Protecting a Lean Culture Does Not Happen by Accident

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There is very little debate about the importance of culture to an organization's success, and that the responsibility for defining the culture lies with leaders. Once the culture starts to develop, though, how do you hold the gains and protect the natural tendency to fall back to the way things were before the improvements? The easy answer is that the responsibility belongs with leaders, but that does not provide enough detail to be of any use. Unless there is a clear and standardized system to protect the culture, including the methods, policies, and ability to identify new and existing gaps, the chance of backsliding is pretty high.

The culture needs to be protected by those who have the power to ensure that, among other things, leaders are fulfilling their responsibilities effectively, people are developing adequately, new hires are carefully selected and have values consistent with the those of the company, and people are being promoted for the right reasons. One team that is regularly involved with many of these areas and can ensure that they are done consistently and in a way that strengthens, rather than weakens, the culture is human resources. A strong HR team is in the best position to understand the company's culture, develop systems that protect it from damage, and help people understand the importance of following the associated standards.

AN EFFECTIVE CULTURE DOES NOT HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT

It takes a lot of work to define and create the type of culture that will help drive continual improvement and improve competitiveness. Once an organization starts making progress, however, it is very easy to slip back into old ways. Unless decisions related to hiring, promoting, and developing people are made consistently and in a way that is clearly aligned with the company's needs, the gains can easily disappear. The way to prevent this from happening is to develop standards that assure work activities protect the culture and assure that people-related decisions are made by a team that is independent with respect to personal relationships and can make objective decisions regarding a person's cultural fit or readiness for promotion.

Unfortunately, many human resource departments do not consider protecting the company's culture as a prime responsibility – or a responsibility at all. A quick Google search on the objectives of human resources identifies a lot of general statements like hiring, maintaining employment records, and providing counsel about terminating employees. Although some of these are loosely connected to protecting the culture, none that I could find mentioned it specifically. Among the likely reasons for this is that HR teams rarely have the power to challenge attempts by executives to avoid the standards. Also, like other parts of the organization, HR professionals are so busy doing their "day jobs" that they rarely step back to understand the fundamental reasons for doing the things they do.

Standards need to be designed to protect and embed the culture and, like any standard, if one person is allowed to bypass them, it will deteriorate and any protection it provides is lost. As a result of this, things move back toward the prior state and the organization's culture loses its ability to provide a competitive advantage.

WHY PEOPLE BYPASS THE STANDARDS

Bypassing the standards that protect the culture are often justified with good reasons, like needing to make a hiring decision quickly before losing a candidate or a leader promoting someone with whom he or she has worked in the past, so the person's capabilities and values are "already known." Regardless of whether the reasons appear sound or not, it is up to leaders to do their part by committing to the standards and following them every time. It is far less damaging to lose a potential candidate than to ignore a standard, go around the system, and hire someone who is not a good fit for the organization.

WHAT TO DO

Talking about the importance of culture will do little to protect it from damage. Effectively protecting it can only occur when the elements become standardized and embedded into the company's normal operation. Specifically, this requires:

1. Developing standards for the cultural dimensions of an organization, including hiring, promoting, training and development, etc.;
2. Making everyone aware of the standards, including what they mean to day-to-day business, and holding everyone responsible for following the processes (or ensuring that countermeasures are implemented when the standards cannot be followed);
3. Clarifying to the HR team that they have a responsibility to protect the culture by communicating and assuring compliance to, and continually improving, the associated standards (this may require development of HR team members);
4. Giving the HR team the power to enforce the standards in all instances;
5. Adding HR positions to job rotations to help key people develop a deep understanding of the standards, systems, and processes, including why they are critical to the organization's competitive position.

This does not mean that HR is the only team responsible for assuring the culture is protected. Everyone has the responsibility to follow the standards in a way that assures protection and continual improvement toward the ideal. What is does mean is that, as the official guardian of the culture, HR is responsible for many of the associated standards and has the authority to stop anyone from going around the system.

There are, of course, standards that protect culture and are not controlled by the HR team, including keeping the vision alive and relevant, helping team members make problems visible without fear, developing team member abilities to see and address problems, etc., but even these can be aided by support from HR to help leaders develop and improve the ability to make these things happen effectively.

THE ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY

Everyone in the company is busy working and improving their part of the system. Identifying and protecting a culture, however, applies to the entire system and requires focus from a team that has the ability to step back to think and act holistically. It is not as easy as many of the responsibilities normally associated with HR but is arguably the most critical.

When you think about it, it is not the products, services, or processes that make a company great, it is the people who develop, produce, and improve them. Without a culture that drives continual learning and lets people use their talents to create great products, services, and processes, the company has little to sustain its success. Talking about the culture does nothing – defining it in clear terms and implementing the systems that identify the gaps and protect the gains is the way to turn a soft, difficult to measure organizational element into something much more concrete.

