The Lean Enterprise

Tools for Developing Leadership in a Lean Culture

A. Heri Iswanto

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367488802
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000208498
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Lean culture should be developed so that the goal to improve a process or business condition on a continuous basis can be achieved. Organizations with a lean culture have reaped many successful experiences in implementing lean, so it is seen as a legitimate methodology for organizations. New employees coming into an organization that has a lean culture will be taught to see, think, and feel from a lean perspective in dealing with problems in their job.

Lean needs to be a cultural mindset for all for an organization to remain successful. The effort to build a lean culture relies on the support and active participation of leaders as the agents of change. Research shows that the success of a lean implementation is around 50% depending on leadership, while the remaining 30% is on finance, 10% on organization and culture, and 10% on skills and expert human resources. In general, leaders play a role in developing subordinates, problem-solving skills, and producing various continuous improvement efforts. In addition, leaders are responsible for encouraging subordinates to continuously use problem-solving tools as part of their efforts to improve their skills and deal with bigger problems.

This book focuses on leadership and the tools required to support a lean initiative. Understanding the basic and valuable tools of lean provides the foundation for leaders in support of their organization initiative. Topics in the book include a description of the eight wastes, organizational level process mapping, lean metrics, and developing a future position.

The author includes a discussion and samples of basic lean tools such as Kanban, standard work, and visual management. The author also describes the tools each leader needs to be successful with in creating a culture of lean thinking, including the leader task board, the process performance board, and process walk.

III

Developing Lean Culture

Chapter 10

Developing Lean Culture

After the situation is handled, lean culture should be developed, so that the goal to improve the situation on a continuous basis can be achieved. Culture, in the context of an organization, is

a pattern of shared basic assumptions that have been learned when solving problems, which have worked well so that they can be considered as legitimate and hence, are being taught to new members as the proper way to see, think, and feel in relation to these problems.

(Morato, 2013)

Based on this definition, lean culture is a culture in which lean is used when solving problems, is studied, and finally produces a pattern of basic assumptions of the members of an organization. In short, culture is the way people do things in an organization. In organizations with lean culture, people do their jobs based on lean principles and procedures (Mann, 2005). Organizations with lean culture have reaped many successful experiences in implementing lean, so it is seen as a legitimate basic assumption. New employees coming to an organization that applies lean culture will be taught to see, think, and feel from the lean perspective in dealing with problems in their jobs.

The effort to build a lean culture relies on the support and active participation of leaders as the agents of change. Research shows that the success of lean implementation is around 50% depending on leadership, while the remaining 30% is on finance, 10% on organization culture, and 10% on skills and expertise (Miina, 2012).

In general, leaders play a role in developing subordinates’ problem-solving skills and producing various continuous improvement efforts. In addition, leaders are responsible for encouraging subordinates to continuously use problem-solving tools as part of their efforts to improve their subordinates’ skills to deal with bigger problems.

There are also other roles of leaders at various organizational levels for successful lean implementation. Table 10.1 shows the various organizational roles and their contribution to maintain lean initiatives in an organization.

Table 10.1 Roles of Leadership in Maintaining Lean

Organizational Level	Primary Contribution	Task	Secondary Contribution	Task
Strategic: senior (CEO, senior vice president)	Management; steering and oversight	Supporting cross-border perspective	Measurement; compliance to the process after project	Supervising cross-border indicators; Gemba
Programmatic: function (vice president, director)	Accountability	Fulfilling project commitment; managing cross border performance	Compliance is disciplined; commitment to the process after project	Cooperating in process management; Gemba
Tactical: department (manager, supervisor)	Tactical lean management system	Compliance is disciplined; Gemba	Colleagues involvement; continuous improvement	Educating, practicing problem solving from the root

Source: Mann (2009).

A leader is not a hero but rather a mentor for subordinates. A leader should believe that well-developed subordinates are not subordinates who know all the answers but subordinates who are able to know what the problem is. By knowing the problem, new answers can emerge through thinking processes that challenge old assumptions and weigh new possibilities.

Besides the leader, there are other factors that are important for building a lean culture. Positive experience in running lean projects is another important factor that can build a lean culture since it creates enthusiasm and self-confidence that lean culture should be cultivated voluntarily and jointly within the company (Belhadi, 2017). In turn, it needs commitment from the employees. If the employees and leaders are committed, a clear strategy for creating a firm and sustainable lean culture is all the company needs (Al-Najem, 2014). To build this commitment, the role of lean teams is very important (Ballard & Rybkowksi, 2007). An effective lean team will be able to create successful lean implementation to develop the shared commitment to create a lean culture. In addition to the use of best practices from separated lean projects, lean culture is also built on an ongoing basis through iterative (Kaizen) continuous improvements. Kaizen is an effort to maintain the sustainability of the existing lean program, and it is a long-term continuous implementation. Maintaining consistency of Kaizen will enable lean culture to be built gradually in the organization by fostering employees’ commitment (Kruskal, Reedy, Pascal, Rosen, & Boiselle, 2012).

From the above explanation, it can be concluded that lean culture is built by a number of factors, namely leadership, positive experience...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Author
• Section I Establishing Current Position
• Section II Developing Future Position
• Section III Developing Lean Culture
• References
• Index