System
Lean thinking and continuous improvement techniques are now so widespread, nearly every organisation has experience of them.
Despite being applied around the world in nearly every sector, most organisations follow a predictable improvement path (first trying out various improvement tools, next developing subject matter experts, then chasing accreditation and setting up corporate functions).
The problem is that this approach is fundamentally flawed, even the so called experts that have been on the journey for decades still struggle. And end up:
- Applying the wrong improvement techniques at the wrong time (action without performance improvement).
- Organisations and their teams are unable to fix problems and improve (end up living with Firefighting and disruption).
- Leaders, Managers and Supervisors are unable to play their role and turn around underperforming teams.
But, worst of all is that management fail to learn how to effectively lead in an improvement environment