Lean by Playing One Point At-a-Time

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"One thing that makes Chris [Evert] such a great champion, is that she doesn't play games or sets, she plays points." – Billie Jean King

I've played tennis most of my life and learned many years ago about the importance of the mental aspect of the game. One thing that particularly impressed me early on was the ability of Chris Evert to maintain an intense level of focus regardless of the score. Whether she was winning handily or losing badly, her expression and focus did not seem to waver. This ability helped her come from behind on many occasions and beat her opponent, even when it appeared that she had no chance of winning. Her focus was never the match, set or game, but the point. Her strategy was based on the idea that points mattered, not the score, and by focusing on winning each point, the matches would take care of themselves.

I didn't know it at the time but this greatly helped me to understand lean thinking. Keeping the focus on what's happening right now, whether a machined part, assembly, customer interaction, or drill bit location, helps drive improvement by immediately seeing when something goes wrong. When we become distracted by the overall score – the monthly or annual budget – we miss the little things that happen every day and every hour that add up to poor long-term performance.

At its most basic level, lean involves setting standards and addressing the problems that interfere with meeting the standards. This means that, to make lean work, we must: (1) have standards; and (2) provide an easy way to know when the standards are not met. It is a simple concept but is very difficult to put into practice. Company culture, leadership systems, and human behavior often force people to worry about the big picture and forget that the results consist of many small processes and interactions. As a consequence, people ignore the small problems and fail to see that spending 5 minutes looking for a tool, for example, has an impact on missing a monthly or annual production target.

It Starts with Leaders

For a variety of reasons, leaders tend to focus on the big picture and ignore the small problems. What is often forgotten, however, is that the big picture includes creating an environment where everybody identifies and addresses problems every day. By showing concern only about the big gaps in performance, leaders are telling people that the small things don't matter. As an example, although missing a bolt to complete a job can be a headache for a person in the factory, a leader may decide that it is not significant enough to spend time helping the person understand the cause and develop a countermeasure for the next job. The message that some problems are important to fix while others are not sends mixed messages about the importance of problem-solving. In effect, the leader is losing points while thinking about the match.

Changing the culture requires helping people understand that every instance where a standard is not met is a problem and needs to be resolved. Doing this requires spending time at gemba to see when it happens, helping people recognize the small problems that happen (or validating that the problems are important enough to address), and coaching people to effectively solve problems. The objective is to get people solving the problems they face every day.

Changing the Daily or Weekly Standup

Another way to help change the way people think about problems is through the daily or weekly standup meetings. A traditional standup meeting reviews how the team performed since the last meeting, e.g., what problems interfered with achieving the plan discussed in the previous day's meeting. When the discussion is distracted by the annual or monthly budget rather than what happened yesterday, important information is missed. Achieving the budget is obviously important but since meeting standards is the way to achieve the budget, the focus needs to be on what got in the way of meeting standards. When the focus is the budget, the team misses a critical objective of lean: solving problems and performing better every day. In tennis, the standards include things like the stroke, footwork, and ball placement. It is these things that enable a player to win points through an intense focus on doing them correctly and making adjustments when problems happen rather than looking at the score. In work, the standards and associated instructions are the stroke, footwork, and ball placement.

When a company's culture suffers from an attention deficit disorder (a common condition in many organizations) its inability to see the small problems interferes with the daily problem-solving required to continually improve and create a system capable of meeting the budget. By allowing this to continue – i.e., worrying more about the score than the point or the shot – the gap to the budget will continue to grow because the problems are not being addressed. It is also far easier to address the small problems every day than to attempt to take on the entire gap between actual performance and the annual budget.

Focus on the Points

University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban once said, "the process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful." In lean terms, he's referring to understanding and continually focusing on the standards. When the focus is results rather than the work that produces the results, standards become meaningless, problems become too big to address, and the gap continues to grow. Besides the fact that it is far easier to identify and correct gaps to meeting a standard than missing a monthly production target, the more people address problems – regardless of how small – the better they get at problem-solving. I've learned the hard way many years ago that my chances of coming back from a 5-1 deficit are much better when I focus on the next point than worrying about winning the next six games.

Do People Feel Comfortable Showing Problems?

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One of the most common obstacles to successfully deploying lean is failure to appreciate the level of transformation required in behaviors and systems. Far too often, companies attempt to implement a variety of lean tools on top of traditional systems and behaviors and are disappointed with the results.


Among the many behaviors that require transformation for lean to work effectively is the need to make problems visible. Since lean is heavily focused on continually comparing actual results to standards and addressing the issues that cause gaps between the two, it can only work when problems are highlighted quickly and honestly.


Is it Really That Difficult?


Assuring problems are visible makes perfect sense and is something many organizations mistakenly believe they already do. For a variety of reasons, showing problems is not something that does not come naturally to many people. It is more natural to hide – or at least not openly display – problems with the hope they can be resolved before being discovered.


