Gestalt Lean: The whole is more than the sum of its parts

There are many discussions around why Lean Transformations fail in organisations and, as I discussed in my book "Leading with Lean" and in my LinkedIn articles "10 Signs that your Lean Program is failing (and what to do about it)" and "Lean doesn't work! (And what to do about it)" there is a significant probability that your Lean efforts are not bearing the fruit that you would like them to do.

My experience and observations have led me to the conclusion that one of the biggest causes of this is the fervent focus on the tools, and many practitioners get themselves stuck in the trap of having the proverbial hammer and therefore seeing every problem as a nail. Sometimes there might be a little more nuance, and there might be two or three tools in the toolkit, but there is generally a focus on a single tool or methodology. The most common symptom of this is the sometimes evangelistic belief in the tool or methodology's role as the organisational panacea, to the exclusion of other approaches and, most concerning, without the engagement of the organisation's people.

Probably the most commonly observable feature of this symptom is that the organisation builds a team of experts to solve their problems:

The philosophy is: "Experts solve problems"

If you wonder about this, take a look at the Lean, CI, Six Sigma, OpEx, etc. sites on LinkedIn and observe how many discussions you see about Lean vs Six Sigma vs Agile vs TPS vs Toyota Way vs CI vs Kaizen vs many other views of the right methodology. You'll also see multiple visuals that attempt to demonstrate the 'differences' between the different methodologies.

The alternative to this, which is immediately obvious in a Lean Thinking organisation, is that their approach to Excellence operates at the philosophical level, it's not about the tools, its about the people, engaging everyone and ensuring full alignment to maximising the value that they deliver to their customers everyday. This has been, or is being, accomplished through their Lean Operating System, a holistic approach that adopts and utilises the tools and methodologies required to solve the problems facing the organisation and the most obvious feature of this system is that:

The philosophy is: "Everyone solves problems"

These companies have built armies of problem solvers, with everyone in their organisation able to solve problems at their level of complexity, from the Team members on the shop floor all the way through to the engineers, support functions and leadership team. The tools and methodologies used are selected based upon need and those who need them are trained at the appropriate level of use.

This is Gestalt Lean, where the system is such that it is much more than the sum of its individual parts and when people look at how the organisation operates it is difficult to say whether any one tool or methodology is more important than another. In the same way that no reasonable person would argue if a car's engine or wheels are more important, in these organisations no one argues about the relative import of Kaizen versus Six Sigma DMAIC.

This is the vision of a Lean organisation, one which delivers value to its customers every day through highly engaged people who are constantly problem solving, using the right tool for the job and building excellence into everything they do.

Gestalt Lean works and is much better than hitting everything with a hammer...

If this article has piqued your interest and you'd like to know more about creating a Lean thinking organisation, the Axiom Business Book Award Winning, “The Simplicity of Lean: Defeating Complexity, Delivering Excellence” is available globally.

Both "Leading with Lean" and "The Simplicity of Lean" are available to order:

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