Developing Leaders at Every Level

In our interactions with manufacturing and service industry organizations there is a consistent theme to the problems they face as they work to advance operational excellence. The sticky issues will likely come as no surprise; they include ones most of us are already aware of and have encountered for years:

• Lack of top leadership engagement
• Unwillingness to show patience to allow improvement to work
• Difficulty sustaining a systemic focus
• No consistent process for developing and deploying resource capabilities

Each of these issues can be traced to an absence of the routines necessary to lead and manage the improvement effort.

As one of our Lean Manager graduates put it – “The key to success is building leaders. Once you have that, you can build everything else.”

Developing a sustainable “lean culture” is the outcome of a 1,000 things done the right way, but it begins with development of leadership routines up and down the organization. A leader’s key role, whether at the supervisor level or in upper management, is to serve their team so that they have the information, skills, and tools they need to be successful. That means…

• The role of the senior-level management team is key! No enterprise-wide operational improvement program can succeed without visible and long-term commitment by upper management supported by their active involvement in the improvement process
• Management at all levels is mobilized to provide direction and manage performance while spending as much time as possible on employee coaching
• Operational teams are empowered to solve problems and propose improvement solutions in a faultless and trusting environment

Most lean initiatives fail because leaders overlook or significantly under estimate the need for the daily management routines that keep the effort on track and moving forward. Productivity can help. For more information on our lean-leader development program, an on the job coaching and mentoring program, give us a call.