Here is a practical way to understand how Lean management usually fails to take hold in brownfield organizations that have for years been governed by classical management thinking and practice.
Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby two plants are joined together to allow the graft to grow in an environment that would otherwise be unsuccessful. The plant that one wants to grow is called the “scion” and its host is called the “rootstock.” The rootstock provides the water and nutrients needed for the scion flourish. If grafting is successful, the two different plants grow together as a single plant and the scion produces its valuable fruit. Unsuccessful grafting is called “graft incompatibility.” This occurs when the scion and the rootstock have significant genetic, biochemical, or cytological (cellular) differences.
The most common situation in which Lean management is introduced is in brownfield organizations that have long been governed by classical management thinking and practice. In our grafting analogy, Lean management is the scion and classical management is the rootstock. The rootstock is expected to provide an array of nutrients (respect for people, coaching, curiosity) to help the scion survive and produce its fruit (problem-solving, waste elimination, higher quality, lower cost, shorter lead-times, etc.), thereby resulting in material and information flow and other attributes that are desirable for the company, its customers, and other stakeholders.
Yet we know from experience that the scion does not grow to be healthy and produce the desired fruit. In most cases, we see “graft incompatibility” — the scion struggles to grow or eventually dies. The classical management rootstock is genetically so different that it cannot support the Lean scion (of course there are exceptions, such as was the case at The Wiremold Company and some other organizations). But what are the genetic, biochemical, or cytological (cellular) differences that invariably result in Lean graft incompatibility? Classical management thinking and practice encompasses seven types of traditions (genes): economic, social, political, historical, philosophical, business, and legal. The combination of these seven genetic differences (causal antecedents) result in large biochemical (information processes) and cellular (organizational structure) differences that lead to the common outcome of Lean graft incompatibility.
A plant biologist will tell you that to fully understand the causes of graft incompatibility, and to consistently create successful grafts, you have to dig into the details of the genetic, biochemical, and cellular differences between scion and rootstock. As your faithful Lean scientist, I have dug into the many details for you. Specifically, the seven genetic differences and pathology of classical management that nearly always results in graft incompatibility. This is described in my book Triumph of Classical Management.
Lean graft incompatibility is an important subject that every dedicated member of the Lean community needs to learn. Doing so will generate new ideas to try so that future Lean grafts will be more genetically compatible with the classical management rootstock.
Alex says
June 15, 2019 at 12:23 pmI know I haven’t read your book, so I hate to comment on things I haven’t studied carefully. However, I know for sure that all of economic, social, political, historical, philosophical, business, and legal antecedents are accurate. I like your grafting analogy too.
I recently ran into two business cases where the scion failed miserably and very quickly in one, and is not winning any time soon in another. I had first-hand experience of another scion where it was a limited success. Other high-profile business cases like Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes are also available to analyze. I analyzed very hard to find a reason or a common pattern, and in fact I mentioned the word ‘pattern’ in one of my LinkedIn comments before.
What is the driving force of business? Maximizing profits with doing things that legally businesses can get away with. They are not perfect or do not look good from the perspective of virtue, but legally there is no problem, at least so far. So businesses are willing to compromise a lot of things. It is easy to argue in academic and consulting circles, but it is clear that no business owner gets into any debates about lean failures. To them, they were ‘successes’ because of the higher profits they are able to see from internal books available only to them, or as in the case of Boeing, it was the cost of doing business.
What is the theory of motivation? Use fear, institute quotas, or foster competition. I think this is the default human psychology. But these are not good for innovation or winning the hearts and minds of people, in other words, to increase workers’ engagement. So employee engagement remains very low at 30% universally. So this is why I suspect perfect lean, as we have scripted – a virtuous Narnia, where there is happiness, laughter and respect and profits – it, is not winnable, it is only an equilibrium. There are elements of the economic theories – Nash equilibrium and ‘Market for Lemons.’
Labor laws and labor unions have a part in pushing the equilibrium to their side, but their role is diminishing. So what happens is the Uber-type dilemmas where the value-creating workers are at starvation income, while at the other end of the spectrum, millennial first employees have already retired with their millions to low-tax states. There should be some way to connect the owners’ interest to the workers’ interest, which is missing. I am thinking of an economic model where the labor force becomes the owners through an investing arm indirectly. I can’t accomplish any of this as a consultant or academician. Just saying…
Bob Emiliani says
June 15, 2019 at 2:07 pmIt seems true that “no business owner gets into any debates about lean failures.” I have not heard such a thing. I think this is because from CEOs perspective, Lean is not that relevant — there are many other, easier ways to achieve business success. Also, when a Lean transformation process fails, lower-level people are blamed. So they just move on to something else. It is rare that corporate failures, company or product line, to undergo formally analysis in an unbiased and detailed way (akin to an engineering failure analysis).
In classical management, employees’ are made to connect to the owners’ interests. My book thoroughly explains why that is so. It is a difficult system to re-balance or reverse because it is so highly interconnected across the seven genes and because owners are free to conduct business in any legal way that they wish — and typically seek the most expedient means to achieve their desired ends.