2024 Northeast Lean Conference Recap Summary

This year’s Northeast Lean Conference marks a number of milestones in Lean as the conference celebrates its 20th Anniversary. It also marks the 25^th Anniversary of Toast Kaizen Video and the 35^th Anniversary of the book the Machine the Changed the World. LEAN in conference name is an acronym for Lead Enable and Nurture. The theme this year was about “Leveraging Lean to Thrive in Uncertain Times” which we can all certainly relate to in some way.

“So, You’ve Read 10 Books About Lean and Now You’re Really Confused? Been There.”

The conference got started with a key note from Brad Cairns, Lean pioneer and entrepreneur, talked about his life long journey. He started like many did consuming many books on the subject. He read the Lean Turn Around by Art Byrne and started down Lean Journey. Learned he couldn’t transform people so he hired lean consultant named Jim Lewis, Quantum Lean. Read The Toyota Way and many other books. . Learned from Paul Akers at FastCap, Kaas Tailor, Michael Althoff at YelloTools, and other great practitioners. He created Kaizenify.app to bring shopfloor tools to you. He pays it forward through sharing lesson podcasts, youtube, etc.

He shared 4 lessons not learned in books that you should take note of:

1) Preparation – You need to know where are you going and where you are starting from. You need to know when you’ve made improvements. The P&L is a poor measuring tool because it last month, last quarter, last year. Measure forward looking tools (over the line chart, throughput $/labor hrs, pieces/day)

2) Internal people – You can’t transform donkeys into racehorses.

3) You - Good speech from Jocko Willink. You can improve from suffering.

4) External People – If you make the change everything will change. Are your advisors helping you? Lean is for 2% of the world. Go Hard of Go Home. You pick your hard. Are the people you spend the most time with boat ankers or propellers? Sometimes you need a kick in the butt or shove in the right direction.

How Do You Create A Lean Culture? Art Knows

Art Byrne, Wiremold CEO, (where I worked) shares how to Create a Lean Culture from his newest book “Lean Turnaround Answer Book”. Most significant steps are below:

1. If given the option no one will choose to do Lean. Communicate about the change to Lean (what, why, when, how) and what’s in it for them. Let them know they will not lose their jobs due to improvement. Everything must change. You can’t have a lean culture without a Lean enterprise involving every part of the business. Sales & Marketing – level load orders, Accounting/Finance – standard cost accounting incentives all things we try to get rid of in lean, IT/Human Resources – hire for lean. Lean is not a cost reduction program.

2. Lean can not be managed; it must be led. The leader must be an expert. You can not delegate a Lean conversion. The leader must be hands on in the Gemba. Leaders should do 12 1-week Kaizens per year to learn about Lean.

2. Requires a new mindset focused on your processes not results. A company is nothing but these 3 things: A group of people, a bunch of processes, delivering value to a set of customers.

Set Operational Excellence Goals – What are we Trying to Do Here?

Wiremold examples:

100% On Time Customer Service

50% reduction in Defects (every year)

20% productivity gain (every year)

20X inventory Turns

5S and visual Control Everywhere

3. Change Structure – Most companies are organized functionally. Align your structure with value streams and move the equipment.

4. Kaizen, Kaizen, Kaizen

Create Kaizen Promotion Office. Kaizen includes everyone. Culture changes through kaizen.

5. State your Core Values: People, Customers, Kaizen

Live by the lean fundamentals

Work to takt time

One piece flow

Standard work

Pull system

Learn by doing = culture change

5. State the Behavior you expect

            Respect others

            Tell the truth

Be fair

Try new ideas

Ask why

Keep your promises

Do your share

6. Eliminate the Bad Actors

7. Share the Wealth

               Profit sharing

               401k match

               Suggestion program

8. Run the company on Operational Excellence Goals. Most run on make the month. It takes 2 weeks to close the books then you look back at things you can’t do anything about. Look forward not backwards.

Deploy the Op Ex Goals to the team leaders, review progress weekly, ask what kaizen are you planning next week, and look forward not backward.

“If you don’t try something, no knowledge can visit you.”

 

The Five Factors of Managing Change

Lara Laskowski and Arturo Sanchez from IDEXX understand that 50-70% of change initiatives result in failure but they people they have something in common. Their organization has a cure for false starts, limited change, frustration, and very likely another failure. They created a model for Productive Change involving Vision, Skills, Incentive, Resources, and Action Plans.

Vision – You need a clearly defined vision, problem statement with who, what, when, where, and why.

