Why C level executives don’t engage in ‘lean’…Two reasons: Delegate to ‘technologists’ or trained to decide, not discover and develop…
Jun 10th, 2010 | By steven_spear | Category: Business Strategy, Featured ArticleC level executives are often absent from ‘lean initiatives,’ ‘lean transformations,’ and the like.
This is unfortunate given the truthy cliche, “what is interesting to leaders, is fascinating to followers.”
The question is, “Why?”
Let me suggest two reasons:
- Lean presented as a kit of system engineering tools which senior leaders feel they can delegate to technologists.
- Senior leaders not taught/trained for an environment of continuous improvement/discovery.
REASON 1: LEAN=TOOL KIT
The interpretation of lean manufacturing as a kit of system engineering tools, meant for the ’shop floor,’ largely for high volume, low variety, repeated work, certainly impacts senior leaders view that lean is tactical not strategic, technical and not managerial, and a responsibility to be delegated, not embraced. Here is how I understand the source of that interpretation.
The initial motivations to study Toyota and its Japanese counterparts were simple in the 1980s. ‘The Japanese’ were ’stealing’ substantial market share from US automakers with affordable, reliable products.
How did that manage that? The first research showed that (approximately) half the people, with half the inventory, equipment, and space, were producing twice the output every day (See for instance, John Krafcik’s 1988 article, “Triumph of the Lean Production System,” Sloan Management Review, 1988).
The explanation for this ‘half in, twice out’ capacity was multi faceted. There were the system design approaches that reduced chaos and increased stability–continuous flow rather than job shops, self synchronizing pull rather than push, choreographed standard work (with 5S in cells) rather than improvisational variation.
There was also the very strong emphasis on real time problem solving. (See for instance J.P. MacDuffie’s article, “The Road to Root Cause: Shop Floor Problem Solving at Three Auto Assembly Plants,” Management Science, April 1997.) The Machine That Changed the World, for instance, had examples of people dropping what they were doing to swarm problems as they unfolded.
However, much of what has been written about lean has focused exclusively on the tools of stabilization with very little about problem solving. One nugget: when I was doing my initial research about Toyota, TPS, and lean, I found thousands of books and articles about tools. Only 3 mentioned ‘jidoka,’ a pillar of the Toyota temple, the underlying principle that all work be designed to identify and call out problems when and where they occur.
In short, if Lean = tools (value stream maps, single minute exchange of dies, 5S, cells, pull systems, super market inventory stores, and the like), managers will delegate to technicians, be they internal or external ‘kaizen jockeys.’
REASON 2: MANAGERS TRAINED FOR DECISION MAKING, NOT DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT
There is an alternative explanation for why C level and other senior leaders don’t embrace lean as a strategic concern. Their training has largely been about making decisions about transactions, not about making discoveries in pursuit of useful knowledge.
First, let me argue briefly that Toyota’s success has been rooted in an exceptional rate of individual and organizational learning. It was an awful car maker in the 1950s, achieved parity in productivity by the late 1960s (see Michael Cusumano’s History of the Japanese Automobile Industry), and superiority in affordability and reliability by the 1970s. Then there was the learning and discovery underpinning expansion in models, brands (Lexus and Scion), regional expansion of design and production, and technological leadership (e.g., hybrid drive).
To be like Toyota, you have to have the skills to learn like Toyota(*: see below for a list of those skills).
The thing is, business managers are not trained to learn/discover. Rather they are trained to decide about transactions. Consider the MBA curriculum core:
- Finance–how to value transactions
- Accounting–how to track transactions
- Strategy–taught as a transactional discipline of entering or exiting markets based on relative strength and weakness.
- OM courses–heavily pervaded by analytical tools (in support of decisions).
Largely absent: scientific method, experimentation, exploration, learning methods, teaching methods, etc.
Therefore, even for those who have seen TPS et al as management systems rooted in organizational learning and broad based, non stop, high velocity discovery are ill prepared to switch from decision mode to discovery mode.
Conclusion: There are two compelling reasons why senior leaders are often absent from lean efforts. Either they’ve been led to believe that it is the work of the shop floor technocrats for which their responsibility is hiring and funding, or they’re unprepared to lead, engaged in discovery and development, as is actually required.
(*) In The High Velocity Edge, I offer that these skills are expressed in knowing how to
(1) design and operate work processes to see problems as they occur,
(2) solve problems rigorously so the ignorance underpinning them is converted into useful knowledge,
(3) share local discoveries rigorously and vigorously so they are incorporated systemically, and
(4) engage as leaders in developing these skills in those for whom one has responsibility.
See “The Second Toyota Paradox,” by Ward, Liker, Cristiano, and Sobek, in Sloan Management Review, 1995, for examples in product design (cited in Chapter 8 of The High Velocity Edge).
Related posts:
- Womack’s ‘Beyond Toyota’ is wrong challenge…’beyond lean’ is…
- Does ‘Lean’ Become Self Perpetuating?
- Why Lean Fails: Operational Excellence Treated as Tool Based Vocation, Not Principle Based Profession
- The Disciplines of Innovation Applied to Sales and Marketing
- Process excellence and innovation: Conflict or compliments?
[...] Why C level executives don’t engage in lean by Steven Spear – “Either they’ve been led to believe that it is the work of the shop floor technocrats for which their responsibility is hiring and funding, or they’re unprepared to lead, engaged in discovery and development, as is actually required.” [...]
