DailyKaizen

Today I had a great dicussion with two leaders from a department that develops software in our organization.  These two leaders have been deeply involved in the Model Line work and have been on a steep learning curve with the rest of the leadership team.  They shared with me a model for cross-functional planning that was well thought out and innovative.  It was a model that was focused on optimizing the whole business and not just the department.  It was a model that led with operations and not with IT.  It also was a model that demonstrated that these leaders had reached a new level of Lean development that was no longer just about learning the tools, management system and principles, but unlearning much of their professional discipline. 

To unlearn is probably harder then learning.  In order to unlearn one must leave the comfort of what they know and what is most likely safe.  It might mean having to take apart something one has built.  It often means breaking with tradition and moving away from years of well established practice.  In most healthcare organizations it means learning how to lead with the needs of the patient/member and not the function/service line or supporting department.   I can think of countless examples of unlearning that have taken place in just the last six months in the Model Line.  We have redesigned long standing performance management practices, moved professional training into operations teams, eliminated many batch and queue processes, etc.  Each one of these changes/improvements were made by a team that had to unlearn a practice often within months of when it was put into place.  It is kind of interesting to think that in many ways Lean is as much about unlearning as it is about learning. 

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