The road through opposition Where will the "human-side" of Lean hit you? Kaizen projects! As is the case with any Lean implementation in a Traditional environment, culture (or more specifically culture change) will be the most difficult obstacle to success.
While a company can hire consultants, develop work teams, and even begin Lean initiatives, if the company only "talks the talk", the initiative soon becomes just that, talk.
Kaizen! For some time, you've watched that Lean thing occur throughout manufacturing.
It has even altered how you do your day-to-day job to a small degree.
For months, that "Lean guy" has jokingly threatened that Lean will spread beyond manufacturing.
He has even claimed that your area is next.
Welcome to Monday! The team leader (supervisor) shares some general information, and then informs the group that you will be doing an "Office 5S Kaizen" Tuesday through Thursday.
You feel the weight of the world on your shoulders.
Who will be doing this? What will they be doing? You want to ask questions.
Maybe you do ask, but get unsatisfactory answers.
As the blood pressure and stress level rise, all you can think about is how to get out of this fiasco.
Why do Lean events cause this reaction? To make matters worse, this is a very common reaction, not a rare occurrence.
In fairness, there are different levels to the reaction.
When initiating change, it is beneficial to address the different levels.
Some events cause this merely because change drives fear to the surface.
Westerners, and perhaps people across the globe, have a tendency to fear change.
This may not be avoidable, but can be minimized through advanced preparation.
When something is "sprung" on an individual, that fear cannot be minimized and will cause an uphill struggle to lead change.
Pre-event learning activities and complete employee involvement can significantly reduce this fear, if not completely eliminate it.
Some individuals will resist the change regardless of the pre-event coordination.
This is often because they have been through pseudo attempts at change before and are certain the "flavor of the week" will go away soon.
They will remain non-committal until either (a) they are proven right or (b) they are proven wrong.
Either condition will take time to verify.
It is critical that these people are kept "in the loop" and changes are constantly made visual.
It is equally important not to let these people drive morale in the opposite direction.
Let them voice their concerns, confirm that change is here to stay and you would prefer their involvement, but most importantly, keep moving forward.
In every organization there are those who simply refuse to change, regardless of how much success you can show them.
Many Lean practitioners disagree on their value.
At some point, the Lean Leader needs to recognize who may be slow to change and who simply refuses to change.
Those slow to change can make great champions.
Those who refuse need to know their career direction.
It may be beneficial to move them to other areas of the facility.
However, if the intent isn't to give them more time to change their opinion (merely to "get them out of the way"), perhaps it would be best to give them the opportunity to pursue a different career.
Kaizen events can be stressful times, especially the initial events.
As your organization learns and begins to believe in a continuous improvement atmosphere, events become easier to conduct and improvements become easier to sustain.
While you are in transition, the best you can do is drive forward.
A Sensei once told me that Lean has a bias for action.
If you aren't doingsomething, you're not continuously improving.
Develop a system for kaizen.
You might choose events that highlight an ongoing effort to change the business.
You may desire simple, everyday kaizen.
Whichever you choose, learn from each event.
Make Kaizen important by involving people from all areas and performing activities in all areas.
Perform pre-event planning activities to create understanding and support for the event.
During the event, make it special for those participating.
Provide lunches (which also allows you to work through lunch with activities like brainstorming and feedback).
If possible, give team members something for their efforts and initiative to join the activity (t-shirts, cups, pens/pencils, anything shows gratitude for their involvement).
Develop quick summaries of events to show what was accomplished.
Track the number of improvements to see how far you've come.
Create goals and drive change to become an every-day, all-the-time attitude.
Many Kaizen initiatives gain from competition.
Attempt to have more implemented suggestions from event to event or month to month.
Don't let results be hidden or overshadowed by other company activities.
Create a process to share ideas from one event or department to the next.
This helps to instill that culture for change in every employee.
Most importantly, identify "do-ers" during the process and provide them with an opportunity to lead, both during AND after the scheduled activity.
Make sure homework items are identified, posted (to keep them visual), and driven to completion.
Have the "do-ers" become responsible for leading the completion charge.
Once an area has completed identified actions, challenge them with continuous improvement.
Ask what could be done better now that they've verified the previous changes.
Most importantly, continue to drive change and show how change can be fun, can improve day-to-day operations and can be done by anyone, anytime.
There is no magic pill for Lean initiatives.
The Lean process requires time, commitment, and determination.
Companies that cannot envision the long-term commitment to Lean, and only use the tools for short-term gain, will achieve some limited success.
However, without the culture supporting those tools, the Lean initiative will fail, becoming the "flavor of the week" that everyone knew would not last.
"Failure to change is a vice! I want everyone at Toyota to change and at least do not be an obstacle for someone else who wants to change.
" ~ Hiroshi Okuda, Senior Advisor, board member and former chairman of Toyota Motor Corp.