Customizing Lean Leadership: New Facilitator Case Studies

Abstract

This paper presents the fourth issuance of Building a Lean Culture with a Lean Leadership (LL) training program initiated by the company. So far, the LL program has reached over five hundred participants. Over the last year, the program "grew" new passionate facilitators who then taught their Business Units and Departments. These new facilitators engaged with their students at a much deeper level by applying the concepts specifically to meet their needs. The connection was cultivated organically because both the teachers and students had a personal and professional relationship already in place from working together. This paper shares success stories from the new facilitators on how their teams, in the company's value stream, applied LL knowledge to their business. The concepts were applied in a variety of ways including go to the Gemba as a customer strategy for computer specialists, who typically work in the office. Transforming the company's business includes all leaders teaching LL as a key part of their skillsets to improve organizational health. The program's main goal is to disseminate lean through the company to support "the Leadership model" described by Howell (Howell et al. 2004) which is "coaching and continual fostering of an organizational environment conducive to building trust among people for collaboration, learning, and innovation".