Unveiling the Secrets to a Sustainable Lean Journey
In 2008, Philip Holt took an exciting step by joining the newly formed Lean team at Royal Philips, where they were tasked with rolling out the ‘Simply Philips Operating System.’ The journey began with a transformative two-week ‘Kaikaku experience’ in Japan. This trip was a real eye-opener! During the first week, the team laid down the basics of the operating system and set their team values.
The second week was spent visiting some of the best Lean organisations in the world. It was during this time that Philip had a pivotal realisation—despite having 20 years of industry experience, including over 15 years practising Lean, there was a significant misunderstanding about what Lean truly means.
As an engineer, Philip had eagerly embraced the Lean and Six Sigma toolkit and had seen impressive results in various projects. These projects were well-received by senior management, and the teams involved were praised for solving some of the company’s biggest challenges.
Failure To Sustain Lean
But there was always a nagging question: Why didn’t the dramatic improvements in one area always lead to overall better results for the entire value stream? Or why did the results fade over time? Seeing how other top companies had deeply woven Lean into the fabric of these organisations made things clearer for Philip.
The Critical Elements to Lean
Over the following years, Philip’s understanding of Lean deepened, especially regarding how critical the behavioural and systematic elements are compared to just focusing on tools.
The journey of Lean into the Western world started with studies by Womack, Jones, and others, who introduced the Toyota Production System (TPS) through books and articles since the late 1980s. This led to the term “Lean” being coined by John Krafcik, a graduate student at MIT working on research with Lean Enterprise Institute founder Jim Womack. The scientific approaches developed by Western figures like Taylor, Shewhart, and Deming were adopted by the Japanese and blended with their culture, creating an operating system centred on people-centric problem-solving. Unfortunately, when Lean was adopted in the West, the toolkit was embraced, but the underlying philosophy often got left behind.
The West’s Over-reliance on Tools
This isn’t surprising since the philosophical aspects of Lean and their impact on leadership are subtle and not as immediately obvious as the more tangible, engineer-friendly tools. It took Philip many years to fully grasp what it means to live Lean, understanding that the intangible behavioural aspects are just as important—if not more so—than the concrete tools that might give a false sense of confidence.
Leadership Behaviour
During the Japanese Kaikaku experience, the team came up with the slogan for Simply Philips: Simple systems; Smart behaviours. These ‘smart behaviours’ now form the foundation of the Next Generation Lean Leader training course, which Philip will be leading with True North Excellence on the 19th and 20th of November in Coventry, UK.
In this course, Philip will emphasise that being a Lean Leader is all about developing the right behaviours to break down barriers to success—the obstacles that cause delays, frustration, and those long, exhausting work hours. It’s these behaviours that make the difference between delivering world-class performance for customers and the more mediocre outcomes that too often come from traditional leadership practices.
Changing How We Lead, Not Who We Are
Philip will be there to guide participants, helping them take control of both their professional and personal lives. The course offers an alternative to the status quo and provides a path to rise above the daily grind of firefighting. As Philip puts it in his third book, it’s all about: Changing how you lead, not who you are.
The training is designed to walk leaders through the five key foundations of People-Centric Lean Leadership:
- Leadership Philosophy & Culture Leaders are responsible for bringing the organisation’s vision, mission, objectives, and values to life. To do this, they must model the behaviours they expect from others and drive the business strategy by delivering:
- A long-term, purposeful vision.
- Hoshin Kanri for focused execution.
- An effective Kaizen Event Planning Process.
- A well-designed and executed organisational structure.
- Activist Leadership Successful Lean leadership is about creating habits that generate stability while also allowing for innovation. It’s a balance between using standards to ensure predictability and consistency, which then frees up time for creativity. Leaders must empower their teams, coaching them to become autonomous in achieving their results. This requires:
- Leader Standard Work that encourages the right behaviours and supports the team.
- Kamishibai (layered process audits) to uncover and solve problems.
- Kata coaching to develop team members’ problem-solving skills.
- Workplace Excellence A workplace where performance status is immediately visible is key. Leaders must ensure:
- 5S is implemented to make the workplace highly effective and visual.
- A visual environment with the right metrics so that performance is clear at a glance.
- Daily Management & Problem Solving One of the core duties of a leader is to ensure the business runs smoothly, delivering on customers’ needs with the right quality, cost, and timing. Above all, leaders must ensure their people are safe and engaged. When issues arise, leaders need to make sure their teams can solve problems quickly and effectively. This involves:
- Daily Management driving performance.
- Using data and metrics to manage performance.
- Rapid Problem Solving, with proper support and escalation processes.
- Teams that are proactive in making the news, not just reporting it.
- Creating the Kaizen Culture A Kaizen Culture is a hallmark of any great organisation. It’s where everyone has the authority and expectation to solve problems and improve processes every day. Leaders must:
- Promote a Kaizen culture where everyone is involved in solving problems and making improvements.
- Ensure both safety and process issues are resolved quickly.
- Encourage knowledge sharing to speed up the adoption of improvements.
- Lead an army of problem solvers.
If this resonates with you, consider joining Philip at the Next Generation Lean Leader training course on the 19th and 20th of November in Coventry, UK. It’s an opportunity to learn, grow, and take your leadership skills to the next level.