It is important to understand the reasons people hide problems and to realize that transformation is required in order to make it okay – and even an expectation – to show problems quickly and clearly.


Why do we Hide Problems?


Although there are a number of reasons that people don't feel comfortable showing their problems, a few tend to show up more than others. The first is a fear of looking incompetent or unable to do the job effectively. Whether the result of a highly competitive culture, overreaction of leaders to problems in the past, or something built into the person's emotional makeup, some people will not feel comfortable openly showing problems. Even when internal competition is not openly encouraged, a history of promoting people who hide problems or twist the story to make it appear that things are under control can cement the idea that it is not okay to openly discuss problems.


Another cause of hiding problems is the fear of getting "help" from people who don't understand what's really happening in the workplace. Some leaders feel that it is important to have all the answers and will regularly offer solutions to the problems without having all the facts. When the leader is disconnected from gemba, this leads to frustration in team members because they will feel compelled to follow the proposed solutions even when they know they won't work.


It is perfectly normal for people to want to show that processes are running smoothly and things are under control.  Because of this, it is up to the company's leaders to continually instill the idea that highlighting problems is not only acceptable but expected within the organization.  This means that there should never be negative consequences for making a problem visible.  On the contrary, it should be made clear to everyone that hiding problems or failing to take action to address them is an unacceptable behavior.


As leaders are able to create the culture that it is okay to make problems visible, there are three common ways to help people show problems quickly and clearly: alarms or andons, dashboards, and meetings.


Andons


An andon signal is a way to immediately show that some aspect of work is not meeting standard. Andons are perhaps the most effective way to show problems because they are designed to highlight a problem immediately and at the point where it happens. Examples include ropes or buttons in the factory where people can signal a problem as it happens, or sensors that detect problems immediately (e.g., retrieving components for an assembly in the incorrect sequence by sounding an alarm when the operator reaches into an incorrect bin).


The keys to making an andon successful include having clear standards, enabling quick notification, providing immediate help, and recording the problems for longer-term problem-solving.


Dashboards


A key objective of a dashboard for an area or process is to clearly and objectively show the gaps between expected and actual results.  Hiding the gaps or continually putting a positive spin on how things are going misses the opportunity to align team members on what's important, and the problems that require attention.


Posting charts that track what's critical for an area help keep people focused on how a process is expected to perform and, the more sensitive the chart, the more quickly action can be taken when a gap occurs.


Dashboards become ineffective when too much data is displayed or the charts lack simplicity. Think how difficult driving would be if the dashboard in your car contained 10 or 12 gages with a variety of information on each.  The same applies to a dashboard for a work area.  Keeping it simple and clearly connected to company or system targets is a key to assuring it is effective.


It is also critical to keep dashboards easy to maintain. Too often, people create multi-color, three-dimensional charts that show too much data, making the charts become nothing more than eye candy.  The purpose of a chart is to highlight problems, not prove how adept someone is at creating graphs.


Meetings


Many companies waste a lot of time in meetings talking about what is going well.  Performance is reviewed and discussed – sometimes in excruciating depth – even when processes are on-target.  People learn to dread meetings and use the time to catch up on email, Instagram, or the latest headlines on their phones.

The more daily and weekly meetings are focused on gaps - existing and potential - the more engaged people will be.  The dashboards should drive the meetings and, the better the dashboards, the quicker people can zero in on the gaps and talk about what is truly important.

When teams do this well, they begin to take advantage of the collective knowledge of the team by focusing on improving performance.  If they dance around the real issues by ignoring the gaps and continually putting a positive spin on how things are going, they miss opportunities to build teamwork and address the real problems.

The Problems Are There - Why Not Look at Them

Every organization has problems, and a key determinant of success is how well the problems are addressed.  Openly showing the problems is the first step to resolving them.  Getting to this point, however, often requires shifting behavior to make it okay – even expected – to look for the gaps.

Stop Judging - Start Leading

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Much has been written over the years about the destructive effects of the traditional performance rating systems used by so many organizations. It's a process that most people do not like but nevertheless continues to be an important part of the HR systems of many organizations. In a study conducted by CEB Global (now Gartner), 21% of nearly 300 companies surveyed worldwide have dropped or are planning to drop the practice of assigning performance ratings to employees. If this is representative of business in general, it means a vast majority of companies still use ratings.

The idea of eliminating ratings has gained increased attention in recent years but many appear to be apprehensive of dropping the process because they don't know what to do instead to provide feedback to improve performance. According to the CEB Global study, though, employee performance has actually dropped in those companies that have eliminated ratings. My fear with reporting study results like this is that people – especially those who favor rating employees – will see it as proof that the process needs to continue. Upon further reading, however, it is noted that it is management practices and leadership skills that cause the problem, not the elimination of the ratings process itself.

