operations and processes with fresh eyes and then asking pointed questions the sort of questions that can be viewed as both na ve and brilliant. Iwata and Nakao both took repeated tours of Boeing facilities during 1996, after Boeing had already spent some 10 years improving productivity and eliminating waste. These two master teachers observed work being completed in all areas of the company's Puget Sound (WA) and Wichita, KS, facilities. They were accompanied by Boeing representatives, who explained processes and took copious notes of both the experts' occasional praise and, more often, their questions, their advice, and their insistence that there had to be better ways for many steps of the process. As Iwata said repeatedly, "Please show me your problems, not your progress. I am not here to praise you or to see the bright side. My job is to see problems, and I am here to solve them." In doing so, he and others made sketches of better process flows, maps for parts layouts, or ergonomics improvements.

In a typical pause in the tour, for instance, Iwata praised the well-organized arrangement of parts at an assembly center, saying, "Good. You know you have all of the parts there."

Then he wanted to know who fixed any defects found in those parts. When told that the employees themselves did it on the spot, he said, "No. They...