10 Common Lean Implementation Mistakes

Lean has been around since the late eighties/ early nineties, but despite the enormous popularity of Lean, the track record for successful implementation of the methodology is spotty at best. Companies still make mistakes when implementing Lean.

These mistakes are generally due to simple misunderstandings of the Lean principles, but when something goes wrong, you will not reap the full benefits, and incorrect use of Lean can actually make a situation worse rather than better.

I believe when Lean principles are properly understood and applied, the upside for productivity improvements is nearly infinite. I have personally witnessed numerous Lean thinking initiatives that have improved productivity by large amounts (like 40-60%) in short periods of time with minimal expenditures.  The Lean track record is well documented by numerous authors.

In my experience these are ten reasons why Lean implementation fails:

1. No Strategy

Companies must determine ahead of time what the vision and direction will be. A proper strategy must assign clear responsibilities and show what resources are to be committed. Metrics and timelines must be defined. Management must decide what core elements are to be deployed and the order of deployment. They also must determine where to start and how Lean will expand throughout the operation. Finally, the strategy should anticipate problem and recovery scenarios. This is critical. Companies can fail by attempting too much. They also can fail by attempting too little and assigning the initiative to a "backburner" status. 

2. No Leadership Involvement

Lean requires top-to-bottom leadership of a special kind. Lean leaders are firm and inspiring, relentless and resilient, demanding and forgiving, focused and flexible. Above all, they have to be smart and highly respected in the organization. Every successful company has at least one of these leaders. These people must be a passionate part of the Lean leadership team.

3. Relying on Lean Sensei/Champion

Expertise obviously is necessary. So is critical mass. There must be a sufficient amount of knowledge among a sufficient number of people for lean to work initially and spread. Further, the expertise must reside with line people as well as staff. Everyday support must come from important, respected line managers who have the most to gain or lose and have the power and authority to make things happen. Reliance on an outnumbered staff expert who has no line authority to implement lean simply is not realistic. Deployment and implementation can fail before it starts without a strong implementation team.

4. Copying Others

Some enterprises think they will get desirable effects by applying Lean tools that others have gotten great achievements. Successful implementation of any Lean tool must be closely related to the management philosophy. So we can’t succeed by imitating and copying practices of others indiscriminately, it must be combined with local culture.

5. Thinking Lean Is A Tool

Lean implementation can not be treated as a delegated "project." Lean manufacturing is not a project. It is a fundamental change in the value delivery system. Top management must be in front of this.

6. Lack of Customer Focus

Many companies do Lean for internal cost reasons rather than external and customer-focused reasons. The focus of Lean is on providing the customer with more value sooner. Without customer focus, Lean management techniques are difficult to employ.

7. Not Engaging Employees

Employee participation in project decision making is a main principle affecting innovation, productivity, and work satisfaction. Workers typically have more complete knowledge of their work than does management; hence, if workers participate in decision making, decisions will be made with better pools of information.

8. Not Educating Employees

Lean training is crucial, obviously. But the content, level, and depth vary by the company and its needs, activity, and function. It goes back to the business case. Training needs to be appropriate for the Lean elements to be deployed.

9. Lack of Understanding

Most management teams don’t understand Lean. When we don’t understand something it is next to impossible to support it. This lack of understanding of Lean by management allows even the most subtle of things to derail Lean efforts.

10. Conflicting Metrics

Lean requires metrics that focus on the processes of value creation and their associated costs. Traditional cost accounting techniques such as absorption, as well as individual machine and employee performance, can cause a lot of non-Lean behavior. Lean accounting ties directly to financial measures but focuses on performance of the entire value delivery system.

Lean implementation is not simple or easy. However, results show that, when done properly, Lean lives up to its promises. Lean and its elements work. All of the failure modes presented here can be avoided or overcome.

If you want Lean to succeed in your organization, management has to become a student of Lean in order to be a successful sponsor. In other words, you have to apply Lean to your management process first in order to understand how to apply it to others.

Benefits of Change

Change is often necessary but can be frightening for your employees. Common reactions to change include anger, denial, opposition and depression. As a manager, you must illustrate to your employees the benefits of change so that they, hopefully, develop an excited and positive attitude. Point out how change brings with it new ideas and opportunities as well as the chance to shine as an important part of the company.