There are many compelling reasons to eliminate performance ratings that greatly outweigh any that seem to support continuing the practice. The reasons are not new but, as long as they continue to be ignored, each significantly interferes with transformation and sustained levels of improvement. Like any process or system, we should never look at the performance rating system in isolation of organizational performance. Too many managers look at the performance review process as if it has value by itself and keep it disconnected from where the organization is going or what it is trying to accomplish.

Problems with Performance Ratings


There are several problems with assigning ratings to people that hurt, rather than help, performance. These problems have been discussed and written about for many years but, due to the continued popularity of attempting to rate individual performance, need to be revisited every now and then.

1. Manager Responsibilities Ignored – Ratings put the responsibility for development completely on the team member rather than the leader, who has an obligation to provide coaching to employees. We somehow have an assumption in business that becoming a manager automatically means one can give proper and effective feedback to team members, which is not the case;
2. Inconsistency – Since the ratings are assigned by people, there is a level of inconsistency that comes with human intervention in the process. Even when there is a larger calibration session consisting of a team of leaders that review the numbers and force fit ratings into a normal distribution, there is inconsistency in the ratings assigned and feedback given. Like any type of meeting, group calibration sessions tend to be dominated by the loudest and most aggressive leaders. Another problem is that many of those who participate in the sessions have little knowledge of how most of the individuals being assessed performed – or even what they do;
3. Unclear Expectations – A significant problem in many organizations is the lack of clear expectations for people. There is often an attempt to assign objectives at the beginning of the year but there is an inconsistent understanding of the purpose and expected result of the objectives, and they tend to ignore the person's everyday responsibilities which can easily interfere with larger objectives.;
4. Conflicting Objectives - People are generally smart enough to meet objectives or at least provide some evidence to show they did whether or not it actually helped the organization. Objectives are often assigned in a vacuum, i.e., supply chain reducing price of incoming materials, customer service increasing the number of customer calls handled, etc., and in most organizations, there is little effort to assure they are aligned and truly focused on achieving the organization's purpose.
5. Lack of Systems Thinking – Most leaders fail to appreciate how much the overall system affects the performance of the organization, and that it is their responsibility to develop and maintain the system. If they did understand, they would never put so much effort on trying to "fix" the part of the organization that accounts for less than 3-4% of the company's performance. Performance ratings assign blame to people who are likely attempting to work in a flawed system, and those who receive higher ratings are often working outside of the system, something that should never be encouraged. I once worked for a CEO who gave each of us on the management team a mirror and told us whenever we had an employee who underperformed to look in the mirror to see who is truly responsible for the underperformance.

FIND THE CAUSE AND FIX THE ISSUE


The CEB report, along with several other studies on rating systems and performance in general, point to leadership issues as the main cause of performance problems. When a new employee is hired, that person is generally enthusiastic on his or her first days with the organization. When that person starts to "underperform" or show attitude problems, though, rather than punish or threaten the person with a poor rating, we should try to figure out what has changed. In most cases, we will discover that it is the person in the mirror who is responsible for the underperformance.

It comes down to helping leaders understand that their job is to coach and develop rather than judge. Spending time clarifying this to leaders and helping them learn how to do it would be a far better use of everybody's time than assigning numbers to people.

The Lean Journey Starts with Appreciating the Business as a System

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“There is not a day I don’t think about what Dr. Deming meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.”    - Shoichiro Toyoda

According to W. Edwards Deming, the first thing he did when meeting with Japanese business leaders in 1950 was draw a diagram of a business as a system on the board (shown below from Out of the Crisis).  It was a simple diagram – almost too simple for many to understand its profound significance.  So, what is it about this diagram that literally changed the world and helped some organizations develop competitive advantages that they were able to sustain for many years?

At its most basic level, the objective of the diagram is to show that every business is a system and needs to be managed as such.  When most people hear this, they nod their heads in agreement as if it is nothing new.  After looking at the way many organizations are run, however, it becomes obvious that the concept is still not well understood. 

When viewing a business as a system, it becomes clearer which common business practices actually interfere with long-term success.  In fact, the more one learns about systems thinking, the more obvious it becomes that the chance of achieving any level of long-term success without it is very small.

Every System Must Have a Clear Purpose

Every business exists to achieve an aim and uses a series of handoffs, processes, and subsystems to achieve that aim.  Sounds simple enough but in many – possibly even most – companies, this is forgotten or never truly appreciated.  In far too many organizations, the aim is not clear, not constant, or too heavily focused on monetary gains.  Without a clearly stated and unchanging purpose that is focused on value and meaningful to everyone, people will define it on their own, leading to conflicts, waste, and significant losses.  Deming went as far as to say that without a purpose, there is no system.

