Leadership’s critical role

by Dave Melhus

I’m sure you could list a dozen initiatives that depend on leadership support. A lean transformation is different — it requires both support and active participation from leadership. I can hear your leader groan: “Great. Another pull on my already overloaded schedule.”

Having led organizations ranging from 150 to 3,000 people, managers approached me numerous times claiming that their initiative would fail without my support. If I supported or was actively involved in all those initiatives, I couldn’t have managed the business.

But that’s where a lean transformation is different. Lean is a way to manage your business. If it’s treated as a bolt-on activity, the potential isn’t fully realized. While leading a transformation is a time and resource commitment, I found no better way to invest my time than in an approach that touches every business process and employee.

What do I mean by participating? In this context, it’s devoting blocks of time (three to five days) as a team member to improve an organization’s processes, plus additional time as an observer, facilitator and coach.

The concept of active participation will scare many CEOs away. In fact, that probably explains the results of a recent survey of industry CEOs. When asked about their knowledge of lean, 41 percent said they knew nothing about it and 34 percent said they knew a little but didn’t know how to implement it.

How would your CEO or site leaders answer? Are they in this 75 percent group? If so, why? One guess is they aren’t participating. So, get them to participate. But how?

In columns past, I discussed the need to focus your improvement efforts on a couple of business-critical metrics. If you heeded that advice and got results, it will be easier to engage your leadership in a strategic lean conversation.

A question I commonly lead with after demonstrating improved results is, “When can the business start selling the improvement in the marketplace?”  In other words, when will buying decisions of current and prospective customers be influenced by operational improvements such as shorter lead times, lower cost and improved quality. The response is typically, “after another X percent improvement is made.”  The hook is now set to get them to help you. You’ve demonstrated a result methodology that works, they get paid to get results, and the activity is important to the business.

So, if you were successful in getting your leader’s support, how do you want them to support you? By:
1) developing a working knowledge of the transformation process;
2) creating a rapid continuous improvement expectation; and,
3) removing roadblocks.

It’s only through participation that the leaders will develop an appreciation for the process’ power. Without participating, they struggle to lead their organization through the many cultural aspects that commonly surface in a transformation. 

While the barriers to improvement are many, here are four that inexperienced lean leaders struggle with:
1) “We are lean.”
2) The law of diminishing returns.
3) “Lean does not apply here.”
4) Active antibodies.   

A leader will hear their people say, “We are lean,” or “We are too busy.”  It won’t take long for a leader exposed to a few of the lean concepts to recognize that the organization may be lean in structure (flat) and the people busy (firefighting), but the processes are broken and full of opportunity.

The law of diminishing returns will many times take root before you realize the breakthroughs in process improvement. The law tends to prevent people from thinking about “peeling the onion” one more time to see and remove waste.

In lean, it’s not uncommon to see the largest benefit to be unleashed after studying a process four to six times (achieving significant gains each time).

The reasons are many:
• the work process and measurements are better understood;
• standard work is being followed;
• the tools’ application is better;
• upstream operations are affected and improved.

Without a working knowledge of the process, the leader will stop after the initial efforts and leave improvement dollars on the table.

“Lean does not apply to us.”  I’ve heard many managers give convincing reasons why lean won’t work in their groups. Again, through involvement, the leader gets a better understanding of how the process might apply. Without lean exposure, the leader runs the risk of getting sucked into the resistance’s rationale.

Every organization has a small percentage of people that will be against the transformation. I fondly call them “antibodies.”  In clinical terms, an antibody multiplies and reverses the change in the body (or in this case, the organization). In most organizations, the antibodies will be middle to senior leaders attempting to keep the organization as is. Unless the top leaders are involved, the negative rhetoric will grow and cause compounding confusion within the organization.

Contrary to traditional management practices, delegating the transformation will stifle success.

I’ve listed a few reasons where and why leadership participation is beneficial. While the senior leaders don’t have to be intimate with all the tools, they must understand the process’ power. Their involvement will recalibrate an executive’s expectation on what is possible. Leadership creating a higher expectation is the key driver in the transformation. Lean tools are the vehicle to achieve the expectation.

If you wish to learn more about this subject, take in my pre-conference workshop at “Lean Manufacturing University 3,” Nov. 10 in Milwaukee.

Dave Melhus, the former vice president of operations for Iowa’s Vermeer Manufacturing, is currently a VP with Simpler Consulting. He can be reached at or by e-mailing . 

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