7 Ways to Improve The Impact of Your Lean Initiative (Part 3)

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PART 3: Understand the important role of leadership

leadershipSo, how do we create the culture that Drucker is referring to in his famous quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”?  As a starting point, let’s explore how your leadership people operate in your organisation.

How well do all your leaders, from frontline leaders to the CEO engage others in the deployment of your continuous improvement tools? 

Do your leaders operate as problem solving coaches?

Are your leaders regularly out in the workplace leading from the front on every improvement project?

We have found the fastest way to engage others, is to have all leaders from the CEO to frontline team leaders leading from the front and being capable and willing to support frontline teams, facilitate improvement activities and coach others in the use of the CI tools. 

So, let’s make sure we train our leaders early in the Lean principles and how to lead in a continuous improvement culture. Be careful not to assume they already know how to coach others and how to facilitate that change.  All too often we see organisations held back because leaders don’t have the knowledge or the confidence to actively engage in the facilitation of the change.

Leaders should set the pace, and initially at least they should have visibility of which problems we need to solve, and should be choosing the kaizens and assisting teams to execute the improvements. 

Your leaders should “lead” the daily management processes so that the daily meetings become embedded in your culture.  The leader’s job is to help people take the difficult “leaps of faith” - Art Byrne talks about this in his work. 

Our leaders need to help people find the time to work on improving processes.  All too often we find people saying they don’t have the time to work on improvements. This is a systemic issue and it is not OK for leadership to ignore it.  If our leaders are also saying they don’t have time to help other people improve our processes what sort of message is that sending?  Our leaders need to assess whether we have the capabilities we need in the teams to support the CI culture.

Are your leaders regularly coaching their teams in operational excellence techniques and philosophies?

How could you take the coaching and facilitation by your leadership to the next level?   

Please spend some time with your team or colleagues reflecting on your organisation and how you could better embrace the third of our 7 ways to improve your Lean initiative – the important role of leadership.

Efficiency Works

Note:  This is part 3 of 7 ways to improve the impact of your lean initiative.  Stay tuned for part 4 being released next month.  Feel free to contact Efficiency Works directly using the links below if you'd like to discuss all things LEAN.

 

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Efficiency Works

We are practical, action-oriented, highly experienced business improvement trainers and consultants, with an approach that brings immediate efficiency to teams and organisations. We specialise in Lean Thinking including Lean Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma and Lean Office.

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