People usually avoid changes and prefer to stay in their comfort zones, but I am true believer that once you get the courage and take the first step to change, your life will become much better.

Below are just few benefits of change:

1. Personal Growth

You grow and learn new things every time something changes. You discover new insights about different aspects of your life. You learn lessons even from changes that did not lead you to where you wanted to be.

2. Flexibility

Frequent changes make you easily adapt to new situations, new environments, and new people. As a result you do not freak out when something unexpectedly shifts.

3. Improvements

We all have things in our lives we’d like to improve—finances, job, partner, house, etc. All of us know that nothing will improve by itself. We need to do things differently to make that happen. Without change, there’d be no improvements.

4. Life Values

From time to time changes make you re-evaluate your life and look at certain things from a different perspective. Depending on what the change is, it may also reinforce your life values.

5. The Snowball Effect

Often we give up because we cannot accomplish the difficult task of making a huge and immediate change. That is when small changes become extremely valuable. One shift at a time, small changes will eventually lead you to the desired big one.

6. Strength

Not all changes lead you to pleasant periods of life. Unfortunately we do not live in fairy tale and sad things happen, too. Overcoming the tough period will make you stronger.

7. Progress

Changes trigger progress. Things move forward and develop because of the them.

8. Opportunities

One never knows what each change may bring. When you turn from your usual path there will be plenty of different opportunities waiting for you. Changes will bring new choices for happiness and fulfillment.

9. New Beginnings

Each change is a turning page. It is about closing one chapter and opening another one. Changes bring new beginnings and excitement to life.

10. Routine

A monotonous job bores employees who need to be given variety to excel. Change often provides the refreshment a worker needs to refocus his energy and increase his interest.

So next time you get the temptation to avoid or resist the change, aim instead to initiate the ones that will lead you to where you want be.

And remember—if there were no change, there would be no benefit!

Lean Quote: Improvement is About Small Changes

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Little Strokes Fell Great Oaks." — Benjamin Franklin

Continuous improvement is about small changes on a daily basis to make your job easier.  Small step-by-step improvements are more effective over time than occasional kaizen bursts, and have a significantly greater impact on the organization culture - creating an environment of involvement and improvement.

Small victories tap into motivation. Achievement is fueled by making small amounts of progress, such as accomplishing a task or solving a problem. Help employees break projects, goals, and work assignments into small victories. Help them jump into an achievement cycle. 

Making one small change is both rewarding to the person making the change and if communicated to others can lead to a widespread adoption of the improvement and the possibility that someone will improve on what has already been improved. There's no telling what might occur if this were the everyday habit of all team members.

One of the most counter intuitive facts about small ideas is that they can actually provide a business with more sustainable competitive advantages than big ideas. The bigger the ideas, the more likely competitors will copy or counter them. If new ideas affect the company's products or services, they're directly visible and often widely advertised.  And even if they involve behind-the-scenes improvements--say, to a major system or process--they're often copied just as quickly. That's because big, internal initiatives typically require outside sources, such as suppliers, contractors, and consultants, who sell their products and services to other companies, too.  Small ideas, on the other hand, are much less likely to migrate to competitors--and even if they do, they're often too specific to be useful.  Because most small ideas remain proprietary, large numbers of them can accumulate into a big, competitive advantage that is sustainable. That edge often means the difference between success and failure.

In a Lean enterprise a strategy of making small, incremental improvements every day, rather than trying to find a monumental improvement once or twice a year equates to a colossal competitive advantage over time and competitors cannot copy these compounded small improvements.

 

Daily Lean Tips Edition #85 (1276-1290)

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to help you along your journey.  Another great reason to like A Lean Journey on Facebook.

Click this link for A Lean Journey's Facebook Page Notes Feed.

Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:

Lean Tip #1276 - Allow Others to Shine
Be a leader with the intention of letting the people around you showcase their abilities. Allow them to give advice and suggest ideas by posing questions that encourage interaction. Being a leader doesn’t mean being a know-it-all; keep learning from your team.
Give your team some credit and praise in front of others. Some people may find this uncomfortable, but I think that letting other people know how well your teammate is doing can really boost their self-confidence and help them maximize their performance!