Skills – Need SME of the process, create robust training plan with standards

Incentive – What motivates people to take action, WIFM

Resources – Data needed, software used, people in process, and budget

Action Plans – Need robust action plan to implement improvements with ownership.

When elements of the formula are missing you can end up with confusion, anxiety, limited change, frustration, and false starts.

 

The Magic of Change Mindset with Magician Zane Black

Brad Morrow, The Wizard of Lean, had a wonderfully engaging presentation to view ourselves as powerful change agents, embrace risks, and adopt a new view on failure.

There’re three mindsets:

Empowered Mind: Sense of empowerment means you need to take risk. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Risk-Taking Mind: The only way to expand your comfort zone is through discomfort. Embrace fear.

Fear acronym = False, Evidence, Appearing, Real

 

Failure Embracing Mind: Why do we fall? So, we can learn to pick ourselves up.

Fail acronym = First Attempt in Learning

Failure is not your last chapter.

If I am Empowered “What Will You Do Next?”

 

Wiring the Winning Organization

The final keynote of the day was from Steve Spear who has written Creating High Velocity Organizations and Wiring the Winning Organization. 25 years ago, he wrote “Decoding the DNA the Toyota Production System” which noted Toyota had created a community of scientists within their organization.

If everything’s the same (resources between car companies) but the outcomes the only thing different then it’s the management system. They create conditions to solve really hard problems. As leaders we are responsible for people solving problems. Shape the problem-solving space to move from danger zone to winning zone.

There are 3 ways:

1) Slowification – Make problem solving easier to do.

2) Simplification – Make problems easier to solve.

3) Amplification – Make problems more obvious that need solving

How do we create processes and procedures that allow for problem solving. 5S, 1 piece flow, Jidoka, and Andon are examples of tools that move problems from the danger zone to the winning zone.

 

I’ll share some additional highlights from my 2^nd day at the conference in my next post.

The 21st Annual Northeast Lean Conference will be October 27 & 28, 2025 at the Double Tree Hotel & Conference Center in Manchester, NH.

The 2025 Northeast Lean Conference

Putting the Pieces Together (of the Lean Implementation Puzzle)

When it comes to implementing Lean there are countless questions about how make it happen and even more about being successful at it. There is no better way to answer those questions then from those who have done it. At this year’s 11^th Annual Northeast Lean Conference presented by the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP) you’ll have a chance to have your questions answered by those who have led Lean Transformations.  The conference titled “Putting the Pieces Together” will be held in Springfield, MA on September 29 -30, 2015.

I am excited to be able to attend the conference this year and learn from respected authorities in the Lean Community like:

Featured Presenters:

Dan Ariens

President, Ariens & Co.

Norman Bodek

Author & President of PCS

Mike Rother

Author of Toyota Kata

Alan Robinson

Author of The Idea Driven Organization

Mark Graban

Author of Lean Hospitals

There is something for everyone with six thoughtfully planned tracks including:

·                  Leadership - Creating a Lean Culture (The Social Side of Lean)

·                  Subject Matter Experts - The Technical Side of Lean

·                  Lean Facilitators & Change Agents - Gaining Buy-In at All Levels

·                  Improvement Kata - Scientific Thinking for Human Development

·                  Applying Lean Principles & Tools in Healthcare

Plus more than 45 presentations about successful Lean transformations by Lean practitioners themselves.

This year also feature three amazing pre-conference workshops:

Kaizen for Healthcare & the Service Industry with Mark Graban

You might think Kaizen is a method used only by manufacturers - but that is no longer true. Many service industries use and benefit from Lean, including healthcare, government, insurance, education, retail and more. A growing number of organizations embrace "daily Kaizen" - the process to facilitate small, meaningful changes -  as an ongoing continuous improvement methodology, fitting within a broader Lean approach and strategy.

The Improvement Kata Experience with Beth Carrington

This course provides a unique mix of theory with a hefty dose of hands-on practice including a deep dive into two fundamental behavior patterns at the core of the TK methodology: the 5-Question Coaching Dialog and Rapid PDCA Cycles. Students will gain direct insight into the power of these methods through repeated personal practice. At the heart of the training experience is a challenge that requires a high level of ingenuity and continuous improvement; on the spot and in real time.

Kata in The Classroom: An Event for Educators with Mike Rother

Kata in the Classroom(KiC) is a hands-on simulation game following the scientific Improvement Kata pattern to establish a goal and then experiment toward it from round to round. The Kata in the Classroom exercise helps teach habits of scientific thinking, takes only 50 minutes and easily fits within a teacher's existing instructional plan.

