Building a Lean
culture is not an easy task. A Lean culture starts with managers who understand
and believe the implications of the system’s view and know the necessity of
serving customers in order to succeed. The result of that understanding is a
culture where a positive internal environment and the creation of delighted
customers go together. It is a culture that naturally emphasizes continuous
improvement of processes, one that results in a healthy workplace, satisfied
customers, and a growing, profitable company.
The best
leaders understand the present is nothing more than a platform for the
envisioning of, and positioning for, the future. If you want to lead more
effectively, shorten the distance between the future and present. Inspiring
innovation and leading change call for more than process– they require the
adoption of a cultural mindset.
Implementing
Lean Thinking is a cultural change that requires leadership…because in the end
it’s all about people. Here are 10 things your leadership can do right now to
change the culture:
1. Define Your
Vision and Values
A clear vision
and values can guide your organization. A vision statement shows how your
company sees itself in the future, complementing the mission and values you've
developed. Your vision should describe your purpose, goals, and ideal state.
Your values should reflect your principles, beliefs, and expectations. Communicating
these throughout the business:
- Gives
employees information about why and how to optimize company processes or
protocols
- Helps
employees understand the value of their specific contribution, which builds
feelings of appreciation
2. Leaders Must
Lead the Way
The leadership
of the company has a significant influence on the company culture. For this
reason, the leaders must be the ones to lead the way, open the conversation,
and make examples. An important point here is that leaders in Lean manage the
work, not the people. Focusing on workflow management will also create an
environment of shared leadership, where everyone collectively contributes
to the end result.
3. Challenge
the Process
Continuous
improvement encourages teams to question the status quo, seeking ways to
optimize processes and minimize waste. They use Lean Thinking to look for
innovative ways to improve the organization. In doing so, they experiment and take
risks.
Don't miss the
opportunity to identify the actions you need to improve the improve the process,
while also being open to the knowledge and skills you need to develop.
Challenging the process, particularly by searching for opportunities and
experimenting and taking risks, is a key behavior to adopt in a Lean culture.
4. Eliminate
Fear of Failure
Experiments
will not always bring exceptional results. Not every new idea will be a winning
move. For this reason, in a Lean culture, it is essential to show tolerance to
failure. Otherwise, extreme criticism can create fear in your people and block
experimentation.
A Lean culture
is a learning culture, so it is of great importance to extract learnings from
failures as much as from successes. Promote small-batch testing to minimize
potentially harmful results from unsuccessful experiments. Also, as a company
leader, make sure to speak openly about your failures and the learnings from
them to give an example of how they should be analyzed and built on.
5. Empower
Employees
Empowering
employees is a key aspect of a Lean culture. This means giving employees the
authority and resources they need to make decisions and improve processes. By
empowering employees, organizations can tap into their knowledge and experience
and create a culture of continuous improvement. This can be achieved by
providing training, coaching, and support, and by creating a culture of
collaboration and teamwork.
6. Train
Employees
Training in
Lean is essential for employees to understand how they are expected to work in
the new culture. This cannot be a one-off activity though. Ensure they are
taught specific Lean philosophies and Lean tools and supplement this with
periodic training to help them stay current with the latest developments in
Lean methodology. Leaders can go a long way to reinforce training by talking to
employees about the training they have attended and how it has enabled them to
be better practitioners of Lean.
7, Foster a
Learning Environment
Continuous
improvement depends upon employees learning and choosing to optimize their performance.
In a Lean culture, company leaders help every employee continually learn new
skills and advance their careers. This commitment to development usually
encourages employees to be proactive about continually improving organizational
processes. Strategies for fostering an environment of continuous learning and
improvement include:
- Developing
internal training opportunities, such as courses or job shadowing
- Sending
employees to industry conventions, workshops, or conferences
- Providing
ways for employees to make suggestions about their department or the company
- Soliciting
anonymous feedback about aspects of the organization
8. Make Change
Everyone’s Responsibility
Continuous
improvement requires the participation of everyone in the organization. This
includes the executive suite, management, and line workers. The continuous
improvement program becomes effective when employees are engaged in developing
the culture and are proactive in identifying areas for improvement. To do this,
everyone should understand their role and contribution to the company’s
continuous improvement program. Only by “rowing” together can the goals of the
improvement program be achieved. Part of working together on this effort is
sharing the responsibility of the program across the entire organization.
9. Create New
Habits
Creating a
continuous improvement culture requires changing people’s habits. Habits are
the set of things that people do subconsciously on a daily basis. They are in
fact very difficult to change. Part of the challenge of starting and sustaining
a continuous improvement program is identifying a set of desired behaviors and
continuously reinforce them. This can include training and retraining
employees, helping people understand when their behaviors are misaligned with
the continuous improvement efforts, and giving positive feedback to those who
exemplifies the desired behaviors.
10. Celebrate
success
Continuous
improvement is hard. It requires employees to critically think about their work
and examine potential ways of improving it. As your continuous improvement
program begin to gain more momentum it is important to remember the people who
make it possible. One way of sustaining the process is to regularly share
success stories and recognize those involved. Many employees take pride in
their work and are intrinsically motivated to improve them. They are simply
looking for recognition and praise for a job well done.
Constant change
is a business reality, and organizations must continually adapt to their
environments to stay competitive or risk losing relevance and becoming
obsolete. For each change, leaders must define it, create a vision of the
post-change world, and mobilize their teams to make it.
Fundamentally,
a change of culture occurs when people start behaving differently as a result
of a change in the climate of the organization. There are many different models
of how an organizational culture is shaped by the prevailing climate and how it
can be assessed.
Leaders who
protect the status quo through control must surrender to change in order to
secure the future for their organization. Don’t be the leader who rewards herd
mentality, and me too thinking. Don’t be the leader who encourages people not
to fail or not to take risks. Be the leader who both models and gives
permission to do the exact opposite of the aforementioned – be a leader who
leads.
Lean success
requires a change in mindset and behavior among leadership, and then gradually
throughout the organization. So it follows that success in Lean implies a
change in what leaders reinforce—a change in leadership behaviors and
practices. Change begins when leaders start acting differently. It’s that
simple (but not that easy).
