Everyone recognizes that creating a Lean culture is the responsibility of the top leaders of an organization, and that creating a Lean culture is difficult. Much has been written by me and others about the need for business leaders to do this hard work if they wish to succeed with Lean management. Yet, as we learned long ago, inspiring leaders to do hard work remains a critical weakness in our efforts to advance the adoption and practice of Lean management. Why does this weakness continue to exist and what can be done about it?
In the two previous blog posts (“Winning with Lean” and “Psychological Safety and Lean“) I described how leaders do not need Lean management to win in the marketplace and how it is not in their interest to create psychological safety for workers. In other words, the blog posts describe how business leaders do not want to do the hard work of transforming from classical management to Lean management and creating psychological safety for all employees. Likewise, leaders do not want to do the hard work of creating a Lean culture.
These are facts that Lean people wish were not true. Wishing has not and will not advance the spread of Lean management. The sooner we accept these facts and gain a deep understanding of their causes, the sooner countermeasures can be devised and implemented.
The simple fact of the matter is that most top leaders want to avoid hard work. When you’re at the top, you do the easy stuff. I expect that many, if not most business leaders who know of Lean management would, deep down, like the company to have a Lean culture. However, their conscience weighs against that consideration and instead favors the status quo. In most cases, it is easier work for leaders to maintain the status quo.
Over the three decades since Lean management been in existence, it is apparent that Lean people have had difficulty accepting the fact that business leaders have different ideas, interests, goals, and objectives than workers. The institution of leadership, to which top business leaders belong, has a history dating back thousands of years, and most of its traditions, including many archaic traditions, remain with us today.
One tradition that no longer prevails is how leaders dress. Business leaders no longer dress as shown in the image at right, intended to establish the greatest separation possible between the Monarch and the commoners. Yet the royal attitude, mindset, sentiments, and personal and organizational decision-making criteria remain largely the same now as then. And 500 years ago, as today, business leaders (Kings and Queens) had lots of people at their service — chamberlains, courtiers, equerries, ladies-in-waiting, valets, servants, protectors, loyalists, etc., as well as an assortment of hangers-on — whose job it was to make their work easier. If you committed the ghastly mistake of making the King or Queen’s life more difficult, you lost your job, your power, your wealth, or your head. Similar outcomes happen in organizations today. People promoting Lean — revealing the truth about waste — make business leaders’ job more difficult. And all too often the concerned, well-meaning employee, speaking truth to power, suffers negative personal and professional consequences.
The culture of an organization is established by the institution of leadership, of which the top leader, at any given point in time, is its faithful and trustworthy representative. If a company is successful at creating a Lean culture, the inevitable changes in top managers or changes in company ownership will restore the organization to the culture that is characteristic of the institution of leadership. Unfortunately, it is an unreasonable expectation to think that more than a few unicorn leaders would adopt Lean management in its full form. That is why it is so important for Lean people to understand the institution of leadership and its much favored traditional form of organizational control — classical management — because it maximizes leaders’ rights and privileges. You can’t effectively confront something that you know little or nothing about.
I also have found that getting leaders to give up the trappings of power that go with classical management is extremely difficult. I have also seen it happen. What are the primary triggers of a willingness to confront painful change? One that triggers change is leaders facing the very really possibility that their company is going to fail in its marketplace. Another trigger of slow change that I’ve observed in clients has happened through discussions of the implications of these two statement; Einstein’s “Things are the way they are because of the way we think, the only way to change the way things are is to change the way we think” and Taiichi Ohno’s “It’s easier to act our way to new ways of thinking than to think our way to new ways of acting.” Finally, Bob, just got your book, “The Triumph of Classical Management over Lean Management.” Looking forward to reading it.
Hi George – Thank you for your comments. I hope you like the book. After reading it, feel free to contact me via e-mail if you’d like to set up a day and time to talk about it, if you like.
Leadership is extremely important in creating a lean culture. An important point that stood out to me is that top leaders want to avoid hard work. Top leaders do not want to always listen to constructive criticism and that hurts them in the long run. Lean thinkers are problem solvers and in order to be great, one has to have an open mind and listen to the people who are following. By putting in the extra time to do something so simple as listen can benefit greatly in the long run.
I think what you brought up about leadership and leaders in today’s business world is very interesting and also very significant and true from my experience. In my young career as an employee, I have met several “leaders” with a hands-off attitude and like said in the previous comments, someone who wants to avoid the hard work and comments from his/her employees. Especially in regards to lean, it is very necessary for a leader or boss to take the comments and criticisms from peers.