The Climate & Culture for Innovation & Lean Thinking
Successful implementation of Lean requires more than just the application of tools and techniques, it is essential that the leadership and teams have a desire and a willingness to change. Great leadership, team engagement, and a climate of learning is necessary to achieve this, factors that are often overlooked during Lean initiatives.
If we look at the top 10 Reasons why Lean fails, we can see that 7/10 are down to people.
- Lack of top management support
- Lack of communication
- Lack of middle management/supervisor buy-in
- Not understanding that this is about your people
- Lack of customer focus
- Lack of improvement measures
- Lack of LEAN leadership
- People measures not aligned with LEAN goals
- Using Kaizen events as the sole improvement mechanism
- Bonus pay systems where the only measure is company profitability
Research has shown that not only do Lean organisations have better leadership and higher employee engagement but that the quality of both predict the success of the initiative. Investing in Lean cannot be just about tools, organisations must also invest in creating the culture and climate for sustainable change.