Lean Tip #1277 - Find the Balance Between Aggressive and Realistic Goals
Create a culture of performance by setting aggressive goals and holding your employees accountable for regularly reporting on their progress. However, the goals can't be so aggressive that your employees quickly fall behind and feel like they can never realistically achieve them. Otherwise, they will quit stretching to reach the goals. That means that you have to regularly re-evaluate the goals (at least on a quarterly basis) to decide whether they need to be scaled down or scaled up.

Lean Tip #1278 - Trust Your People — And Let Them Know It
Knowledge workers typically have jobs that require creative solutions and decision-making. They need to stay sharp mentally to achieve top performance. The onus is on management to create an atmosphere that fosters and encourages that kind of creativity. One of the best things you can do is to let your employees know that you trust them and that you have faith in their ability to do the job, solve the problem, and/or meet the deadline.

Lean Tip #1279 - Avoid Blame (a.k.a. Throwing People Under the Bus)
In any business, there are going to be times when you fail, and there will be things that simply don't pan out the way you had hoped. Do a post-mortem (even if it's informal) to figure out what went wrong and learn from it. If there were egregious errors made by individuals, deal with them privately. If necessary, let the person know your expectations for how this should be handled in the future. Don't publicly blame individuals — either directly or indirectly — in meetings or team e-mails. If you do, you risk creating an atmosphere in which people are so afraid to make mistakes that they don't spend enough time doing the proactive and creative work necessary to avoid future problems — or more important, to drive new innovations.

Lean Tip #1280 - Don't Provide All the Answers — Make Your Employees Think
You are the manager. You are the leader. That does not mean that you have a monopoly on all of the good ideas. If your employees are hesitant to make decisions without asking your opinion first, you haven't properly empowered them. If your employees aren't making enough of their own decisions, you should change your tactics. When they present you with information and ask what to do about a situation, push the ball back into their court and ask them, "What do you think?" They might be surprised at first, but after you do that several times, they'll start thinking it through before they come to you so that they're fully prepared to discuss the matter and make a recommendation. That's a good thing, because they're usually closer to the customer and more familiar with the details of the work. You need their opinions. And you need them to make some of their own decisions.

Lean Tip #1281 - Build Consensus by Letting People Know "Why"
One of your key responsibilities in management is communicating about new initiatives and strategy changes. The worst thing you can do is surprise your staff members with a fully formed idea about a new way to do something that will drastically alter their day-to-day work. When you spring it on them, people will naturally be defensive and skeptical. Whenever possible, give people an informal heads-up that a change is coming and let them know some of the reasoning involved. They will be glad you kept them in the loop. An even better course of action is to have a brainstorming session with your team when you are still formulating a new idea or strategy change, so you can gather their ideas and feedback. 

Lean Tip #1282 - A Team Leader Should Lead by Example. 
They should do this by not being afraid to jump into the ‘trenches’ and do some of the sales work themself and by negotiating resources for the team. They should also encourage team members to take risks and support them when they do. Being a hands on manager will inspire and motivate the team to achieve greater things.

Lean Tip #1283 - Teach Adaptability to Your Team. 
The effective team manager should teach adaptability and flexibility to all of his team members. Being able to change focus and have adaptability in learning and sharing information allows for better communication, a greater sense of empowerment among staff and a faster exchange of information.

Lean Tip #1284 - Bring Positivity into the Workplace
Leaders have a quality of motivation to them, whether it is contagious from their work ethic or it could possibly be that they are visionaries and people want to follow them, but one characteristic of a great leader is their positive, upbeat attitude. Bringing positiveness into the team is a crucial piece in effectively leading a team. It allows people to have something to grab onto when the going gets tough, which we all know it will. 

Lean Tip #1285 - Establish an Impeccable Standard of Excellence.
Set high expectations at the outset and raise the bar on any crucial factors. The best way to establish a standard is by modeling the expected behavior yourself. Showcase excellence. When your actions have the potential to affect everyone around you and the bottom line, don't dabble in mediocrity. Reflecting excellence is critical to exercising effective leadership. This is ground zero for establishing influence.

