The traditional way to implement Lean—the way many people do it—is based on a mid-20th century manufacturing model and a 1980’s consulting model. It’s outdated and ill-fitting for the 21st century office. It’s complicated and time-consuming. It’s tools-based, and ignores basic fundamentals of human behavior.
The success of Lean does not ride on the proper application of dozens of complicated tools. Lean succeeds because people—that means both managers and staff—are motivated by a positive experience with making work better.
Understanding that is the key to avoiding the pitfalls of a conventional implementation.
Many people think launching a program like Lean means conducting week-long Lean workshops or implementing a 5-S workplace organization scheme. Sometimes it means creating an overly complicated dashboard or roadmap.
In an office environment, these are all well-intentioned but misguided launch activities. Misguided because they add to the problems they are intended to resolve:
These issues can be mitigated or even eliminated by following the two most important rules for launching a successful improvement program:
So, how do you implement Lean—or any improvement program—while following those two rules?
Successful Lean implementations start with the launch. Successful organizations get the launch right.
If you don’t get the launch right, Lean loses steam. That’s why Lean fails about 70% of the time.
That’s why our training programs are designed to get results fast. You don’t need to sequester your people for five days in a Lean workshop. You can have your entire organization practice Lean and get results in just six or seven hours. You can even free up capacity in your entire organization without using even one Lean tool.
Our training programs are simple and immediately effective. They are carefully designed to get results faster and easier. That taps into your people’s enthusiasm and feeds their motivation.