Lean Management
Lean leadership
Middle management has to drive a Lean culture. Jörn Niewiadomsky discusses the importance of leadership from the top
Many companies have started various Lean or optimisation initiatives with catchy names over the last decades. Names like ‘fit for future’,’ prime’, or ‘Opal 21’. Companies driving initiatives with theses names want to demonstrate internally, as well as externally, their will for a long lasting and continuous improvement journey. Only continuity will bring financial results and motivate employees to follow that journey.
“Every long lasting lean initiative has to start from the top, but if top management does not see any reason for change, why should the rest of the company?”
What in theory sounds logical and is absolutely
right, unfortunately sometimes fails in reality. Every long lasting Lean initiative has to start
from the top. If top management does not see any reason for change, why should the rest of the company? But top management decision alone will not be sufficient to Lean out a worldwide operating company. The key factor for a successful rollout is not only
the top management support. It is the link between shop floor workers, local management and regional ‘Lean teams’. If local management and employees do not support or understand the need for change, it is just a question of time, when the catchy-named improvement campaign is going to fail. I have seen plenty of roll outs, initiatives or projects getting started and stopped, re-started and fail. It’s not the technical Lean skills driving the change.
It is leadership skills on a middle management level which drive or stop a change period. The managers who interact most with the shop floor workers have to understand, believe, and see their own benefit in any improvement programme. If this is not given, the communication to the heart of the
Working to a common goal
company - the workers – will not work and therefore the most important part of Lean management: the involvement of the employees, will not take place. Another important part of Lean leadership is responsibility. Lean teams will only be perceived
“Only continuity will bring financial results and motivate employees”
credible if they take ownership and responsibility for the success of the programme. Lean managers who delegate responsibility with phrases such as: “I can only suggest that people do it or do not, I cannot influence them” are contra-productive to any roll out. In the end it’s the people who have to live and work with the changes and this can establish a Lean culture.
Jörn Niewiadomsky Growtth Consultancy Europe
Jörn Niewiadomsky studied Hotel Administration at the International Management School in The Hague, Holland and subsequently Lean Manufacturing and Process Optimisation at the renowned MIT Institute, Boston, USA. He has more than 10 years of international experience in airline catering and has spearheaded local and global Lean and Restructuring initiatives in several industries. Since 2007 he has been responsible for airline catering and service solutions with the management consultancy Growtth® Consulting Europe. Tel: +49 8151/9093-0 email:
consult@growtth.com Growtth® Consulting Europe GmbH
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