I consider the aim to be comprised of the mission (why the organization exists) and vision (where it is headed).  In practice, this means that the organization must stay true to its mission while assuring all targets, objectives, and activities support achieving the vision.  In the most advanced lean thinking organizations, this is much more obvious than in other companies.

The Interactions Must be Clear and Continually Improve

In addition to assuring the aim is clear to everyone in the organization, the interactions between each person and team needs to be clear and continually improved.  Organizations operate in a highly complex manner and gaining an understanding of the interactions and how they create value for the customer is a difficult but necessary task. 

A critical point about systems is that every person in the organization must understand how the work they do contributes to the aim.  This means, for example, that a Maintenance Technician understands his or her role is to assure machines are capable of producing parts of the right quality when needed.  To do that requires high reliability, fast turnaround for maintenance and repairs, and helping the machinists understand how to perform routine maintenance activities quickly and effectively.  Managers have the responsibility to help team members understand their work to this level of detail, including developing an understanding of whom they support in the overall system.

Standards must be established to clarify the work and the interactions and clearly communicate to people what is needed to assure materials and information move through the system to produce value consistently.  Whenever the standards are not met, problem-solving must be done to understand why and to make corrections.

Leaders Must Understand the Level of Complexity

Appreciating systems goes beyond understanding the interactions that take place throughout the organization.  It includes the understanding that the results of actions are not always simple and easy to determine.  For example, forcing the supply chain team to reduce the cost of incoming materials can result in increasing overall costs for the company, even though logic would dictate otherwise.

Organizations are complex, and the larger the organization, the more complex it becomes to understand the effect of a decision or action.  Large-scale changes can, and often do, have damaging effects that are difficult to predict beforehand, and are not easy to understand afterwards.  All changes must be accompanied by an expectation of the effect on the organization, and results must be continually checked against the expectations to drive learning and help improve understanding of the system.

Fragmented Thinking vs Systems Thinking

The more one develops an understanding of systems thinking, the clearer it becomes that many commonly accepted business practices hamper, rather than help, improved performance.  An example is the heavy focus placed on individual performance by most organizations. Systems thinking naturally puts the accountability for performance on the system to a much greater extent than on the individual.  Deming used to say that 94% of the problems a company faces come from the system (and are therefore management’s responsibility) and 6% are related to the people in the system.  The time and emphasis generally put into a typical performance review system, however, shows that many of us believe the exact opposite.  We rate, rank, and hold people across the organization responsible for performance in a system that is most likely flawed.  In other words, rather than focus our efforts on improving the system when performance is below expectations, we assume that putting pressure on the individual will improve results, even though the person may have little or no authority to do anything other than try harder, go around the system, or focus on making it look like improvement is occurring whether it actually is.

When traditional performance reviews are combined with the process of setting objectives, the result is often optimization of one team or individual rather than the system or the organization’s overall aim.  For example, a finance team that focuses on improving the closing process by requiring extra work from the operations team could result in taking time away from producing products or fixing problems and, although the books are closed faster each month, overall performance may suffer.

The typical organization chart is another example that shows the popularity of fragmented thinking.  The most commonly used layout for an organization chart shows little more than who has power.  Using a chart that is organized by the system (e.g., names and titles on a system diagram), however, would show where people fit in the value stream, as well as the relationships between internal customers and suppliers.  It would be much more valuable to helping people understanding their jobs than a chart that shows who the boss of whom.

These are simple examples that demonstrate the destructive effects of leaders who do not understand how systems work.  When the system is not understood and actively managed, priorities are unclear, causing continual conflict between people and teams, and effectively destroying the system.

Managers are Responsible to Create and Improve the System

When leaders come to the realization that creating, managing, and improving the system is their responsibility, the organization will begin to transform.  The focus moves to the most important parts of the organization and people start truly working together, rather than against each other, to improve performance.

Although appreciation for a system is only one of the four elements of what Deming referred to as his System of Profound Knowledge, it is something that helps provide context for the others – theory of knowledge, knowledge of variation, and psychology – and the understanding that they must all be present and work together to drive transformation.

Why Lean Fails

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Why do so many organizations give up on lean even after experiencing initial success with the effort? There are several examples of companies in various industries that experienced sustained success with lean, but these examples seem to be few and far between when compared to the large number of companies that attempt it and fail.

To be clear, lean doesn't fail . . . it's the transformation that fails. While there are many reasons for the failure, there are a few that seem to be common across various organizations. Regardless of which one or more of these reasons apply, correcting them is possible only when leaders begin to develop a deep understanding of lean and realize that the responsibility for the transformation rests squarely on their shoulders rather than something that can be delegated to lower levels in the organization.

Although the premise of lean is simple, integrating it into an organization is highly complex, and the larger the organization the more complex it becomes. Lean thinking is a system that requires understanding how the elements come together to drive continual improvement in support of the organization’s aim. The big gains that some organizations have been able to achieve with lean are only possible after fundamentally transforming the way people think, lead, and approach problems.

