As a Manufacturing Engineering and Lean Transformation professional, I divide my time almost equally between technical and cultural change. To me, it is not at all surprising, but I wonder if it is to others.
I have spent much of my career in the 'lean' world... countless hours spent learning, strategizing, mapping and roadmapping, training, kaizening, improving, standardizing, developing myself and others, and yes, leading change. During that time I have seen 'good' lean implementations and 'failed' lean implementations, and literally everything in between.
Anecdotal evidence shows the success of significant change initiatives is tied closely to the culture of the organizations undertaking the change. Make no mistake: no matter how small a lean transformation starts, if it takes hold, it will become one of the most significant and all encompassing change initiatives any organization can ever undertake.
Technical Know-how or Cultural Readiness?
No matter where we are on our lean journey, or how well individual leaders, people or teams understand the technical details behind 'becoming lean,' getting the people side right determines whether or not the implementation will succeed.
Lean implementations have the best chance to succeed in organizational cultures ripe with respect, support, transparency, innovation, honesty, creativity and fearlessness.
Many transformations have had promising starts, only to fail due to cultural issues. Sometimes a lean initiative was started in an organizational 'pocket' of good culture that eventually succumbs to an overall unhealthy corporate environment: 'blame the people not the process', 'win-lose', and 'politics over performance' do not support change needed to make the transformation a success.
You might wonder which is more important: technical know-how or cultural readiness? It is not an 'either-or' question as the two are inextricably linked, and without the 'right' cultural elements in place even the most practiced lean sensei will not be able to transform the organization with the 'wrong' culture.
What Exactly is "Fake" Lean, Anyway?
So, why can't we just copy TPS? Implement the tools? Follow lean principles as explained in the books? Many organizations do exactly this, and make substantial improvements by issuing guidelines, edicts, rules and mandatory improvement targets.
The greater question is not whether results are achieved with this approach but rather does the approach create a true 'lean' culture where innovative, never-ending problem solving and the pursuit of perfection becomes part of the organization's DNA? And is it sustainable beyond the tenure of the leaders 'pushing' implementation via these means? In most cases, these efforts result in what was first coined by Bob Emiliani as 'fake lean' implementations. It may look lean, but it lacks the critical component of Respect for People.
The multicolored, standard-footprinted-surface looks great, but scratch beneath and find these organizations rarely have depth of understanding of the why behind the many lean tools in place.
When asked why they do things a certain way, most employees in these organizations will tell you, 'because it is our Standard.' Ask why a few more times, and it is not unlikely that you will hear some employees do not agree with the imposed standard, or with how the organization has imposed adherence and compliance. They may even let you know they are afraid not to comply or to speak up when the approach is not the best one.
In some cases, employees know full well that the organization's required standard is not the right approach, but will implement it anyway, garnering a somewhat perverse sense of satisfaction when the metrics and results do not show expected mandated gains. What prevents these employees from speaking up, talking about their ideas, and making a case for trying them out?
Command and Control
In 'Command and Control' cultures, the thinking is done at the top of the organization by a small group of leaders. The role of the rest of the organization is to follow what the leaders put in front of them. Questioning leadership or pointing out flawed thinking is what is referred to as a CLM: a Career Limiting Move. In some cases, it may be a CEM: a Career Ending Move.
Knowing that there are repercussions for speaking up creates fear. Once you have had the experience of getting your hand slapped for speaking up, the chances that you will speak up again goes down dramatically. When one knows they could lose projects, political capital, or job security, they are not likely to challenge the status quo or stand up and say, 'hey, I think I have a great idea'.
It is understood that dissent is not tolerated and fear of repercussions for anyone who steps out of line is the norm.
What is a better way?
Successful lean transformations do not follow "Command and Control" methodologies. Many follow a consultative model in which overall guiding principles and standards are set and explanations of why are provided by executive leadership, with the priorities and the 'how' being left to local leadership. Senseis may be brought in to offer guidance, skill development, coaching and direction. Negotiation of targets is not only welcomed in these organizations, it is expected as a part of the catchball process.
Fearlessness, Failure, and Freedom
Although the principles of lean are straightforward, the application of those principles can be downright messy in the real-world. When you start trying to decide how 'true' to the principle to be, or how or where to implement it, or what to implement first, or to what extent, there will be many opinions, competing priorities and viewpoints.
In some organizations there is a "win-lose" side to every discussion or disagreement. The person with the loudest voice or presence, or with the most political power ends out winning. This creates an unhealthy culture where fear prevents all but the strongest, toughest players from participating freely and stating their own ideas.
When fear rules our thoughts, every debate feels like “life and death” and the freedom to explore, to be wrong, and fail is destroyed.
We can either get stuck in the debate and accept defeat, or embrace the struggle and find a way to slog through it. When we are able to explore all of these ideas without fear we open ourselves to the possibility of finding the best approaches.
The single most important cultural factor that determines success or failure in a lean transformation is the ability to speak openly and freely.
Sometimes (and for some of us, admittedly, more often than we would like) what we say initially will be wrong: not a little wrong, but absolutely, completely flat-out wrong. As we 'stick a stake in the ground and defend our position': we debate, learn, grow, evolve, test the assumptions we had, and our views begin to change.
The process of exploration, of open debate to the point of respectfully but passionately arguing a point, to eventually testing it through experimentation alters our understanding of the problem, the potential causes, and the options to solve it. We may find ourselves changing our own minds or the minds of others numerous times through the process as study of the facts illuminates our understanding. Our minds, opinions and positions need to be fluid and flexible during this process.
Interestingly, when we don't feel backed into a corner and forced to stick to a bad position because changing our minds is unacceptable, change becomes possible.
Not having to worry about looking foolish when our assumptions or positions are proven wrong, or our experiments fail, enables us to raise issues, to bring forward ideas (even the 'crazy' ones) that help us all arrive at better solutions. We find that the organization that embraces experimentation and failure becomes a learning organization: its members practice self-development and become excited and engaged by their work.
To support employees in their own journey of becoming fearless, leaders must teach them to embrace failure and learn from it.
It's not enough to not punish employees for failure: we need to celebrate that they explored, they experimented, they learned. It is the culture of learning that enables problem solving and lean transformations to take hold, grow and spread. While good culture does not ensure success, without it success is not possible.
©2020 Dawn A. Armfield, ValueFlo Consulting LLC
Meet the Author
Dawn Armfield is the founder and CEO of ValueFlo Consulting. Before forming ValueFlo, Dawn spent thirty years honing her skills in Leadership, Manufacturing Engineering and the Toyota Production System across a variety of industries. She has successfully lead lean transformations, has facilitated hundreds of System and Point Kaizen events, has authored several articles on lean and cultural transformation.
