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Reflections on Lean Leadership

Lean Summit 2010Kenilworth, Warwickshire, UK

Jim Womack, Senior Advisor, Lean Enterprise Institute

November 3, 2010


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A Good Time for Reflection

Stepping down after 14 years founding &leading Lean Enterprise Institute in Boston.

LEI has wonderful new leader: John Shook.

A key dynamic in the advance of leanthe great ascent of Toyota, Honda, andother lean exemplars -- is now leveling off.

World economy is a mess (mega mura)with failure of financial regulation (no mega

heijunka!) that we struggle to address.


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A Good Time for Hansei

Therefore Dan and John and I haveunavoidably been doing some hansei(critical self-reflection) on:

Where lean has been (the background.)

The current condition (gap and root cause.)

Moving forward (experiments & results.)An A3 for the Lean Movement.


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Where Lean Has Been

Long history of humans finding betterways to design and operate processesthat create more perfect value.

(Perfect value; minimum resource = lean.)

These efforts emerged from industrialengineering, operations planning and

control, and quality functions, led byexperts, in large organizations.


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Where Lean Has Been

Attention focused on tools, deployed bystaffs, in organizations with modernmanagers who were increasinglyunsuited to succeeding with these tools.

A fundamental problem: Lean, processthinking is inherently horizontal (all valueflows across organizations to customers);modern management is inherently vertical(oriented toward the top of the org chart.)


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The Current Condition

We won the battle of ideas about methodsand tools, including the lean managementtools of strategy management, A3analysis, and standardized work with

standardized management and kaizen. We have diffused lean methods to an

enormous range of activities and

industries, but. We have yet to win the battle of

sustainable lean practice.


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World wants transformational leadership!

This often becomes heroes doingorganizational rework in crises because

no management change has occurred tosupport the vision of previous trans-formational leaders (each with a program!)

In sum: We want and need too muchheroic leadership because we dont have

enough lean management.


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The Work of Management

Gain agreement on the few importantthings. (Strategy management.)

Deploy on whats important, address

problems, and evaluate proposals from

below. (PDCA embedded in A3.)

Stabilize the organization. (Standardizedwork with standardized management and

kaizen.)

Create next generation of lean managers.

(Repetitive gemba learning with A3.)


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Modern Versus Lean Management

Authority (control) vs. responsibility(flexibility.)

Manage by objectives vs. manage the

process.

Bosses give answers vs. bosses posequestions.

Plans vs. experiments (PDCA).

Formal education vs. gemba learning.


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Modern Versus Lean Management

Improvement by staffs vs. improvement

by line managers (supported by staffs.)

Remote decisions, analyzing data vs. gosee, ask why, show respect on the

gemba, in real time.

Standardization by experts vs. standard-ization by those touching the process.

Go fast to go slow vs. go slow to go fast.

Vertical focus vs. horizontal focus.


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Deep tradition of modern managementthinking/behavior needs replacement withlean management thinking/behavior.

The creation of value for end-customersnow requires more and more horizontalcoordination of extended value streams.(Brilliant objects vs. lean solutions.)

Andthere is a very weak tradition of

horizontal management.


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Moving Forward

We now need transformational leanleadership to teach and sustain leanmanagement.

Starting anywhere in your organization! For whatever length of value stream.

By changing your management behavior.

So no more heroic leaders are needed!


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Moving Forward

In particular: We need to conduct bold experiments

with horizontal management, where value

stream managers take responsibility fortransforming extended value streams.

These run end-to end across complex

organizations and through independententerprises, where no one has authority &gross sub-optimization rules.


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Moving Forward

We will need to conduct many A3/PDCAcycles focused on management.

We will need to find better ways to report

our results. As we become a community of scientists

sharing our failures and successes.

This is the great challenge for the LeanCommunity moving forward.

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