The North American Shingo Prize recognizes business excellence in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was established to create increased awareness, development, and implementation of lean manufacturing principles and techniques. The goal of the North American Shingo Prize is to make manufacturing facilities and other industries more competitive in the global marketplace, illustrating how world-class results can be achieved through the implementation of lean principles and techniques in core manufacturing and other business processes.

My dear friends at GBMP are the educational partner of Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is an excellent opportunity for regional manufacturers, as well as other industries. The Northeastern region is comprised of 11 states: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

If you can I highly recommend you attend the Northeast Lean Conference in Springfield, MA on September 29-30, 2015. It is not too late to join the conference. Register here.

I have attended in the past and found the experience of learning from so many like-minded practitioners invaluable. It promises to be another energizing conference and I look forward to seeing you there.

Northeast Lean Conference 2017 - Integration of Tools & Culture - Recap

GBMP hosted another wonderful Lean Conference in the Northeast. A great time to network with many passionate Lean practitioners.  This year's conference was about integration of tools and culture in Lean transformation. Successful Lean transformation requires a deep understanding of the technical side of Lean supported by a culture that favors human development and broad employee engagement.

But which comes first: culture or tools...?

Here are some take-aways from the conference:

Brian Wellinghoff, Director of the L3 Journey at Barry-Wehmiller, kicked off the conference by igniting trust through improvement. Barry-Wehmiller, discovered that the purely numerical approach used by many companies implementing Lean principles was not sufficient and recognized that people are the experts. It is leadership's responsibility to encourage, empower and equip them to make the changes that positively impact their work.

Everyone wants to do better. Trust them. Leaders are everywhere. Find them. People achieve good things, big and small, every day. Celebrate them. Some people wish things were different. Listen to them. Everybody matters. Show them.

Paul Akers, President & Founder of Fastcap, shared his personal Lean Journey. Paul credits the astounding business growth to a fun, dynamic culture in which each employee puts into practice at least one two-second improvement per day.  He developed the culture by hiring the right people, relentlessly teaching and reinforcing the eight wastes in a daily morning meeting and empowering people to experiment and fail. And he has only one ground rule—keep Lean simple. 

Kim Hollon, President & CEO of Signature Healthcare, described the challenges that Signature has faced to create a culture of safety, and reflect on the leader’s role in the transformation. Highly reliable systems are a necessary but not nearly sufficient requirement for perfect patient safety.   Without an embedded culture of safety, systems can quickly become mere edifices, hiding traditional practices and behaviors.   The siloed, hierarchical structure of traditional hospitals place providers in stressful positions where it’s hard to confirm safety -- particularly in the critical handoffs between functions. A culture of transparency and open communication encourages behaviors that support the new systems. 

Karl Wadensten, President of Vibco, ended the conference with a discussion on what he call "re-entry to work." You've been inspired and re-energized and you heard lots of great ideas to make the Lean initiative where you work more successful. But how do you make sure the conference experience doesn’t end once you return home and put away the suitcase. Karl shared his ideas to share your new knowledge and outline a plan of action.

The conference was a wonderful experience.  Great opportunity to network and learn from other Lean practitioners. I highly recommend this conference because the value is unsurmounted. 

Recap From the 15th Annual Northeast Lean Conference - Total Employee Involvement

Learn more about NE Lean Conference below

This past week I was able to spend a wonderful time at the 15^th Annual Northeast Lean Conference. I always look forward to these opportunities to connect with friends, learn best practices from others, and get re-energized around continuous improvement.

The theme of this conference is one that everyone relates to and tries to create in the Lean community “Total Employee Involvement”. I want a share a couple of key takeaways and thoughts from interesting presentations during this conference.

Jamie Bonini from TSSC talked about the lessons learned from 25 years of spreading, teaching, and implementing The Toyota Production System (TPS or Lean) outside of Toyota:

1. Be Clear: TPS is an organizational culture of highly engaged people solving problems to drive performance. The philosophy underlies the technical tools that require the managerial role to build and sustain the TPS culture.
2. Model lines: Learn by doing by building the culture through model lines to 1) develop leaders to then guide spreading where, how, and who and 2) expose real challenges to address in spreading.
3. TPS must be an organization (not operations) strategy with strong leadership.
4. Build a strong, small, full time, internal TPS team to support spreading.
5. Company values must fit the TPS philosophy (the 4 points).
6. TPS is difficult. Expect successes and setbacks. Learn mostly by doing.
7. Stability is a must. If low, build it first and practice problem solving.
8. Main challenge: Building the managerial role, behaviors, and problem solving.