[...] Why C level executives don’t engage in lean by Steven Spear – “Either they’ve been led to believe that it is the work of the shop floor technocrats for which their responsibility is hiring and funding, or they’re unprepared to lead, engaged in discovery and development, as is actually required.” [...]
Steven-
That is a great insight. I also see that C level leaders are frequently so removed from the daily operations, that it is actually intimidating for them to go to the gemba. Because they don’t have the attitude of discovery and learning– they cannot say “I don’t know.”
Having been trained to ‘decide’, you must then have the answers. If you don’t have the answers, you don’t go. Ergo, you don’t learn.
The question that follows is: How do you break out of this cycle?
Richard Tucker
Healthcare Performance Partners
Very good question, it reminds me of an episode that perhaps highlights the importance and the magnitude of the challenge!
Several years ago I coached a leader and tried to get him out more in Gemba and ask questions. His response was; I don’t know what to talk about, I don’t know anything about football!
Steven,
The post title raises THE key question. To mangle a Churchill quote, “(Executives) will always do the right (hard) thing … after they have exhausted all the other (easier-seeming but ineffective) possibilities.” Perhaps the premier exemplar of a firm - holding company, really - that has taken production lean very seriously and lean managerial knowledge work markedly less seriously would be Danaher (Terex/Genie comes to mind as well). Will be interesting to see what the next decade or so has in store for them.
To ask someone who has risen to corporate power by dint of skilled and strenuous application of one set of temperament, thinking, behaviors, and practices to turn at least ninety degrees and adopt a new set (i.e., be incompetent again) that mismatches those of their peers and subordinates just asks too much of all but the rarest execs in rare circumstances. Mostly, firms oscillating in mass production cultural basins of attraction just go out of business (GM) or are bought by competitors with deeper pockets (DEC to Compaq to HP; Rolls Royce, Chrysler). Sooner or later the acquiring firms have the same thing happen to them - gales of creative destruction and all that - because they are increasingly likely to have to compete against lean thinking firms. Finally, several score years after the tipping point all consequential firms are lean thinker-doers.
Even if the consulting money isn’t there presently, the game is in the firms you don’t already know about. Those firms are in emerging economies or are disruptive start-ups (not necessarily small) in developed economies, and the mean age of execs is under fifty.
Hello Steven,
Your proposed two reasons why C-level executives don’t engage in lean (in order to make the change sustainably happen) are very much what I have experienced myself at a large OEM car manufacturer and other times .
Most people on the top a results driven. They “need” results and inevitably this notion goes down the ladder (where also only results are delivered).
Being creative, as lean thinking proposes and Toyota and quite a few other companies show, is a longer process, sometimes subtle and with small impact in the beginning.
This reminds me of the speech RayKurzweil, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ray_kurzweil_announces_singularity_university.html, has given lately here in Dresden: exponential acceleration (of technology). Actually this pattern pretty much goes along with lean and the kaizen-like approach towards improvement.
So, I guess it needs a new “language” in order to make the “idea” of lean clear to c-level executives as well as the other folks.
Best regards, Ralf
PS.: I have been working on building a system dynamics (easy to use) model for doing that together with a PhD-student . @Steven, @all, if you are interested please let me know.
Hello Ralf
Regarding your PS: yes, I’m interested in your system dynamics model. Do you have more information about it?
We make the assumption that C-level management is too busy to see, we place boulders in front of ourselves justifying why they aren’t at the gemba.
The reality is we place these people in their ivory towers and let their schedules and stories convience us they are not needed because they say they “support” the lean initiatives.
The cost for us doing this ends up weakening the lean movement, because we are fighting against a system the C-level’s are attached too and do not feel need to change.
As lean leaders we have an obligation to the customers and employees to let the C-level management see how their visions, strategies, and policies affect everyone whether it is for the good, bad or ugly.
I am currently involved with a very similiar exercise with various levels of management and while it is has not been easy, and courage is needed, some of the more influencial people have seen the impact of past decisions made by them and how it has affected the customers and employees directly, and have been committed towards working on the right things.
So if I were to analyze this series of posts, I learn that to engage C-Level executives in Lean we’ll need to help them to be more comfortable in Gemba by teaching them a new language (how to see, how to question, how to learn…continuously). Perhaps the new generations of leaders can be developed in this way. I can already see the new MBA programs \Learn to Lead in Gemba the Socratic Way\.
@Jeff - so true about Danaher. In my time at Jacobs, I found they had an extremely focused culture of “talking the talk” and engaging in Lean behaviors, but they had a remarkable amount of low hanging fruit in process, system and knowledge planning. What they lacked: configuration management, understanding variation and root cause, partnering with suppliers, design for manufacture. However, they had many sharp people and an awareness that they needed to improve in these areas.
Steven,
You mentioned above in your conclusion “There are two compelling reasons why senior leaders are often absent from lean efforts. Either they’ve been led to believe that it is the work of the shop floor technocrats for which their responsibility is hiring and funding, or they’re unprepared to lead, engaged in discovery and development, as is actually required.”
Its more than being unprepared however, I think its more that they don’t know or understand. Many business leaders don’t realize how much the combination of problem solving, experimentation / tools and “process improvement” skills can help a business get to the next level. Because its not something they understand (or may even try to) they push for other methods that may not be as successful. OR if they do know and understand then the biggest challenge is changing the culture — which is a big one
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