DailyKaizen

I had an interesting conversation with a group of leaders last week about how to fill the Lean talent gap in the organization. Up to this point the organization has primarily focused on training Project Managers, Technology Consultants and other professional staff to become RPIW leaders. This approach was sufficient to support our event driven approach of primarily making point improvements, but in no longer sufficient with our aspirations. It is now apparent that Lean will be the primary mechanism by which we achieve cross-functional, value stream improvement in the organization. Just flipping through our three year business plan shows just how prevalent Lean has become in the organization.

By taking a Value Stream improvement approach we have a huge opportunity to make break through improvements for our patients and members. Being a staff model HMO we could even demonstrate true breakthroughs for healthcare in general by leading the nation in preventative medicine. In order for this to become a reality we need talented Lean leaders. We need to find a way to identify, train, support and turn loose our high performing line managers with the mission of transforming our core value streams. It is far easier to train someone the technical aspects of Lean then it is to train someone how to be an effective operations manager. Becoming a talented Operations Manager takes years of experience. Yet, we need people with a deep understanding of what it takes to be a successful line-manager to lead this ambitious an effort.

One of the outcomes of the meeting was to connect our Lean efforts to our leadership development and succession planning programs. I wonder if there are other strategies that organizations have used successfully?