Here are some of the consolidated thoughts and ideas that were shared by the participants of the Lean Executive Morning workshop on the topic of Leadership Buy In. For more information email us at [email protected] or visit www.leanadvisors.com.
Challenge: Not all senior leaders have the vision, understanding and/or have “bought in” to making Lean a priority.
This is one of the critical steps and foundation blocks that must be in place to ensure the success of any Lean Transformation and Organizational Culture Change.
Root Cause: In our brainstorming sessions, the following were identified as some of the possible reasons this occurs.
- Lack of Knowledge/Education about what lean truly is and its benefits.
- Not aligned with Strategic Goals
- No clear metrics or goals associated
- Unclear about the Return on Investment
- Lack of ongoing communication
- Cultural issues internally
- Conflicting priorities
- Control
- Trust
- Resources to support and sustain lean
- Fear of this being just another “flavour of the month”
Each root cause listed above impacts leadership support and each one of those challenges requires an investigation to determine what would need to be in place to most effectively address them.
Possible Solutions:
Some of the possible solutions or ideas that could help to begin to address the challenge of achieving Senior Leadership buy in were as follows:
- Help Senior Leadership understand the value and overall system impact to create the vision
- Learn to speak the language of the Sr Leadership team and what is important to them
- Demonstrate the ROI of Lean through metrics meaningful to Leaders and its Strategic Alignment within the Organization
- Create capacity with staff and allocate resources to support the vision
- Create small wins which tie into the larger picture and work towards winning over naysayers
- Establish Goals and Focused Scope of Project
- Within you sphere of influence, create a pro-active and empowered culture
These are some of the potential solutions that were identified from our session and are worthy of investigation and strategy. Lean Advisors employs senior consultants who are veterans in the industries they serve. To learn more about how we can help you make your organization everything that it can be, contact us.
