Lean Leadership

Lean Nation;

I have mentioned many times that the key to lean improvement, above all other things, is leadership.  James Womack commented in one of his e-newsletters that no enterprise transformational  efforts with the focus and commitment of leadership have ever failed to deliver meaningful results.  That is a pretty powerful statement.

So let's discuss briefly what we mean by lean leadership. 

• Leadership cannot be delegated.  Management can delegated,  but leadership cannot. 
• Leadership, loosely defined is doing the right things.  Management is doing things right.
• Lean leadership is about vision, accountability, and empowerment.

When it comes to leading an organization toward world class rates of improvement, there are several items that need "leading"  The list below is but a few of the topics for leadership:

1. management and staff development
2. improvement areas of focus
3. improvement pace
4. breadth vs depth discussion
5. measurement capture
6. skill building and use of internal and external experts
7. change management approaches
8. pay as you go results
9. demonstrated use of tools
10. organizational design and organizational structure when flow cells and value streams are created
11. dealing with "antibodies"
12. value creating (shop floor or patient care areas versus administrative improvement)
13. governance
14. staff engagement
15. new product/new process development
16. lean HR, lean finance, lean IT, lean supply chain, lean budget, lean marketing, lean strategy development
17. what to do with excess employees
18. sustainability and spread
19. leadership standard work
20. PDCA/A-3 Thinking

I think you get the idea.  If you were going to delegate your improvement, you might consider getting educated on exactly what you are delegating and if the person you are delegating to has the experience these issues horizontally and vertically through the organization.    Because of the need to develop leadership,  I have decided to commit more time to this topic.  Next blog we will talk about how to empower improvement teams. 

Lean blessings,

Ron

Ron Bercaw
http://www.breakthroughhorizons.com/