DailyKaizen

On Friday I attended the annual manager retreat for the division that I work for. It was an exciting and educational day that proved for me just how far the organization has change for the better in a single year. The focus on the retreat was strategy deployment and catchball. Each of the line managers in the division told the story of their department in just twenty minutes using A3s and then gained feedback from the audience. Groups of managers rotated between the different departments so they could understand and provide feedback to six separate line managers. It was the first time that this large of a deployment activity has been attempted in the organization. In every single breakout room I witnessed first hand how powerful Lean Thinking has taken hold in the organization. Every line manager had Lean language, principles and tactics interwoven into their stories and their plans for the year. Lean is no longer viewed as just a process improvement methodology, but instead as the way we will achieve transformation. A year ago at the same retreat most people didn’t even know what Lean was.
For the last two years as a Lean consultant I have always questioned whether leadership will stay the course. I can’t count how many times I have heard the “flavor of the month” comment or been reminded that “we already tried this before.” At the end of the day the Executive Vice President concluded the event by make a statement that left me energized and left no doubt in my mind that Lean is here to stay. Standing up in front of over a hundred managers he made a simple pledge:
‘This is the horse that we are going to ride. As long as I am the Vice President of this Division this is not going away.’ -James Hereford

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