The list below is far from comprehensive but is meant to stimulate thinking and reflection to understand the reasons for failure and to help move toward fundamentally changing the culture to enable it to increase and sustain the rate of improvement.

1. Fail to understand the level of transformation required: Far too often, organizations attempt to lay lean on top of a traditional leadership system and expect things the change. It is a simple fact that nothing will change unless the leadership system changes, and failing to understand this will lead to frustration and disappointment in the effort. This is often the main reason behind what appears to be a lack of commitment by the organization’s leaders. People cannot commit to something they do not understand.
2. Focus on the home runs: Far too many people read about the Toyota and its rise from virtual ashes in the 1940s to become the most successful automaker in terms of sales, profit, and market capitalization. When reading an article about it or hearing someone tell the Toyota story, however, misses the point that it was the decades of small, continual improvements that led to significant step changes in performance. Although there are many examples of large innovative improvements at Toyota and other lean thinking companies, they happen because of the collective change in thinking that occurs through a focus on small continual improvements and daily problem-solving.
3. Focusing on financial benefits only: After experiencing a few early improvements, it is very common for leaders to become focused on the financial benefits of the effort and change their focus from learning to cost savings. When this happens, lean becomes a set of tools rather than a system of continual improvement. SQDC (safety-quality-delivery-cost) is replaced by C, and understanding the true meaning of improvement is lost. As small improvements and learning is virtually ignored and the big improvements (the home runs mentioned above) are celebrated, people will do what it takes to show big gains, whether real or fabricated, and any early success with lean will break down and die.
4. Focus on the tools rather than the thinking: Without a deep understanding of lean as a system and the fundamental reasons for its success, it is not possible to think beyond the tools. The tools are easy to understand while the theory behind lean is not. Leaders, especially in the west, are much more interested in things that are concrete, practical, provide quick results, and are easy to explain than organizational theory, psychology, learning, and systems thinking.
5. Lack of systems thinking: Unless leaders understand the complexity of the organization’s system, including how the subsystems work together to drive performance, people and teams will continually compete with one other resulting in continual performance problems and increasing sub-optimization. One of the most critical responsibilities of leaders is to create and continually improve the organization’s system to enable it to achieve its purpose. This includes helping everyone understand clearly how the work they do supports the achievement of organizational objectives.
6. Lack of patience: If you are looking for quick results, lean is probably not the way to do it. As mentioned above, lean requires a shift in the way people think, lead, and perform work, and it takes time – a lot of time – to make it happen. Although results will be seen along the way, there will be gaps that make it seem like nothing is happening. W. Edwards Deming once said that transformation is discontinuous, so it is important to understand that there will be many instances of two steps forward and one step back. The key is to stick with it and remain constant in the purpose and the transformation.

When any of the above characteristics are present, people who are against lean will gain ammunition to bury the effort. It is very easy for the people who feel threatened by lean to plant seeds of doubt in those who are on-board with the change. Getting past this initial stage of the transformation requires regular reflection and continual learning by leaders to see the signs and address them as they happen.

The Objective of Problem-Solving is Not Solving the Problem

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"The ability to learn faster than competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage" - Arie de Geus

One of the misconceptions that interferes with an organization's transformation toward lean thinking deals with the objective of problem-solving. People tend to focus problem-solving activities mostly on the business result, or solving the problem, and ignore whether or not any learning occurred while doing the exercise.  What many fail to understand is, when the focus of problem-solving is results, very little learning takes place, but when the focus is learning, more significant and sustainable results will follow.

It is strange to think that the main objective of problem-solving is not solving the problem, but the more one understands organizations and behavior, the clearer it becomes that sustainable improvement can only occur through continual team learning. When it is obvious that the only concern of leaders in a problem-solving effort is results, people will respond by showing positive results whether or not they are real or sustainable. Problem-solving will become nothing more than an exercise to get to the countermeasure as quickly as possible.

The Benefits of Learning

Some of the benefits of emphasizing learning during problem-solving include:

Improved understanding of systems and processes When done correctly, problem-solving requires looking at the issue from a number of perspectives to better understand how to approach it. It also involves understanding and proving the connections between potential causes and effects and, although it takes time to do this, it leads to increased understanding of the processes and systems that contributed to the issue. This learning leads to better problem-solving and greater improvements in the future – something that cannot occur without learning.

Improved understanding of the problem-solving process The more a team solves problems, the better everyone involved learns the process.  Rather than merely following the steps in a process, people start to learn why the steps are important, how they relate to the quality of the output, and where changes can be made to make the process better and faster.  When the focus is on getting to the countermeasure, the only learning that takes place is how to make an A3 look good. No useful learning will occur as people jump to the countermeasure and backfill the A3 to make it appear that the process was followed.