Alan Robinson, UMASS Professor, took on the task of answering whether Lean is still relevant in a post-industrial economy. Lean has made significant contributions in manufacturing, entrepreneurships (The Lean Startup), Software development (Agile), Project management (Scrum), Agriculture (Lean Farm). However, Lean has not readily caught on in Healthcare, Education, Government, Military, and Financial Services. There are a couple reasons for this: 1) Lean pushes us to dramatically raise the quality of our leadership, thinking, problem-solving, and problem-finding 2) It is one thing to know what full-blown lean looks like but completely different to know how to make it happen in ordinary organizations. Shingo Institute reports that less than 4% of CEOs are serious about lean. As leaders we need to understand that we don’t have all the answers, actually, much less than that. Taiichi Ohno said “Even the best managers are wrong 50% of the time.” Shingo tells us the real driver for TPS is made by significant front-line engagement, “The goal of TPS is to unleash mass creativity.” This requires humility from leaders, Lean is not for you if you have to be the smartest person in the room. Most of an organization’s improvement potential lies in front-line ideas. Roughly 80 percent of an organization’s performance improvement potential lies in front-line ideas, and 20 percent in management-driven initiatives. Our mainstream management tools do not allow us to see the waste.

Lean is a proven methodology for striving for operational excellence, but:

As it works on human beings’ weakest points, it will seem hard to do, without a lot of deep education and discipline; and its real power is not unleashed with full involvement of the front-lines, which given our history is perhaps the hardest thing of all to do.

Marianna Magnusdottir, Chief Happiness Officer (great title) at Manino had powerful presentation about the human side of improvement. Companies who are tools focused and not people focused are often fraught with failure. As many of us know successful lean implementations are 80% people development and 20% tools learning. Using the analogy of rowing a boat where one oar is relationships and one is results in the wavy sea of reality. If you focus only on processes and results you can go in circles. If you only focus on people development you too will find yourself rowing in circles. However, if you are rowing both oars (relationships and results) you navigate through the waves (ups and downs) of business and transform your organization. Your daily management process should include elements of process/results and relationships/people. These should be daily communication boards that build trust and mutual respect by getting to know and learning from each other.

I had the chance to talk about using daily management to engage employees in the gemba. Lean organizations make use of Daily Management systems, a structured process to focus employee’s actions to continuously improve their day-to-day work. Daily Management empowers employees to identify potential process concerns, recommend potential solutions, and learn by implementing process changes. Daily Management, if done right, can be a critical tool in any organization’s toolbox to engage frontline staff in problem-solving and to deliver customer value.

Art Smalley ended the conference with a presentation on the 4 Types of Problems, a book he recently wrote. If you’re in business then it is inevitable there are problems that need to be solved. Not all problems are the same and can’t be solved the same old way. He demonstratesdthat most business problems fall into four main categories, each requiring different thought processes, improvement methods, and management cadences:

Type 1: Troubleshooting - A reactive process of rapidly fixing abnormal conditions by returning things to immediately known standards.

Type 2: Gap-from-standard - A structured problem-solving process that aims more at the root cause through problem definition, goal setting, analysis, countermeasure implementation, checks, standards, and follow-up activities.

Type 3: Target-state - Continuous improvement (kaizen) that goes beyond existing levels of performance to achieve new and better standards or conditions.

Type 4: Open-ended and Innovation - Unrestricted pursuit through creativity and synthesis of a vision or ideal condition that entail radical improvements and unexpected products, processes, systems, or value for the customer beyond current levels. 

As Art beautifully said “Not Every Problem Is a “Nail” But Companies Typically Reach for the Same Old “Hammer”.”

There were a number of great presentations from many great practitioners of Lean. I am already looking forward to next year’s conference which will be around the theme “Lean in 21^st Century”.

Northeast Shingo Prize Conference - Made in America Recap

Last week I had the pleasure to attend the Northeast Shingo Prize Conference hosted by my friends at GBMP.  The conference was conveniently located in my backyard of Springfield, MA. The theme of this years conference was "Made in America" and as Bruce Hamilton put it "Lean is the means by which we can stay globally competitive in our region."

The conference has been a great way to recharge my batteries along the Lean Journey.  There was more than 600 Lean thinkers learning and sharing their know-how.  I'd like to share some of the learning from this invigorating experience with you.

