If that’s the case, why does leadership get the KPO so wrong, so often?

Often the root cause lies somewhere in the leadership doesn’t know what it doesn’t know region. True transformation is expansive and very, very hard.

Deploying the lean function in Seal Team 6 style, with little or no attention to the rest of lean implementation “details,” and expecting great things is fantasy stuff. Consistent with that notion, there are a bunch of ways to misapply the KPO and screw up the lean transformation. Here are eight ways, among many:

• Skimp on staffing the lean team. A “rule of thumb” for staffing the KPO is 1%-2% of total company/site headcount. George Koenigsaecker even suggests that the KPO complement should be as much as 3% of the population. For non-lean thinkers, this seems like an outrageous misappropriation of resources.
• Resource the lean function “late” in the transformation. This one is akin to skimping. When the KPO team is built well after the lean launch, there’s a lot catching up to do in the area of selection, training and development, and deployment. The lean function needs to be ahead of the curve, not behind it.
• Pick the wrong folks for the group. The quality assurance guy does not necessarily always equal the KPO guy. KPO members should be selected based upon core competencies (like group leadership, change management, etc.), passion and, absent lean technical skills, lean technical aptitude. Poor selection means a lack of lean function effectiveness and, eventually, a “do-over.” Do it right the first time.
• Abdicate lean leadership to the KPO. Leadership, while often a shared responsibility, cannot be abdicated…especially when it comes to a lean transformation. Stakeholders can smell superficial leadership a mile away. A good OpEx team will serve as effective change agents, but they can’t be the only ones. Batch-head leaders are batch-heads, even if the lean function reports to them.
• Have the CI guys deliver all of the lean training. It’s powerful stuff when the leader learns and then trains their team in lean principles (at least the basics). When it’s all outsourced to the KPO, there’s little skin in the game.
• Stick the OpEx team with the kaizen newspaper items. Pretty obvious here – transferring follow-through on post kaizen activity to the CI team instead of the stakeholders kills ownership, engagement and learning.
• Turn the lean business system office into auditors. When the JIT Promotion folks serve as the routine 5S or lean assessment auditors, without stakeholder engagement, they may be seen more as “gotcha” guys, a plain nuisance, or even worse, totally inconsequential purveyors of the program of the month.
• Hold the KPO, and only the KPO, accountable. There’s nothing like it when the lean function, and only the lean function, takes the heat for a lack of lean implementation progress. All of the other leaders quickly understand that their commitment is optional and there is always a designated scapegoat when the going gets tough.

So, what am I missing?

Related posts: Who’s Most Responsible for KPO Development? The KPO!, The Kaizen Promotion Office Does What? 8 Critical Deliverables

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According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ webpage on Radiation Emergency Medical Management:

• “Radioactive half-life is the time required for a quantity of a radioisotope to decay by half.
• If the half-life of an isotope is relatively short, e.g. a few hours, most of the radioactivity will be gone in a few days.
• If the half-life of an isotope is relatively long, e.g. 80 years, it will take a long time for significant decay to occur.”

So, enough about isotopes. What about lean “culturetopes?”

If “lean” was discontinued within your organization, how long would it take for people to revert to their native batch-and-queue behaviors? How long would it take for most of the “leanness” to be gone?

Silly question?

Perhaps. But, I think the question can prompt some useful reflection.

What would happen if the number one executive lean leader within your company left for greener pastures? Would the lean transformation stop dead in its tracks? Or would the organization shake it off and, due to the profound depth of the lean cultural evolution, continue rolling?

What would happen if there was a sudden, substantial drop in business? What if the company introduced some wizbang new technology? What if your company was acquired? What if…?

Click to enlarge

I think that the Shingo Prize Behavior Assessment Scale (see figure) can provide meaningful insight into an organization’s lean cultural half-life. The further to the right on the Assessment Scale, the longer the lean half-life…by a lot!

What are your thoughts?

