Leadership

We do a lot of planning and talking in the organization (too much in my opinion), but we are also getting more effective at implementation. Teams are now much more action oriented, trying things to see if they work and being structured about the experiments they are running. In almost every venue I find myself in there is evidence of teams piloting work and there is no doubt that there is an increasing rate of learning and improvement. Where in the past we would have spent months if not years talking about how we would do something we now tend to break the work down into smaller parts and implement changes quickly. We then check these changes and see what works and what does not work and adjust accordingly. When I step back and think about what we have done to begin to shift the culture it is hard for me to pinpoint the specific causes. There are probably many and a lot of them were not necessarily intentional. I guess this is why we call this a journey. Causes include: A management system that has required management to be much more disciplined and in the gemba asking teams to improve one week at a time Managers that are much more focused on the process then they used to be. This leads to staff being encouraged to try things and learn from the doing. New skills that teach all staff and managers about the value of standard work, problem solving, process thinking and reducing waste. Greater transparency and visibility of what the improvement and daily work is and when it needs to be done. This leads us to better understand and manage capacity (while it often does not seem like it). Etc

Lean Quote: The Practice of Leadership

Brian Buck — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:54:07 +0000

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Interview with Paul O’Neill; The Right Goals in Healthcare

Brian Buck — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:36:38 +0000

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Pascal Dennis: You can’t flow or pull without Jidoka

Brian Buck — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:48:55 +0000

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