John Shook got the conference going with the opening keynote address.  While John advocates making things where you sell them he says to look at the total cost to avoid the outsourcing lie.  John says the Lean community has a real problem of copying solutions instead of learning to solve problems.  TPS is about Trust. Put in a system you can trust.  Trust people to do their best and trust them to do it right. It is only then we can abandon our safety nets.  Part of the manager's role is to create out of standard conditions so we can learn to improve.  John says Lean is about optimizing our process so there are no shorts (Don't starve the customer) and no overproduction.  It is not about cost cutting but rather systematic total cost reduction.

Dr. Sami Bahri, the Lean Dentist, talked about Lean as an evolution not a revolution. He advocates not improving within the system but rather changing the system altogether.  We can't eliminate waste randomly it needs direction and scope.  Single piece flow is the direction to the customer.  The enemy is our departments of functional silos not our variation in demand.  We need to synchronize our departments.  Lean is a balance of social and technical elements of which people is the most important ingredient.

Mike Rother and Meryl Runion combined for an entertaining lesson on coaching.  They say Toyota hires for teachability. Don't miss an opportunity to develop a person.  This means as a manager you need to let your people practice.  Avoid adding a little to every situation because then you don't know the capability of your people.  Rother says there is no such activity as eliminating waste.  There is only an iterative process of improvement/problem solving.  Waste elimination is not the goal of Lean but rather the result of continuous improvement.  Excellence takes practice.

Alan G. Robinson gave some advice on the success of idea driven companies.  National statistics show that while we generate about 1/2 and idea per person per year only about 1/3 of those are implemented.  That equates to only 1 implemented idea per person every 6 years.  This leaves an enormous potential if we learn to tap into these ideas.  Alan says that idea systems are not suggestion systems.  It needs to be a system that allows all employees to act on all the problems and opportunities that they see.

Mike Rother talked about his way of thinking that he captured in Toyota Kata.  The managers job is to develop people.  Once we think we know the answer "we get on rails" as Mike calls it.  Essentially we stop looking for answers and stop PDCA.  Lean is about learning to improve and adapt. Creative learning and discovery sets us apart.  Focusing on results is an implementation orientation by which we are assuming the path to the desired condition is clear.  Mike says companies need not focus only on core competencies but also core in-compentencies. Managers must innovate, create, and adapt and that we must practice this way of thinking every day.  This can only be done through coaching at all levels of your organization.

Jamie Flinchbaugh had the conference closing keynote address on problem solving.  We take problem solving as common places so we never examine our process for improvement. Managers need to look at problems in the organization systematically.  Organizations don't fail because of the problem solving method they use.  They fail because the don't know how to use them.  Manage must define when there is a problem, how to surface problems, who to surface to, and what the response will be.


For me the key take-a-ways for making Lean in America are:

• Build trust in your employees, suppliers, and customers.
• Our job is to develop our people.
• Coaching is the means we develop people with our processes.
• Excellence takes practice.
• It is not about waste elimination but rather continually improving, learning, and adapting to our customer's problems.
• Tap into the invisible waste of un-implemented ideas.
• Once we stop discovering we stop learning.
• Focus on "how" to improve not "what" to improve.
• Manager must define our problem solving process.
• Don't improve the "traditional" system change the system.

In the next few weeks I will have some other posts on some other lessons I learned at the conference this year.  

Mark your calendar for next years conference at  the DCU Center in Worcester, MA on September 25 & 26, 2012.  You can check out the details at the Northeast Lean Conference.

2023 Northeast Lean Conference Re-cap

Last week I attended the Northeast Lean Conference in Worcester, MA. The Northeast Lean Conference was created by GBMP to provide information and inspiration to Lean practitioners - from those just starting out to seasoned Lean leaders from the manufacturing, healthcare, service and other vital industry sectors.

The theme, It’s About Time, has a double meaning:

• First, the correct use of Lean methods – from 5S to SMED to Standardized Work – absolutely reclaims and repurposes wasted time for the betterment of customers, employees, and the company.  Provide employees with these methods and watch the creativity surge.
• Second, there has never been a better time than today when so many organizations regardless of industry share a common motivation:  How to satisfy increased customer demand in the face of scarce resources?  Doesn’t that sound like Lean?  It’s about time for management to make a visible commitment to continuous improvement.