Related posts: Line of Sight, Employee Engagement, and Daily Kaizen, Want a Kaizen Culture? Take Your Vitamin C!, Bridging to Daily Kaizen – 15 (or so) Questions

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Socrates’ oft referenced, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” rings true within lean. But, may I be so bold to add a twist?

The examined lean life without an objective standard as a reference ain’t lean.

Why would I say such a thing? Let’s borrow a few concepts from moral theology. I know, I know, please bear with me.

Well, without objective standards we risk “lean relativism” under which there are no actions or behaviors which in and of themselves are lean or not. Essentially, it’s a view that lean principles depend on the individuals and groups that hold them.

What?!?

A lot of folks can convince themselves that things are more than OK, even if they’re not. Nothing to see here, everything’s lean. Keep on moving. No change required.

That’s a recipe for disaster.

There are three schools of thought under the relativist moral methodology. They can apply to lean relativism.

1) Situationism. Here folks maintain that we can’t hold to any rules, or in this situation “lean principles,” that will apply in all circumstance. We just have to look at the concrete situation to really determine whether a given condition or action is consistent with lean or not. An example – due to the fact that the set-up is painfully long (our “situation”), batching is just fine. Wrong! Eliminate or dramatically reduce the set-up and endeavor to get batch sizes down to one or something darn close to one.

2) Consequentialism. This “ism” prescribes that a specific act is neither lean nor non-lean in and of itself, but becomes so on the basis of its consequences. The ends justify the means. One major problem is that when we get into this territory, it can be difficult to understand the consequences of our actions prior to taking them…especially if we’re in short-term thinking mode. Example – the value stream manager delays (for the third time) the deployment of an andon system because he fears the consequences for his overworked supervisors and himself. The anticipated frequency of line stops and the andon response time requirements would just beat his supervisors up. Lean principles would suggest that this is NOT the optimal decision.

3) Utilitarianism. Like situationism and consequentialism, no actions in and of themselves are necessariy lean or non-lean. Here it’s all about the greatest good for the greatest number. Think of it as consequentialism on a more corporate level. Leanness can be wrapped up within whatever maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. Hey, it’s all about respect for the worker, right? Example – the lean answer often includes multi-process operations supporting continuous flow. However, this typically requires cross-trained operators. Well, clearly not everyone is cross-trained, wants to be cross-trained, and/or is capable of being cross-trained. It requires time, effort, change management, and sometimes hard decisions. (Try this in healthcare or transactional-based industry!) You can see where this may be going… OK, we don’t really need multi-process operations OR continuous flow. It’s too painful, for too many. Just build the standard work with the imbalances in work content (% load) and lots of standard WIP and we’ll continue on. Everyone is happy now, right?

Lean principles such as humility, respect for the individual, flow and pull value, assure quality at the source, identify and eliminate waste, create value for the customer, etc. cannot fall victim to lean relativism. That’s not to say that there is no flexibility at the system and tool level, but once one starts making trade-offs with fundamentals, things get out of whack, inconsistent, and confusing.

This is exactly why leadership needs to protect lean purity and defend the organization from the attacks of relativism. Folks need to be trained and actively coached. They must constantly reinforce their thinking and skill sets by seeing, doing, reflecting, and adjusting. And target conditions can’t only prescribe measurable performance levels, but also characteristics relative to things like continuous flow, level-loading, etc.

Without objective standards, we are at risk of never approaching true north. Or if we do, perhaps we approach it purely by accident, which means it will be near impossible to sustain and ultimately further improve.

I leave you with a brief story.

Even after 17 years, I vividly remember the renowned sensei’s three page letter to us. It summarized his initial observations of our operations and his suggested plans to go forward…if we were so committed. To me, it was a first step in a great journey. According to the sensei, there was MUCH opportunity and MUCH to be done. And yet, the lead operations executive wrote something within the margins of the letter, something that seemed utterly unencumbered by reality, “Maybe we are already world class.” Yup, I’m OK, you’re OK…

Related posts: Everyone Is Special, But Lean Principles Are Universal!, WWSD: What Would the Sensei Do?

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Add to this rather long list some lies of the lean variety. I’ve heard more than my fair share.