Learning stays with the team rather than with a single person The A3 (or whatever document is used in the process) from formal problem-solving is captured and maintained as a record of how the problem was defined, broken down, how the root cause was determined, the countermeasures selected, and the results.  In this way, when one or more people leave the team, the learning is maintained through the records and the countermeasures captured in standards related to the process. Also, the increased knowledge and understanding of the process throughout the team that was gained as part of the effort will not go away when one or two people leave.

Motivation increases as people learn and grow For most people, learning and contributing to improvement makes the work they do more interesting. When learning is the focus of problem-solving, the more energized people become and the more interested they are in driving improvements into the work they do.

Leaders Must Learn Also

Emphasizing learning rather than results takes patience and a belief that it will eventually lead to far greater and sustainable results.  Without this transformation, people will see that results are all that matters and respond accordingly. Rather than generate real results based on scientific analysis and concrete actions, however, they will likely be achieved quickly and be superficial and unsustainable. Problems will become hidden and not given the attention they require.

Lean Leadership: A Direction . . . Not a Destination

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One of the problems with some of the books and articles on lean leadership is the tendency to oversimplify the concept in terms of a dictator versus coach.  It is too easy for people to read about the characteristics of a traditional manager and, because they aren't that bad, surmise that they are therefore a lean leader.  What many do not understand, though, is that the difference between a traditional manager and a lean leader is not binary . . . it's a continuum and very few, if any, are completely at one end or the other. 

There are many characteristics that separate a traditional leader from a coach and most of us tend to drift to one side or another under any given circumstance.  Moving toward a lean leader, however, requires the application of the PDSA cycle guided by regular and honest personal reflection, along with a sincere desire to help others develop. 

The key to becoming more of a lean leader on a consistent basis is to understand the characteristics that separate the two ends of the spectrum and work to improve the areas where one shows the biggest gaps.  Although it is a humbling and sometimes painful exercise, it is one that can reap huge rewards if done consistently and effectively. 

The Dictator-Coach Spectrum 

Some of the characteristics that separate a controlling manager from a lean leader are included in the questions below.  Understanding how often and effectively you apply these characteristics can be a good starting point for reflection and eventual movement toward the positive side of the spectrum.   

• Do you stop and reflect regularly on your performance as a leader?   Effective leaders take time to reflect on the performance of their teams and how their own performance could have improved results.  Sincere reflection can help determine where to focus development efforts for the team as well as well as yourself. 
• During conversations with team members, do you listen more than you talk?   Perhaps the most common behavior that drives leaders toward the traditional side of the continuum is the propensity to talk too much.  Besides the fact that development does not generally occur when people are lectured to or talked at, they tend to turn off when they do not feel listened to.  If, after a conversation, you can't clearly understand the other person's opinion by recalling specific examples of what they said, you most likely did too much talking. 
• How often do you realize that you don't know something?   One characteristic of great leaders is that they continually develop themselves.  One way to effectively self-develop is to have the courage to regularly question your own knowledge and performance.  Kaizen thinking is personal and happens when someone deals with a situation by questioning the status quo and challenging what they and others believe to be true.  
• Do you spend more time worrying about your own image than developing your team?   A clear red flag that someone leans toward the traditional side of the spectrum is spending more time with those above him or her in the organization than team members.  It is an unfortunate but it is common for leaders all the way up the organization to be disconnected with those on the team. Performance reviews, promotion systems, and overflowing in-boxes are just a few things that distract leaders from their main responsibility to support and develop people on their teams, and although these things can explain the reasons for becoming self-centered, they do not excuse one from ignoring one of the most important responsibilities of leading a team. 
• Do you continually develop your own skills?   An important trait of successful leaders is that they never stop developing themselves.  When it comes down to it, it is not possible to continue to develop others unless you continually develop yourself.  I have known many leaders over the years who stagnated and stopped learning and developing.  Whether resulting from too much to do or thinking they already know everything they need to, stagnation really means atrophy.  When it comes to development, you either go forward or backward . . . there is no standing still. 
• Do you go see your team or make them come to see you?   Although a basic element of lean thinking, going to gemba to see and learn firsthand is something that still has not made it into everyday leadership.  Leaders who refer to an "open door policy," do not understand how intimidating it is for some people to walk into their office.  By making team members come to them instead of going to the team members, they also do not understand the importance and value of seeing for themselves. Relying on spreadsheets, meetings, and the opinions of others to know what is happening in the workplace misses a critical dimension in truly understanding the facts. 
• Do you help your team understand how they contribute to the purpose of the larger organization?  To become engaged in their work, people need to understand how it fits into the bigger picture for the organization.  Through regular conversations, coaching, and effective dashboards, the team can gain a much better idea about how important their work is, and why it is critical to continue to improve.  Leaders can also become more effective when they gain a better understanding the larger system.  Handoffs between teams improve and more attention is focused on improving the value stream rather than attempting to optimize individual team performance.  

