lean implementation Archives - Better Process Solutions

Lean champions, who are they?

Every activity, movement, or new initiative needs advocates, people that support and promote the cause. Continuous improvement or lean is not the exception. The journey to transform the company will be easier if you have lean champions in your team.

Why you need them?

As we plan the continuous improvement rollout, we spend a lot of time on how to earn the trust of our employees. During previous years, most of the staff changed. At the time the plant changed its business operation model, many people retired. For that reason, we hired new supervisors and managers. The concern of the most senior members of the staff was that people could have trust issues.

Accept changes is never easy, especially when you tell people with an average of 22 years on the job that they will learn new ways to do it. Knowing all the changes from the previous year, how could they trust that we were not trying to fire people? Our lean coach suggested identifying team members known for being natural leaders to help. People feel at ease with trusted leaders. Therefore, they come into the conversation with less apprehension. An advocate that is considered trustworthy by the team is the best way to gain their attention.

What are lean champions?

A lean champion is an advocate for the continuous improvement journey. He or she knows the tools and helps others to use them. Moreover, they promote lean thinking not only with words but with their actions. In general, they will work closely with their coworkers to identify areas for improvement. Also, they will guide and support the implementation of improvement ideas. Most of the time, champions know the process very well and have experience in different functions. That experience helps them to ask the right questions and guide their coworkers to learn. However, it is not critical to be a subject matter expert.

This group is more than promoters for the lean cause. They will assist in continuous improvement events or even facilitate them. Of course, they will need a coach to learn the ropes of the trade before going solo.

Lean champions may have different levels of experience, education, and qualifications. People with previous continuous improvement experience are candidates to be champions. However, not having experience in lean is not a deterrent to being a champion. After all, continuous improvement is not about using tools but about the people and their learning experience. For that reason, there are some characteristics or traits that have more weight than knowing the tools.

What are the characteristics of the lean champions?

Attitude and communication skills are among the most meaningful characteristics of members of this group. They are positive people with the ability to adapt, avid learners, and enjoy helping others. Their communication skills are above average. They can express ideas and simply and clearly. Also, they can adapt their communication to different audiences.

Honesty, integrity, consistency, and empathy are critical character traits for members of this group. Champions do what they say and have no problem admitting they don’t know something. Of course, they have a strong will to succeed. But also, they can cope with challenges and setbacks. The ability to step back for a second to see the big picture and reflection as a learning tool is part of their skills.

Lean champions don’t need to have any leadership positions. The best I worked with were team members with a strong desire to learn and contribute to the company’s success. Also, they have their egos under control and value the power of teamwork and collaboration. These people don’t look to be in the spotlight at all times, although they feel comfortable doing it.

Culture Transformation Journey

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

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.

Culture Transformation Journey

What are the key elements for continuous improvement success?

The answer to the question of what the key elements to a successful lean implementation are depends on who you ask. Most people will say that discipline and determination are key. Others will include skills, passion, know your goals, and luck. If you are convinced that lean is the strategy you will use to frame your business decisions, you must know the keys to a successful lean implementation.

One of the key elements is leadership buy-in and support

The fundamental part of a successful lean implementation is creating a continuous improvement culture. However, you need to ensure that the entire leadership group is singing the same song. In other words, to change the culture, you need leadership buy-in and support. Leadership defines the organization’s culture. Therefore, if they don’t change their attitudes and behaviors, success is a dream. If you are the owner or top leader, you are the person who needs to drive the change. Also, you will need to align purpose, process, and people.

More key elements for success

The objective of the transformation is to change from traditional thinking to a lean thinking approach. Changing the belief system and behaviors is not easy. A fundamental part of the culture change is to care more about people’s motivations, viewpoints, and how to develop their skills.

Communication at every stage is crucial. People need to know what, why, how, when, and who. If the current culture is not good with communication, this will be the start. The team is now your ally. You will work to facilitate their work and develop their skills. The more they know, the more engagement and willingness to help will be. They need to know what the problem is and what you want to accomplish with a continuous improvement strategy. Set the tone by including them in the decision-making process. For example, ask for help to establish the baseline and stretch goals for the implementation.

For effective improvements, your team will need to have the right tools. An early step is to identify which tools make sense for your operation and train the team. You can find a responsible person who works with you to design the roadmap to growing the CI culture and identify the tools to support it. A good start is to review how the current leadership culture has shaped the work environment. Define the gap between that and where you want to be. Knowing the current environment, you can create a motivating climate for the lean journey. You will design a toolbox with the basic tools you will need to support the lean implementation journey.

Consistency and frequency is also critical

You would think that there is no need to clarify the frequency of continuous improvement activities. Unfortunately, it does need an explanation. A common mistake is to believe that it is ok to base the implementation of CI events only. CI events are good, but you need to promote CI thinking every day. Lead by example every day by looking for waste and ways to eliminate it. Why are we doing this? How can we improve it? Use the culture change to promote daily improvement activities and events as training opportunities.

Consistency is very important; you cannot change the framework to make decisions every time something is not working. Regardless of how challenging the problems are, keep using lean thinking. Leadership is responsible for creating and modeling culture. Your employees will be watching and will do what you do, not what you say. If you go back to your old ways, they will too. When problems arise, go where the action happens, go, and see. Observe and ask why, ask your team for ideas, try something new, and measure the effect. Make from every situation an opportunity to learn, and always celebrate the wins! Continuous improvement is everybody’s job, every day, everywhere.

Summary

In summary, the following are the five key elements for a successful continuous improvement or lean implementation:

Leadership buy-in and support
Culture change to lean thinking & people’s development
Effective Communication every step of the way
Use the right CI tools, create your own toolbox
Continuous improvement everywhere, every day, by everybody