Often, I just shake off the falsehoods and chalk it up hopefully to a case of the utterer not knowing what they don’t know. This means that the “lies” are not truly a conscious effort to deceive. Of course, this would mean that they’re really not lies, but then a post about common ignorant lean statements doesn’t seem quite as snappy.

In any event, effective leadership requires both credibility and competency. The following “lean lies,” and so many others, undermine both characteristics.

1. This situation is totally abnormal, I’ve never see this before. Translation – dear Mr. or Mrs. Observer, do not believe your eyes…please, oh please.
2. We will dedicate resources to the kaizen promotion office. The unsaid caveat – yup, 100% dedicated…when they’re not working on other stuff.
3. We were lean years ago, then we experienced some turnover in key positions…moved from one facility to another (I’m not making this up), etc. What they should readily admit – we may have had a few lean tools in place, but the systems and principles weren’t even an inch deep. We were never truly lean, just fake lean.
4. I’ll be there for the ENTIRE kaizen event. The invisible exception clause – I’ll be a full-time participant, except when I have a meeting or an important phone call, someone outside of the event seeks my attention, or whenever it is apparent that I’ll have to roll-up my sleeves.
5. I have a lot of lean experience. The all too frequent reality – I have a number of unread lean books in my bookcase, got a “belt” or two, and I’ve participated in several kaizen events…how hard can this be?
6. We applied the proper rigor. The intended meaning – there is no need to investigate what constitutes our limited effort to understand the current situation. Are direct observation and data necessary for really smart people?
   
7. Our employees are our most important asset. Well, first of all, people are NOT assets… although they can/should appreciate in value (while assets typically depreciate). Second of all, you don’t value anyone enough to boldly promise that no one will lose their job as a result of productivity improvements. Rather, you’ll chop heads at the first opportunity and crow how you “leaned-out” the organization.
8. Senior leadership is committed to lean. The fine print – until we must truly change our own behavior.
9. We will practice line stop jidoka. Expiration date clause – yes, line stop, until we start missing production time and my standard direct labor dollar metric looks like it will suffer.
10. Everyone was fully trained in _______. The Clintonesque mental reservation – of course, it depends what your definition of “fully” is.

What are some of the lean “doozies” that you have encountered?

Related posts: Time Observations – without Rigor, It’s Just Industrial Tourism, Show Your Work, Humility, or What Does Dirt Have to Do with Lean?

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As discussed in a prior post, I like the question, “So what?” Those two words seek to identify the “actionability” of things like performance metrics and visual controls. For example, if tier I meeting performance metrics do not provide unambiguous insight to stakeholders on the causality of performance gaps AND the causality can’t be at least partially addressed by the stakeholders, then the metrics probably don’t pass the “So what?” test. In fact the metrics have entered the realm of bad wall art.

So, I’ve got a new question – “Do you see what I see?”

Yes, I know it’s three times longer than, “So what?” But, I think it’s equally as weighty. (Heck, we can abbreviate it as DYSWIS?)

Here’s two ways DYSWIS? can be applied in a lean context.

PDCA of leader standard work. When leader standard work is developed, it is typically done in conjunction with visual controls. The visual controls provide critical assistance to the leader so that he or she can easily discern whether the audit target is normal or abnormal. Well, like in any development mode (think PDCA), we need to check whether each visual control is effective and whether the desired normal condition really makes sense. The best way to check is for multiple people to walk the leader standard work and apply DYSWIS?

An example – three people walk the newly designed leader standard work. They stop at each audit point and, without conversing, do the audit…and then share. The latest stop is at a location of raw pre-staged castings for a machining center where visual controls are supposed to indicate whether the pre-staged material is in the proper location, replenishment has been triggered and its replenishment time (if one has been triggered) has not come and gone without being fulfilled. One of the three thought he could easily tell that things were normal. Another found the visuals to be ambiguous and wasn’t sure. Another thought the “normal condition” of two pallet positions, triggered for replenishment when one was empty, etc. was not sufficient given the waterspider’s cycle time. Do you see what I see? I guess not, we need to make some adjustments.