Lean Tip # 1286 - During Business Changes, Engage Employees by Understanding Their Needs.
Change happens within every company, and if handled poorly, it can result in employee uncertainty and turnover. Prevent that situation by understanding what they need to re-engage. With each new announced change, it’s natural for employees to ask: “What’s in this for me?” But if you effectively hook people’s hearts, you reduce employee questioning. Good leaders understand that with every significant change, employees need to be re-enrolled in their work. Employees need to believe their best days are ahead of them or they will check out without you knowing it.

Lean Tip #1287 - To Step Out of Your Comfort Zone, Determine the Best and Worst Outcomes
To evaluate risks and rewards, try to determine what the worst-case scenario would look like, whether the payoff is worth that risk, and how you could prevent it from happening. Consider the best-case scenario as well: How will you recognize success? What will you do next? This helps you prepare for contingencies.

Lean Tip #1288 - For Team-building Activities, Encourage Collaboration, Not Competition
If a team-building activity has a contest element, some employees will become so focused on "winning" that they may fail to learn anything from the experience. Instead, choose an activity that encourages your staff to work together to solve a problem.

Lean Tip #1289 - See Mistakes as Opportunities that Set You Up For Progress
Embrace mistakes as opportunities to grow. In today’s business climate, people are making split-second decisions. That presents the likelihood for mistakes. But keep in mind that if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking any risks. And that could mean you’re not making progress. Managers have a specific role in dealing with staff mistakes. You want your staff to make as few mistakes as possible. But workers do need to know when they make mistakes, so that they can learn and grow in the workplace.

Lean Tip #1290 - Connect With Employees by Sharing Your Vision and Goals
Provide a clear and compelling vision with goals to employees and job candidates. This also includes investors and customers, so everyone can see what they need to do, get excited about the opportunity, and attract top talent to work with and alongside your team.

Change Brings Opportunity

Change can be a difficult thing. People commonly resist change and I am no different however change is inevitable. It can be stressful especially when it is unknown and uncertain.

However, change is necessary for growth. While it may be very comfortable to stay in a place of familiarity, we will never grow into the person we would like to be if we are unwilling to move beyond what is comfortable.  Many people become complacent because the common notion is that change is bad. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Change can be very healthy and liberating. How we respond to change is a function of our mindset. Change your mind, change your outlook.

Change takes courage and commitment. Courage means trusting yourself to overcome your fears and doing what you are afraid to do. Courage increases conviction and inspires others to confront their fears.

After 4 years in a quality management role change is coming personally.  My telecom company is closing my factory and outsourcing manufacturing so I am moving on. I am excited and anxious to be starting a Lean Manufacturing role in well-known company.

This change brings new opportunities, new people, and a new perspective. It is a chance to rejuvenate my passion and purpose. This is an exciting opportunity to get back on the factory floor helping others improve their work to keep manufacturing in the US. After a period of time working from the customer value view point you can see the impact of our actions directly.

There won’t be many changes on the blog as a result. I will still continue to talk about leadership, continuous improvement, and quality. They remain vital aspects of all businesses and frankly a common source of opportunity.

Change is good. It leads to opportunities. Those opportunities represent progress. Keep moving forward.

Lean Quote: Success as Leader is All About Growing Others

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." — Jack Welch

One of the most important qualities of a good leader is the ability and desire to develop their employees. Taking an active role in the development of your team demonstrates confidence and concern for the future of the organization.

Unfortunately, many organizations do not plan properly for the development of their people and teams. People development without proper planning in place normally results in internal and external conflict, which leads to confusion, low productivity, less motivation, and therefore loss in various ways. When the right plan for development is designed based on the employees’ needs, desires, and potential the expected positive outcome will be achieved.

You can’t move forward if you don’t grow and you can’t grow if you never leave your comfort zone. When possible, give your employees challenging assignments. Help them prepare by providing them a safe environment to learn from the mistakes that they are bound to make.

Most people want to learn and grow their skills at work. Encourage experimentation and taking reasonable risk to develop employee skills. Get to know them personally. Ask what motivates them. Ask what career objectives they have and are aiming to achieve. You can make their career.

