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Lean Management: the Missing Piece in the Lean Productivity Puzzle

Lean Manufacturing has helped hundreds of organizations to streamline, become more efficient, reduce costs and increase productivity.  Using tools has focused on process flow, waste elimination and continuous improvement, Lean has taken elements of the Toyota manufacturing system and applied them to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of organizations around the world.  Methods such as Value Stream Mapping (VSM), 5S, Kaizen, Pull Systems, visual controls, standardized work, TPM have become common place in many manufacturing operations in North America.

Lean Challenges

At the same time the stories of companies that have gone “lean” then struggled to maintain their “lean programs” seem to be more and more common place.  These companies’ site examples of starting Lean initiatives then having them die out after a few months or a year.  They talk about immediate results with no follow.  The puzzling question is why?  Why have these methods not led to a larger, longer-term transformation of the how companies do their work and service their customers?

In their recent book “Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way” the authors talk about the how “at the core (Toyota Culture) is about respect for people and continuous improvement”.  They focus on the organization as a “system” with a long-term philosophy that engages people in “learning” innovation and teamwork.  This is a very different from the focus on tools and methods that has been the hallmark of Lean in most companies.

At the heart of the problem seems to be the leadership philosophy, style and practices of Lean consultants and internal experts.  From a leadership perspective, current Lean initiatives are task focused, technology driven and compliance oriented.  This top-down, expert-driven pattern of leadership is efficient and effective in achieving short-term results. What it fails to do is engage both line managers and staff in building Lean into the day-to-day management practices and work habits of the organization.

Lean Leadership

Lean Leadership expands and sustains Lean technology improvements by creating a work culture that sees respect for people, building trust, teamwork, consensus and continuous improvement as the “pillars” of success.  The role of leader in a Lean work culture is not to control the people and processes, but to involve and empower people to take initiative, be innovative and work collaboratively to be the best they can be.  Change management in a Lean work culture is driven from the bottom, top and middle as managers, employees and support departments all work together as “one team” to achieve the ultimate goal of being “world class”.

Lean leadership focuses on transforming the core beliefs and practices of their work units and groups by building Lean thinking into everything they do.  This sounds simple but does not happen without a long-term vision and a structured step-by-step transition plan for getting there.  Simply leaving it to the people who do a job to make improvements or contributing to a suggestion system is not enough.  Creating a Lean work culture requires the full commitment and active support of managers, supervisors and team leaders throughout an organization or work unit.

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