Gemba walk-based coaching. Gemba walks are a great opportunity for leaders to teach. The walks can be done one-on-one or one-to-many.

An example – an operations director has noted a recent spate of abnormal conditions in an area within a specific value stream. The director takes the young value stream manager for a gemba walk. They pause at a number of targets. The director frequently asks the manager what he sees. Often the manager properly identifies normal and abnormal (and the manager addresses the abnormalities). However, in several areas, in fact the ones that the director was initially concerned about, the manager incorrectly identifies some abnormal conditions as normal. In fact, in a couple situations, it seemed like the manager was guessing (yes, I think that the kanban batch board is maintained properly!?)  At each trouble area, the director shares what he sees and why he sees what he sees…and they reconcile why they don’t share the same insight. Again, DYSWIS?

So, I humbly propose, “Do you see what I see?” as, at the very least, a worthy lean question.

Related posts: Lean Management Systems and Mysterious Performance Metrics, “So What?” – A Powerful Lean Question

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picture from Wikipedia

To avoid confusion, the term headhunter in this post does not refer to those who: 1) take the severed head of others as some sort of trophy (that practice, as far as I know, is defunct), or 2) find, at a price, qualified candidates for employment at their clients. Rather, we’re talking about those leaders who see their own employees as fungible things, as ”heads.”

That thinking is clearly counter the lean principle of respect for the individual.

Tell me that you’ve never observed these headhunters! They blow quickly by the first three objectives of improvement (easier, better, and faster), and get straight to cheaper. Cheaper of course means reducing heads – not the size of heads, that would be head shrinking. Some of the other kind of headhunters did that…

Headhunters seek productivity improvements. Productivity is a wonderful thing. As the lean scion, Art Byrne said, “Productivity = wealth.” That’s absolutely true…unless you squander it. Headhunters squander the wealth.

They see productivity as an opportunity to take out heads. You can usually identify them easily. They often say things like, “There are 37 heads in that department,” or “How many heads can we take out?” Their comfort in using the term “heads,” belies their values and motives.

They don’t understand one of the oldest and most foundational promises of lean – no one loses their employment due to productivity improvement.

This is not a lifelong promise of a specific job, but it is employment security. It certainly does not preclude redeploying folks to different positions, but it often provides new opportunities for personal growth.

I wonder if headhunters can get wrap their headhunting heads around an institution like Toyota. Toyota has often said that they don’t build cars as much as people.

During the depths of the last recession and beleaguered by the ostensibly false, but publicly widespread belief that Toyota was complicit in the unintended acceleration thing, Toyota could have laid many of their folks off. Certainly, others in the industry were doing it. Instead they chose to invest their “idle” time in training and kaizen. Their belief was that if they laid-off a 10 year employee, they would lose the wealth of experience and long-developed skill set (like problem-solving). It would take 10 years to develop a new one!

Doesn’t that make a LOT of sense?

So, when you identify a headhunter, try to convert them. Extol the virtues of in-sourcing and growing the business as well as growing people. If the conversion is unsuccessful, consider running away…fast.

Related posts: Easier, Better, Faster, Cheaper…in that Order, Humility, or What Does Dirt Have to Do with Lean?

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We often talk about lean principles, systems and tools, but clearly that’s not the whole story. So, here’s another part of the story – without profound, unwavering and unambiguous leadership commitment (by the leaders that matter) ANY serious lean transformation effort is DOOMED.

If leaders can’t muster the courage to plunge forth (not talking recklessness), they will bastardize lean principles, fail to apply the requisite resources and time, delay and defer hard decisions, tolerate and often enable non-lean behaviors, etc.

In short, they’ll try to live with one foot in the present and one foot in the lean wannabe state. A sure recipe for disaster.

Noncommittal is not “transformative” and not inspiring. If the leaders aren’t committed, why would the rest of the organization go all in? And for those underlings who do go all in, they’re likely to suffer feelings of confusion, despair and betrayal. Not good.