Moving toward lean leadership involves a system approach that requires attention to and development of numerous factors.  There are obviously more than the seven listed above, but these are the issues I see most often.  The key is to understand how you, as a leader, fit into the performance equation of the team and to continually improve the areas where you can positively affect the outcome. 

One of the most common reasons organizations fail with lean is that they attempt to deploy it in the operation without changing the system of leadership.  Lean is about shifting the way people throughout the organization think and approach work and if leaders expect it to happen without transforming themselves, the probability of sustaining improvements is pretty much zero. 

Motivation and Helping People Learn, Make a Difference, and Have Fun

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"Why are we here?  To learn, to make a difference, and to have fun." - W. Edwards Deming 

Many years ago, I was fortunate enough on a couple occasions to attend W. Edward Deming's 4-day seminar.  Early in both seminars, Dr. Deming asked attendees, "Why are we here?" After waiting in silence and repeating the question, he would offer up the notion that we are here "to learn, to make a difference, and to have fun." 

Of all that I learned from Dr. Deming, this statement stuck with me the most.  When I searched the internet to make sure I remembered the quote correctly, I found that it seemed to have also made an impact on many other people. 

I've had a variety of jobs throughout my career, in both management and advisory positions and thought about these words many times.  It is such a simple and logical statement that one would think is a normal part of leading people - unfortunately, this is not the case.  After being promoted into leadership positions, many organizations leave people to their own devices to figure out how to do it well.  So rather than learning, making a difference, and having fun, team members end up stressed, overworked, and looking for their next job. 

What does it mean to help people learn, make a difference, and have fun?  It's something I've thought about for many years and have figured out at least what it means to me.  

Learn 

Besides the fact that many people want to grow in their careers, there is an innate drive in most of us to learn.  Recent studies have concluded that learning has physical effects on the brain which can influence motivation, energy, and confidence. 

Studies also show, though, that the desire to learn can be buried by poor teaching and coaching experiences.  To prevent this and help team members learn requires that leaders have the interest and ability to coach in real situations using problems that people face every day.  They must be able to make coaching a normal part of their job and ensure people are continually improving existing skills while developing new ones.  This can only happen when leaders understand that they must also continue to develop their own skills and abilities. 

Make a Difference 

There have been numerous examples and studies on motivation that point to things like engagement and purpose as critical factors in driving motivation.  When a person understands how the work he or she does contributes to the achievement of a worthwhile purpose, energy level increases as does the motivation to make it happen.  On the other hand, a purpose that is nonexistent or unclear can lead people to disconnect and focus on work as little more than a way to receive a paycheck. 

Enabling a true connection to the purpose requires that leaders establish a clear and logical purpose – often referred to in lean terms as True North – and that they continually drive the organization toward its achievement.  The company's leaders must define the organization's true north and never waver in steering toward it.  It should go without saying but, to be effective, true north should not change as the organization changes its leaders. 

This is one of the things Deming meant when referring to constancy of purpose.  When the reason for an organization's existence is clear and unchanging, people will better understand how the work they do contributes to its achievement and work hard to make it happen.  As much as people want to believe in a true north and be a part of its journey, they will always be looking for examples that demonstrate a lack of commitment or constancy.  This is a defense mechanism people have developed over the years to protect themselves from the disappointment that results from believing in something that turns out to be false. 

Have Fun 

Although there are a number of studies available, it should not take extensive research to understand the benefits of creating a work environment where people have fun.  The positive effects that happiness has on stress, motivation, productivity, teamwork, and employee turnover are well known.   

Learning and making a difference are two factors that can lead to having fun at work, but relying on these things alone will not assure continued success or prevent burnout.  I tend to think of learning and making a difference as having positive effects on performance, and having fun as something that prevents negative effects.  The human brain cannot continually perform at high levels without regular downtime and preventive maintenance.  Having fun is one way to ensure the maintenance is happening.  

Putting it Together 

Learning, making a difference, and having fun is something that should be critical parts of any leadership system. It is a clear way to demonstrate the respect for people that is so important to continually improving results for an organization.  Like much of leadership and lean thinking, though, it is much more difficult to apply than it appears on the surface.  There are often cultural and systemic barriers that need to be overcome to ensure its continued success. 

I have to say that I cringe whenever I hear a leader say that he or she doesn't want people to have "too much fun" because of a fear that they will forget about work.  This is a clear sign that the leader lacks the understanding that having fun is part of a system that includes learning and making a difference, and that all three must be present to work effectively. 

The more I've reflected on these three simple drivers of motivation, the more I realized that they apply to my own personal life as much as they do to organizational success.  They are three factors that truly connect the work-life balance that virtually everyone wants to achieve.