Everything Has a Honeymoon Period

When companies begin a Lean transformation, there is often an air of excitement that surrounds it.  After all, you already know (and if you don’t a quick Google search will reveal) the huge benefits a business can gain from going through Lean process improvement, namely:

• Improved quality
• Reduced defects and rework
• Improved lead times and faster processes
• Less burdensome work and happier employees

The potential can seem so great, that anything touched by the hand of Lean during the honeymoon period can seem to do no wrong.  But what happens when Lean has been a part of your company for two years?  Five years?  What about 10 years?  Employees know  lip-service when they see an idea with a distinct lack of follow up, and it doesn’t take long for them to brand your potential improvements as “just another fad”.  When this happens, it can be very very hard to bring back your improvement initiative from the brink.

And here’s the real kicker: it’s not your fault.  You had the best of intentions.  You thought you were doing all the right things.  You read the books, you hired the “gurus”, you attended the seminars.  But you didn’t know about the one deadly trap that you absolutely must avoid during your Lean transformation.

The Deadly Trap: Educate To The Lowest Level Of Your Company Or You Will Fail

The simple fact is you need to teach Lean from the very top to the very bottom of your organisation, or your initiative will fail.  You need management to be well versed and on board, otherwise projects will find it hard to get off the ground.  You also need front line staff – team-mates from the Gemba – to know the improvement methods so they can use it to improve their job and your business every day.  This is extremely powerful stuff.

Teaching it company-wide gives you passionate business-improvers at all levels of a company.  You now have people working in the Gemba who know how to map and improve their process as part of their job.

You see, the power of Lean is in its simplicity.  Yes, there are things to learn and yes you will need to think differently, but in the end the message is simple: Map your process, reduce wasteful steps, use a Pull system, build in quality or error proofing and experiment in a controlled space until you win.  This means that:

• Lean can be easy to explain to others
• When it is easy to explain, it is easy to share
• When it is easy to share, it is easy to teach
• When it is easy to teach, it is easy for many people to take advantage of the tools and lessons

And that is the power of Five Minute Lean.  A simple message with a simple “toolbox” of improvement techniques that fit seamlessly together.

We Want Momentum, Not Inertia

Teaching Lean to all levels of a company also helps us build momentum for our change initiative.  Momentum has a habit of growing, like a snowball rolling down a hill gathering speed.

On the flip side, for every person who doesn’t understand Lean properly, you can consider each one an anchor thrown over the side of your boat, slowing you down until you are forced to stop all together.  They will either passively or actively dismiss your Lean transformation, and both are extremely dangerous.

Find A Way To Teach Others Easily

If you can find a quick, simple, waste-free way to teach and get your team-mates involved on your Lean journey, you will win.  In fact, everyone will win, as processes become easier, faster and less burdensome.  A great place to start is my book – Five Minute Lean – where the chapter titles double as a standard process checklist that anyone can use and learn from.  Having this in the hands of each of your team-mates can do amazing things.

Yours in change,

David McLachlan

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Want to learn about Lean? Get the book "Five Minute Lean", by David McLachlan - a wonderful book that blends teaching of the tools, culture and philosophy of traditional Lean with a modern-day Lean parable. You can get the whole book on Amazon here and enjoy your own copy.