I will leave you with some Mr. Miyagi wisdom from 1984 movie, Karate Kid.

Miyagi: Now, ready?
Daniel: Yeah, I guess so.
Miyagi: [sighs] Daniel-san, must talk.
[they both kneel]
Miyagi: Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later
[makes squish gesture]
Miyagi: get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do “yes” or karate do “no.” You karate do “guess so,”
[makes squish gesture]
Miyagi: just like grape. Understand?
Daniel: Yeah, I understand.
Miyagi: Now, ready?
Daniel: Yeah, I’m ready.

Source: The Internet Movie Database

Related posts: Lean Leader Principle – Show Them Your Back, The Intrinsic Discipline of the Lean Leader

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As I frowned and contemplated what it must cost to clean that stuff off, I noticed what looked like a conventional signature in the lower corner of the wall. This I had to see. When I got closer I was able to read the following (from Da Vinci),

“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”

Toward the middle of the wall, a less dismissible version of that thought came as an accusation -

“Stay Dum!”

And my first unfiltered expert thought was…You talkin’ to me?

Later that day, still ruminating on that same client’s sustainability issues, I came upon someone’s recent description of a “lean learning formula” and how to apply it as an “effective teaching method.” Eager for a clue to my own question, I read on though suspiciously.

I’m a bit uncomfortable whenever a set of deliberately adaptive principles or practices accruing over many years are pinned to the wallboard, so to speak, and labeled Veritatis Rei (specimen). Alas, it’s in our nature to try and pin down unwieldy phenomena with words. How else to clarify, analyze, promote, handle, reassemble, and…teach? Littera scripta manet, as the Latin goes – the written word survives. Pretty convenient.

That convenience, however, can be costly. Codifying – in words – the amorphous experience of teaching and learning is problematic, and over the ages has left just as many chewing their pencils as tasting the truth.

The formula in question went something like this:

1.      Make a commitment to learn.

2.      Assess performance gaps.

3.      Acquire new knowledge.

4.      Build competency through practice.

5.      Integrate the newly gained skill into daily practice.

Despite great intentions to apply the new knowledge, the author continues, we fall short when it comes to conscious practice and integration. “This is where the learning process falls apart.”

Hmm, something just doesn’t seem right about both the simple formula and the throwaway conclusion. What do you think?

The success (or, more accurately, failure) of such standard “teaching methods” is a perennial source of debate. Rightly so. This approach to teaching/coaching is still the so-called standard in spite of the fact that – as many of us know firsthand – it consistently fails to produce lasting, sustainable changes in behavior.

Notice that I didn’t say the teaching method fails to produce new knowledge. It often does. However, the ultimate goal in personal (and corporate) transformation is a change in self-governed behavior, not merely understanding. As our daily lives demonstrate constantly, new knowledge alone rarely causes us to change persistent habits of thought or action with which we have become comfortable. This is especially true when the habit is the result of a stressful emotional, psychological, or perceptual issue as opposed to a factual misunderstanding. These types of behavior, personal and institutional, are coping mechanisms and they persist stubbornly even when tangible rewards for change are offered.

For example, I know that I should not bite my fingernails. It has been explained to me many times over the years by well-meaning folks of every sort: parents, teachers, doctors, spouses, friends, children, and counselors. I trust and respect the knowledge and opinions of these people. I know that biting my nails makes me feel bad (self-conscious, low confidence, pain and potential infection, etc.) The benefits are clear too (improved self-image, new-found confidence, better health, etc.) What’s more, I really want to change.

But although I succeed temporarily in “practice,” I fail when it comes to the full and permanent integration into daily life. The improvement isn’t sustained. Why?

The entangled reasons for this failure in private behavior change are many, and the reasons are just as numerous and profound when institutionalized behavior (change at work) in public is the goal. And this is my point: admonitions to “be disciplined, practice daily, and do better” – though logical and necessary – are insufficient on their own. Nor do they undermine the foundational paradigm or worldview of which the negative behavior is just one small expression.

