leadership and lean implementation Archives

Develop new behaviors while creating a continuous improvement culture

develop new behaviors for a successful continuous improvement journey

To start the continuous improvement (CI) journey, you will need a culture change. One of the first steps is to learn how leadership and the team will react to it. However, there are a few things that you need to understand before start planning. For example, you will need to learn about the current culture and the company history regarding policies, salary systems, and politics. Moreover, knowing this, you will identify what behaviors need to change. Develop new behavior patterns is the fourth action from the top leadership to-do list to achieve a successful CI implementation.

Say goodbye to old behaviors

Commonly, past collective experience is based on thoughts and behaviors that you need to change. A culture based on disrespect, lack of appreciation, and lack of clarity, is no longer acceptable. Likewise, dysfunctional competition, us versus them mentality, and values talk without action either.

The foundation to develop new behaviors

We need to guide people with a clear, inspiring, and shared vision of the future. Continuous improvement is not easy, and although it has many sweet rewards, it also has disappointments and brings some failures as well. Be honest about the challenges in front of them, answer their questions, and never back up from the objective. Talk the talk, but most importantly, walk the talk, a voice without action will not do any good to gain the trust of your employees.

How to develop new behaviors

Leadership must become coaches who are communicating the idea of continuous improvement all the time. Every leaders’ responsibility is to model the desired behaviors. Learn and practice lean thinking and promote challenging the status quo. Prove with actions that it is ok to try and fail as long as you never stop trying. Show them how to test new ideas using a system like PDCA. Get used to reflect upon every win, and every loss, share the lesson learned and use them to improve the improvement process.

Leaders should watch for stress reactions, such as threats, resignation, or illness. They need to work with those affected to understand why and create an action plan. It is normal to feel high levels of stress or fear because the team is still weighing if they can trust the new culture. There are many uncertainties during the change, and for that reason, constant, honest, and effective communication is critical.

Set achievable milestones, prioritization, and practice positive feedback. Develop a fair performance assessment program designed to develop people’s skills and not to punish them. Avoid anything that can result in frustration or underutilization of individuals.

As I said before, as long as leadership keeps fulfilling their continuous improvement responsibilities, implementation will keep going and slowly, but surely, the culture will change.

Culture Transformation Journey

Leadership responsibilities, what is their role in continuous improvement?

leadership responsibilities while transforming the company culture

Leadership defines the organizational culture, and the company culture determines how employees react to the news regarding continuous improvement or lean implementation. For that reason, they carry a heavyweight to change, model, and sustain the new culture. In my last post, I listed five actions to achieve the elements of a successful CI implementation. Today I will discuss the third one, which is to Demand leadership responsibilities.

Leadership responsibilities for a successful continuous improvement journey

We can summarize their new responsibilities in five pieces.

Understand the current culture and learn what needs to change to have a CI culture.
Learn continuous improvement principles by doing.
Develop the team by teaching what they just learn.
Motivate participation.
Model the new behavior.

Learn about the current culture and the challenges to change it

Just as the CEO or top leader had to study the current culture and how it would affect implementation, other leaders have to do the same. It is important to see the difference between present practices and continuous improvement culture. They need to understand how the current situation will affect their implementation efforts.

Change creates stress on employees; how much depends on the culture. When employees do not trust management, the level of stress will be higher. The fear of losing the job or getting new responsibilities will affect their performance and the reaction to those changes. Effective communication is critical to relay the correct message. The leadership group should explain what is going to happen, when, how, answer their questions, and clarify doubts.

Modeling new behaviors is part of the leadership responsibilities

As the top leader, you have to model this behavior and show them what you expect to see. Although you can expect some resistance, keep coaching them, take your time to ensure they learn the basic concepts. Be calm and patient but do not accept deviations from the expected behavior. Those who cannot adopt the new model become roadblocks. There are only two options for them, they learn and adapt, or unfortunately, they will have to go.

Learning new behaviors and ways to do things is never easy. When you have to learn and teach your team, what you are just learning, it makes you feel uneasy. Supervisors and managers are used to having all the answers, that is what people expect from them. During this journey, they will learn while they are teaching. They will realize how much they learned, or not at the moment they have to explain those principles and tools to their team. They will feel vulnerable not knowing the answers or making the mistakes. One of the first things that everybody needs to learn, is that in continuous improvement it is ok to make mistakes. Continuous improvement is about using a systematic approach to learn about the process and improve it, one step at a time.

Learn something and teach your team

The beauty of this is that while the leader learns, the team learns as well. It is a welcome change when they see that their supervisor is learning and doing the same as they are. While the leaders become coaches, the team is empowered to learn new things, and unleash their creativity to improve their own work. It is important to highlight that these coaches are going to teach by showing how to do it, follow-up for questions or doubts, and then let go. They are not supposed to have all the answers, the team is driving the solution to the millions of little problems they have every day.

It is a leadership job to walk the working areas to observe the process, ask questions with respect when they notice that there is a deviation between the standard and the actual performance, and challenge the team to fix it. It is also their job to support the team and help by providing resources and removing roadblocks when it is needed. They need to model the behaviors they are asking their team to have. There is no more do what I say, not what I do. Effective leaders lead by example. It is part of their daily job to promote lean thinking and insist on using the CI tools.As long as leadership keeps fulfilling their continuous improvement responsibilities, implementation will keep going and slowly, but surely, the culture will change. This entire process takes time, blood, and tears, but all that is nothing compared with the rewards.

Culture Transformation Journey

How does the job environment affect the cultural transformation?

The main ingredient for a successful lean implementation is creating a continuous improvement culture. Changing behaviors and beliefs is never easy. For instance, the previous culture determines how difficult it will be. The work environment is the result of the company culture and management styles. Certainly, that environment will determine how the employees react to the cultural transformation.

Job environment and engagement

According to Gallup, just 33 percent of American workers are engaged by their jobs. Also, 67 percent is either actively disengaged or “just showing up.” Engagement and productivity are affected by various factors. The way the employees feel their supervisor treats them is one. Other factors are how much they trust leadership and communication styles. Employees want to feel valued and respected. Moreover, that their ideas count, and their work is meaningful.

The objective of the culture change is to shift from traditional thinking to a lean thinking approach. To be successful, the relationship between leadership and associates will be the biggest hurdle. Leadership defines the organizational culture. For that reason, the first key element for a successful implementation is the buy-in and support from them.

Understand how the previous job environment shaped the company culture

Before you start planning the implementation, you have to understand how the previous culture shaped the work environment. The team mindset is closely related to the job environment and employee satisfaction.

Do you know how your employees feel about the company? How do they feel about their supervisors? What they think about how leaders make decisions? Do they feel that they matter? To change their mindset, you need to get honest answers to those questions. Getting the truth can be difficult and painful, but it is a necessary step to know how your employees feel and create the appropriate implementation plan.

The right environment to transform the culture to continuous improvement

Leadership needs to change their traditional business behaviors and adopt servant leadership. If they don’t, no matter what you do, the implementation will fail. Most importantly, the true mission of the transformation is to develop your people first. If you are not committed to making it happen, then do not bother trying. The worst thing is to announce changes and promise new ways and then not deliver.

If you are serious about adopting Lean thinking and use continuous improvement, find the right way to motivate your team. A good start is to have an honest and open communication of why you want to change. Have a heart to heart conversations to gather information. Identify the team interests, how they perceived their benefits and company policies, and how clear they have their responsibilities.

It takes a lot of continuous work to change the culture. After those conversations, everybody needs to turn the page. Then, start working together to create a better future and shape new mindsets.