What are the common challenges and pitfalls of implementing lean culture and how do you overcome them?

The focus should be on the creation of a transparent culture that rewards high productivity and encourages same when it comes to implementing lean management projects. It is crucial to also recognize that lean management leads to several benefits like green business practices. Management of institutions must be actively involved in lean change management initiatives and lead by example, so that when there are implementation challenges, leaders can constitute an important incentive to keep subordinates ago! Senior executives must also Invest in lean training programs but since lean training issues evolve, it is important to create a continuous improvement mindset to ensure employee knowledge does not stay static but evolves over time!

In my experience, whether it is lean or any other form of transformation, resistance to change will naturally be a challenge. This is the most common issue known to man because it is just human nature. I imagine that there was a resistance to the wheel when it was first introduced by the inventor. If one looks up the Kubler-Ross model for 'Individual Change', it is clear that 6 - 7 stages that one goes through before fully integrating that change. I made a post on this sometime ago that shared 4 ways to combat resistance to change. 1. Clarify the benefits. 2. Demonstrate the organization's commitment to change. 3. Develop and execute the communication plan. 4. Deploy the change management plan.

More dangerous than lack leadership support is lack of the proper leadership support. I led a lean/six sigma kaizen event that included a cross-functional team of scientists and engineers. Because they were cross-functional, they were from different power silos. Before I started, I convinced a senior VP to be my team champion. To start the meeting, this champion gave a brief kick-off meeting to make sure that everyone realized how important this event was. When the inevitable power struggles worked their way into our event, a reminder of who our champion is was enough to quickly squash these and allow our team to continue towards a successful conclusion.

As we transform, we have to take on new skills and adapt to new situations. Interestingly, I recently made a post on this albeit I was referring to digital transformation, but I think the same has applied to the lean transformations I have led in the past. I offered that there are 4 ways to combat a lack of expertise (skills/ knowledge): 1. Form a skills taskforce. 2. Audit existing skill sets. 3. Upgrade leadership mindsets and skills. 4. Elevate current skills training programs. Note that this 4-step approach presupposes that one starts with some version of vision alignment and capabilities assessment to determine that this specific transformation is what is required by the organization.

Creating a lean culture is hard work and is definitely a journey and not a sprint. In my early years of consulting, I used to wonder why some top performing manufacturing companies went as far as opening up their organizations and sharing their methodology to the rest of the world, including their competition. I even asked the question of someone in one of these organizations and his response was, "it doesn't matter". He was basically saying that it did not matter how much they showed others how they were doing it, they would always come short in implementation because of inconsistency, lack of discipline, disorganization and no grit.

I found that the most important thing when leading a lean event is to get people to stop thinking in terms of why something couldn't be done. Instead of saying why we couldn't do something, get them to start saying what needs to change. Teach them the power of 'if'. "If we're going to do xyz, then we're going to have to ..." Without this, it's difficult to make significant change.