But the individual/company is “on-board.” Their brain/boardroom is thinking and actively engaged. Commitment to the overt steps toward change are being sincerely embraced. Permission and encouragement from stakeholders is plentiful. And yet change is short-lived; the preexisting – though ineffective- equilibrium returns. Pessimism creeps in.

So what gives here?

Before we start to argue about why this is so and how to achieve better results, it is paramount to first acknowledge that – yes – what’s been described above is in fact what results from most training and coaching in our industry.

Let me be the first. Personally, as a “lean champion” with my reputation on the line, I profess this unfortunate state of affairs is true. Furthermore, I would add that most individual and corporate patrons of coaching/training also know this is true but are ashamed to admit it. They’ve been paying dearly for this guidance from an experienced expert after all. Their head office has mandated Lean Training. Also, in a sinister twist, clients are often taught implicitly that they are primarily responsibility for any failures in reaching the stated goals. “These are proven methods,” we remind them dutifully. “Look at Toyota.”

Sounds like a full-blown case of The Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome, doesn’t it?

But if that’s not our goal as coaches and mentors, and that’s not the goal of our students and clients, then it’s time we reevaluated the typical “lean learning formula” as it is currently practiced here in the US.

Specifically, what dimension(s) is missing from the Lean Journeys we claim to lead?

It seems appropriate here to use the The 5 Whys approach (I don’t think it’s broken) as our tool to examine the primary symptom confronting us: individuals and companies are not sustaining the beneficial changes we have worked with them to accomplish. It’s axiomatic: If, in spite of clients’ best efforts and properly established conditions, they do not succeed, then we have also failed somewhere.

As a way of putting us in the right “12-year-old” mindset for this inquiry, I’ll repeat a conundrum described by Dr. Jeff Liker, author of The Toyota Way and 8 time recipient of the Shingo Prize, in an interview with Mike Wall on RadioLean (www.radiolean.com). Liker says that upon realizing our Lean accomplishments are being lost, we panic and resort to pushing even harder on the technical, quantifiable components in the system namely, processes. Our perceptions narrow and we lose sight of the people. “When that happens,” Liker continues, “you start asking questions like ‘What are the tools for sustaining lean?’ [At that point] this is really a meaningless question.”

This post was written by Zane Ferry, president of ADP Services. Zane has 20 years of experience with the Toyota Production System beginning in Japan where he worked for 10 years. He helps companies in many industries improve by adopting TPS principles and methods that transform how people improve processes for people. In addition to this work, he is also a Japanese-English interpreter for Shingijutsu, a pioneering consultancy founded by members of Taiichi Ohno’s Toyota Production System implementation team. Zane lives in the Seattle area and can be contacted at adp@net-venture.com.

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click to enlarge

Over the years I have learned to be more patient. In the not too distant past and in the interest of quick results, I frequently told people how to solve problems – which countermeasures to apply as well as where and when. I do that a lot less now, but admittedly I still sometimes lapse.

Telling is fine when time is short and the real risk to life, limb and financial viability are high.  But, if we were to honestly reflect on the frequency of these types of situations, we would see that they’re pretty rare. Unfortunately, it’s normal to make a false choice between urgent and important.

So, what’s important? Certainly, building a lean culture, part of which is an organization of effective problem solvers, is eminently important. Effective problem solvers know how  to apply PDCA and take responsibility for solving their assigned or adopted problems.

How powerful is an organization of engaged and empowered problem solvers? A lot more powerful than a handful of puppet masters pulling the strings of a bunch of disenfranchised folks.

Think about it. If someone tells you “how” to solve the problem, then you do not, and cannot, really own it.  You essentially end up being an un-invested robot. You also end up with very limited (felt) responsibility, because the leader took the P, C, and A away from you and left you with just the D of PDCA. When you execute what someone has told you to do (and you have little insight into the “why” ) and it doesn’t work…well, it’s that do-telling bozo’s fault. Just following orders! I’ll wait for the next set of orders. Not good.

