"Gaining Cultural Traction"

I saw a great posting on the Lean Blog today - How to get started with a Lean culture? The wisdom and experience displayed by the responses is excellent. If you are interested in the topic, I recommend you visit the blog and read the valuable advice given there.

When I think of the organizations I know who have made steady progress toward a Lean culture, most share a similar Lean beginning - their initial activities gained traction quickly. Here are some of the characteristics those early efforts had in common:

1) real problems were solved right away
2) initial problem solving efforts demonstrated the usefulness of Lean
3) detailed training was “point specific” to the task at hand
4) those who do the daily work participated in an authentic way
5) pre-work ensured team activities made good use of everyone’s time and knowledge
6) team leaders never dismissed concerns – instead they were treated as valuable insights and then resolved to the satisfaction of the group
7) sincere credit was given where genuine credit was due
8) if anything went wrong “after the fact”, the team circled back around and fixed the problems right away

This formula remained constant and was part of the magic that allowed positive changes to stick and accelerate the larger effort forward.