DailyKaizen

One of the great challenges facing this organization and any organization on a LEAN journey is the need to slow down, even if it is just for a short period of time, in order to be able to speed up. It is my belief that to have a sustainable LEAN improvement strategy the focus upfront has to be all about developing PEOPLE, PEOPLE and PEOPLE. While LEAN is a process-focused strategy, it is the people that need to be engaged and empowered to figure out new ways to do work within the process To get them there you need to be able to teach them new ways to view the work, their role and customer requirements. This takes time and investment. It means staying the course and being disciplined to create a culture of continuous improvement.

Over the last year we have taken an event-focused approach toward improvement and building LEAN competency. While I think this strategy has been sound and should continue it is not sufficient on its own. Time and again we have executed on Kaizens and then have had to invest considerable resources post-event to ensure results stick due to struggling managers. As a next step for the organization we need to supplement our event driven approach with a training and development program focused on building competency within our managers. We need to change their role from one of making decisions for their staff to one of coaching, mentoring and championing standard work. If done correctly we can take a giant step toward building a high performing culture, but it will mean slowing down to bring these folks along with us. It all about respect!