Andrew Koenig, CEO of City Furniture, kicked off the conference with message about Lean implementation with heart. Andrew’s lean journey started in college with a trip to Toyota in Japan. He implemented Lean throughout all departments in a retail company by creating a culture of mutual trust and respect, teamwork, and a deep sense of urgency to continuously improve. As a result, they have seen many major breakthroughs in turnover reduction, operational process improvement, customer experience, safety, associate satisfaction, strategic planning, and finance. We need to focus on people and teamwork – not just problem solving. “You need to have strong mutual respect among all the associates, so they feel no fear in offering ideas and highlighting problems,” Andrew explained. “Every day, we are pulling problems out of our associates, and leaders, working together to solve them.” For strategic planning purposes, Andrew has a catchphrase: Bottom Up, Top Down, Closed Loop. “We are trying to get everyone in the entire company to participate in our strategic planning processes, give us their ideas, and share that with the senior team, who then share that with me. What I learned from Toyota is that you need to get everyone engaged in improving the business."

Melinda Mante, GBMP Lean Consultant, showcased a set of practical habits you can immediately implement to inspire action from her experience at Intel. There are 3 leadership actions:

• Set direction – challenge the status quo
• Show the way – go first, learn, and demonstrate
• Support – enable, encourage, and care

There is approximately 4000 weeks to live on average. Every day matters. At work its’ much less. Set aside time on calendar for these leadership elements.

Tom Sullivan, Senior Vice President of Operations at Ruger, ended the first day share their journey to develop a Lean New Product Development process.

Highlights included:

• Dedicated formal project management is very important – Obeya Room co-located teams
• Simultaneous product & process development (Single Thought Flow) “Tatakidai” = chopping block, rapid prototyping
• Virtual Obeya Room – COVID pushed this idea but still very effective for dispersed teams
• Leaders Genba with Lean NPD Team – Servant Leadership
• Focus on Lean Thinking – PDCA, 8 wastes for NPD, Mura, Muri
• Standard Work – the one best way to do something

Billy Taylor, Founder and CEO of LinkedXL, got day 2 going by sharing three key principles: Deliberate Clarity, Deliberate Ownership, and Deliberate Practice to achieve success in any organization. Billy says “Winning is not everything, how you win is everything.” Most people don’t know if they are winning and many leaders only know at end of month. If you make people visible, hhey will make you valuable.

From his book “The Winning Link” Billy outlines how we win:

• Deliberate Clarity - You can not manage a secret, Define Winning
• 10ft and 10sec rule – ask people close to board what the board means to them
• What is your leadership standard – What you tolerate, you cannot change
• Walk by and not say anything and then that is new standard
• Deliberate Ownership
• Strategy + Execution = Results
• In the absence of ownership comes blame
• Celebrate the red so you can harvest the green
• Deliberate Practice – Daily Management Process, Let’s people know if we are winning or losing.
• Enables problem solving, drives ownership
• Physical Safety is needed
• Take action
• Be hard on the process so you can lead easy on the people
• Trust
• Earning the Right to Change
• Create a safe environment for change
• Behaviors are visible, Mindsets are hidden
• Critical to measure what matters…Everything that matters cannot be measured?

Allan Robinson, Professor at UMass Isenberg School of Management, discussed strategies for managing change. It is said that 70-80% of change initiatives fail because:

• Poor execution of the chosen change methodology
• Current methods require time, effort, and patience
• They require extremely strong leadership

Most methods (from the 1940s) don’t incorporate modern understanding in continuous improvement, innovation, and lean. The limitations of traditional approaches to management of change:

Perhaps our management approach makes a difference: How can we make our organizations more adaptable to change. A big part of the answer emerges from feedback loops and dependencies discovered more recently by the lean, continuous improvement, and innovation communities. Front-line driven important is a powerful way to make your organization is more adaptable.

80% of organization’s improvement potential is from front-line ideas

Frontline driven improvement is very sensitive to poor leadership and misalignment, so it forces managers and leaders to significantly change their behavior, and address misalignments that are normally ignored. It cannot happen without also getting high levels of trust and respect between management and the front lines. It cultivates a culture of constant improvement and problem-solving.

Helen Zak, Director of Research at The Shingo Institute, closed out the conference with tips, words of wisdom, and learning from 38 years as a change agent. Helen’s Top 5:

• It’s All About Time – the most valuable resource on the planet
• Psychological Safety – free from fear of acknowledging problems and comfortable tackling problems
• Team Sport – transformation requires alignment and teamwork
• Dissatisfaction with status quo – good enough is not enough
• People Development – lean leader’s job is to develop people

There were many other great presentations, but this is a brief highlight. Mark your calendars for next year’s conference Leveraging Lean to Thrive in Uncertain Times in Providence, RI November 7-8, 2024.