So, what to do? Try coaching your people on the why and the underlying methodology behind PDCA. Surely, make certain that they never violate lean principles – for example, observe reality, takt, flow, pull, etc. Coach them by asking them penetrating questions that will force them to think and hopefully adjust when required. Hold them accountable, but allow them to fail…and learn. In short, respect them and gain a fellow lean thinker, lean doer and lean owner.

Related posts: Lean Leadership – Lessons from My Dog Obedience Sensei, Stretch, Don’t Break – 5 ways to grow your people

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It is not easy and there is no guarantee of success. More than a few of the 290 swabs will DOR (drop on request), get medically discharged, etc. It’s extremely challenging physically, intellectually and emotionally. But, that’s one of the reasons that the USCG is the best coast guard in the world!

A common theme that is expressed around the Academy is that in order to become good leaders, the cadets must become good followers – especially in the important fourth class year (freshman). It’s a bottom up learning experience. Academy graduates are commissioned as ensigns within the CG.

So, why is followership so important? First of all, not everyone can be the supreme leader. That’s just plain impossible. You’ve got to have effective followers, ones who know how to follow individually and, more importantly, collectively as a team. It’s a prerequisite for execution and for developing an exceptional culture.

Given the dynamics of hierarchy and the fact that leadership is often a shared responsibility (we don’t want a bunch of lemmings), many folks will serve as leaders to others. And here’s a blinding flash of the obvious – if you don’t know how to follow, it’s really hard to be a good leader and mentor. Poor followers  often have a significant challenge understanding what their followers do and deal with within the  technical and emotional realm. Great leaders have a clue about the principles, systems and tools and they have empathy.

Another blinding flash of the obvious, when one is made a leader, it is not eternal and all encompassing. No one walking on this earth is perfectly complete. This means, every leader must be a follower at some time, in some way. It’s how you learn, how you grow and how you leverage the collective, value-creating strengths of the organization.

So, where am I going with this (especially in a lean context)? Effective lean leaders must also be good followers. The renowned Steven Spear’s recent blog post (looooonnng title), Why C level executives don’t engage in ‘lean’…Two reasons: Delegate to ‘technologists’ or trained to decide, not discover and develop…, touches upon a bit of this phenomenon.

C level executives are often absent from ‘lean initiatives,’ ‘lean transformations,’ and the like.

This is unfortunate given the truthy cliche, “what is interesting to leaders, is fascinating to followers.”

The question is, “Why?”

Let me suggest two reasons:

• Lean presented as a kit of system engineering tools which senior leaders feel they can delegate to technologists.
• Senior leaders not taught/trained for an environment of continuous improvement/discovery.

Presumably, if C-level executives were better followers when it comes to lean, they would be better at truly leading lean transformations…and not bastardizing the implementation.

So, what followership things can executives do to boost their lean leadership effectiveness? Some thoughts:

• Genuinely seek out other true lean leaders at bona fide lean organizations, visit, observe, ask stupid questions, and listen…with humility.
• Fully participate (clear the calendar and bury the Blackberry) within kaizen activities (including values stream analysis) as a team member. Make it clear that you are there to contribute and to learn…and then do just that.
• Consider hosting president’s kaizens with your staff, as facilitated by a respected sensei who will keep you and your staff honest (relative to kaizen standard work, lean principles and group dynamics) and ensure that you get meaningful stuff done.
• Actually READ and STUDY those lean books that are on your book shelf.
• After getting certified through a train-the-trainer process, train some of the folks in the organization in Lean 101.
• Conduct routine gemba walks with your sensei (internal or external), listen, get grilled, try to answer and learn.
• Spend a day or two as a front line associate, dealing with the stuff they deal with (warts and all) and following their standard work.
• Spend a day or two as a mid-level lean leader, dealing with the stuff they deal with (warts and all) and following their leader standard work.

I am sure there are a bunch of other follower activities that can be added. What are your thoughts?

To the United States Coast Guard, thank you and Semper Paratus!

Related posts: Lean Leader Principle – Show Them Your Back, Humility, or What Does Dirt Have to Do with Lean?

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