Every company is unsafe from disruption. Many leaders turn to Lean management as a way to safeguard healthy habits, progressive thinking, and problem-solving mentalities among employees in an otherwise shaky landscape. But Lean thinking cannot succeed without the right kind of leadership, by creating and developing lean leaders at all levels.
Lean development advice tends to lean more towards philosophical than practical, making it difficult to put into practice. Especially when a company is under pressure, which is when it needs this sort of leadership the most. Lean needs not one leader, but a network of Lean leaders at all levels across the organization. These leaders should encourage positive habits and steer away from wasteful tendencies, especially during the stressful, pivotal times when, as humans, we tend to revert back to the status quo.
Here is a guide for implementing development throughout your organization, starting with a more complete definition of Lean leadership.
Challenge processes, not people
One of the Lean management principles that are more difficult in practice than it is on paper is challenging the processes, not people. Often, we fail to realize how we are assigning blame to the people on our teams.
All of us carry subconscious biases that prevent us from truly seeing the reality of any given situation. Aiming to solve any problem by focusing on the process keeps the teams solutions-oriented and eliminates power struggles on teams.
It can also usually uncover the real issues at hand. Therefore, returning to the idea that people want to do their best work, often our tendency to blame people leaves us with high turnover rates but the same problems.
Internalize respect for people
Often, various companies undergo Lean transformations without transforming their policies to match. There are infinite ways to improve the employee experience without adding any considerable costs.
This isn’t about adding ping pong tables in the office, rather it’s about creating policies, and therefore shaping a culture that respects people enough to let them work in an environment that functions well for them.
Work-from-home policies are a great way to demonstrate respect for employees. Many companies contemplate that working from home policies encourage shorter workdays, and result in less productive, more distracted employees. Whereas the studies suggest that in reality, flexible working from home policies empower people to make decisions that allow them to reach their peak productivity.
Meanwhile, a respectful office setup will create both physical and emotional space for both types of workers. Communal, social environments for those who work best in these settings, as well as private, quiet rooms for those who work better in solitude. Lean leaders at all levels should be aware of these differences between their employees, and advocate for environments and policies that allow team members to maximize productivity.
Share knowledge
Another important principle of developing lean leaders at all levels is the idea of sharing knowledge. Proper flow of information can help to spread positive energy across the organization. If the goal of Lean is to meet the needs of the customer in a sustainable and healthy way, sharing knowledge helps the entire organization to be on the same page and maintain an up-to-date, accurate picture of the customer and their specific needs.
It is difficult to achieve that “we’re all in this together” mentality across the organization if only some members are allowed to have the information. Although it can feel a little risky to increase transparency across the organization, the benefits of a culture built on trust outweigh the temporary feeling of vulnerability.
One can share knowledge through the following points:
- Cross-departmental meetings to discuss progress on larger initiatives
- Regular memos from customer-facing teams that explain recent learnings
- Slack channels where team members from across the organization can post insights about the customer or the marketplace
- Celebrate small wins
Celebrating small wins is also an important feature for developing lean qualities.
Protips:
- Lean leaders can celebrate small wins through small gestures, such as announcing learnings through Slack channels, making a point to acknowledge the efforts of individuals during meetings, or buying lunch after a particularly difficult time.
- Celebrating small wins can also be built into a team’s workflow by adding a question to the daily standup like: “What new things did we learn this week?”
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