This blog will focus on why lean transformations fail. I will not likely do this topic justice. John Kotter, in his best selling book Leading Change, delivers compelling evidence on why major change initiatives fail. I suggest anyone that is pursuing a lean initiative read this book. You can now get used copies of this book from Amazon at a very reasonable price. My comments on this topic are meant to be additive. I have no desire to deliver an antagonistic point of view.
Without a doubt, the number one reason lean transformations fail is lack of leadership. While every leader is enamored with getting world class results and improving top line and bottom line results, many leaders make the same common mistake. They believe that everything around them needs to change, but that they are exempt from this change themselves.
Having been working with process improvement now for 15 years at the very senior levels of different organizations, I am now positive the single most important factor in being successful in a lean transformation is getting the highest levels of the organization to think, act, and behave differently. What I currently see is not poorly scoped improvement events, poor team make-up, poor measures, etc, but rather leadership behaviors and leadership practices that drive the culture back to status quo.
In the first six months of a typical transformation, we see value stream actions plans, kaizen cycles of improvement, standard work, and various types of visual management. These operational changes are geared toward getting team members to take action. It is the collection of actions that shape behavior and the collection of our behaviors that shapes culture. These improvement related behaviors are fundamental to a lean transformation and constitute the building blocks of any improvement system.
What typically changes with the senior leadership in the first six months of a transformation?
- operational reviews?
- staff meetings?
- rounding?
- performance management?
- leader standard work?
- strategy development and deployment?
- budgeting systems and approaches?
- individual behaviors and role modelling?
- visual management systems for leadership processes and results tracking?
- problem solving?
- project management?
- recruiting processes
Most organizations do not lead by changing senior leader processes, behaviors, and actions. Without a measurable improvement that moves an operational metric in a meaningful way, you will not get the attention of the senior levels of the organization. This is understandable.
However, if you are in year two or three of your transformation, and have not started to take on some of the leadership processes, actions, and behaviors listed above, you are not on track to be successful in the long term. For transformation to occur, the way leadership thinks acts and behaves must be changing.
There are many reasons why leaders may not have started to do things differently. These include:
- no one to coach leadership
- lack of interest
- no accountability systems
- lack of skills
- competing priorities
- external strategic pressures
- leadership turnover
- incentive systems
- senior leader (the top person on site) is not engaged.
- lack of patience
- no ability to connect leadership practices to improvement performance
- comfort with current practices
- results and budget have been acceptable in the past
Regardless of the reason, leadership engagement is THE necessary ingredient for successful transformation. There are other reasons why lean transformations fail, and I will cover those in a future blog. I'd ask you to look at your transformation. Is your senior leadership thinking, acting, and behaving differently? Next to stability and the 4M's, leadership engagement is key to long term success.
Lean Blessings,
Ron
Ron Bercaw
President and Sensei, Breakthrough Horizons
Shingo award winning author
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