In order to get the most from your employees, you need to invest time and resources in their development. Annual performance reviews simply aren’t enough. Make a point to sit down with each employee on a monthly basis (or more frequently, if possible) and provide them with specific feedback and areas of improvement.

Creating a positive learning environment will encourage development and help your employees gain confidence in their position. Learning should be relaxed and clearly explain the reasoning behind every new exercise and lesson. Negativity will only inhibit the learning process, so it's important to be patient, allow for mistakes, and always reward new achievements. This positive feedback will reinforce and affirm the efforts of your employees, and encourage them to continue learning.

Remember, as a manager, one of your primary duties is to develop your people. Your employees are your most important resource.

 

A Better Way: Leadership, Development, and Engagement - Northeast Lean Conference Recap Day 2

Yesterday I shared a couple highlights from Day 1 of the 11^th Annual Northeast Lean Conference. Today we’ll continue with a recap of learnings from day 2. The morning kicked off with a presentation from Norman Bodek who discovered and published many of the original Toyota works and an initiator of the Shingo Prize in 1988. His presentation was about how to be a great leader/coach and how to have a wonderful life.

It is amazing what people are capable of doing if they can just believe in themselves and have a strong coach to support and guide them. The Harada Method teaches self-reliance, how to “stand on your own two feet." People pick a success goal, develop a time frame and plan out how to go about achieving the goal. This in itself is not easy, for most people are reluctant to pick a goal. They do not want to fail. But, using the Harada Method, people see the advantage of having a personal success goal that is linked to the corporation's vision. They then can see the purpose and value of their new goal and, with your help as coach/mentor, they work on a process to achieve it. Much like athletes striving to win a championship, employees write down their goals, write out a step-by-step plan to attain their goals, measure themselves against their goals and receive guidance and feedback. If people follow this plan, they will be absolutely successful.

The Harada Method is now recognized as one of the most systematic ways to enhance human resource development. With the Harada Method, you think of the purpose whenever you set a goal and you align these by setting target dates, measuring progress, sustaining efforts through written purpose and value statements, analyzing past successes and failures, establishing new routines to break past habits, preparing a daily journal to schedule your work life and keep you focused on your growth goals. You grow enormously and you learn how to be a great leader to coach others to improve both their lives and to their work performance.

The presentation was by Mike Martyn, a Shingo Award-Winning Author of “Own the Gap.”  At the heart of a leader's role in creating a CI culture is their ability to coach and develop their people. But the role management systems play in creating opportunities for leaders to connect with their people on a daily basis is frequently overlooked. He introduced principle-based management systems that create an environment of team-based problem solving and daily kaizen. He shared examples of how successful implementation of the “4-Key Systems" by leaders can bring about ideal behaviors, increased buy in and heightened engagement by their people in the change process to take their culture of daily kaizen to the next level.  

The four key systems of management that engage people to improve:

·        Strategy (Hoshin Kanri) – alignment is key

o   What does it mean to win?

·        Gaps – visual gaps, coaching for improvement

o   Are we winning?

·        Problem solving – system to solve problems routinely, improvement teams

o   What are we doing about it?

·        Standard follow-up – management support teams, make sure first 3 are working well

o   How can I help you win?

o    

It boils down to creating actionable gaps and systemically closing the gaps. The “experience” you create matters so engage everyone in the transformation.

The last presentation was team effort by Jamie Bonini, VP of Toyota Production System Support Center, and Bruce Watkins, GM of Karl Storz. They shared the story of transforming a complex endoscope production line to true single piece flow. The process not only involved a great deal of analysis and process improvement, but also a sea change in leadership at every level and department. A key to creating a problem-solving culture of continuous improvement at KARL STORZ Endovision (KSE) was the intense engagement of senior leaders under the guidance of coaches to learn and practice a new way of managing. Leaders should adopt TPS as a way to strengthen the quality, safety and productivity of their production system.

Bruce Hamilton closed the conference as he usually does by inspiring all of us to action.  He said we need to share within our community.  I took that to heart sharing my learning at the conference last week over these past 2 days.  I hope you’ll find some gold (value) in these nuggets that will help you put the pieces together.

Next year’s conference will be in Worcester, MA so get ready for another wonderful event by GBMP!