When thinking about a lean enterprise, it is easy to get drowned by complexity. Maybe you don’t know where to start. Maybe you focus on your production processes and do your best to streamline as much as possible.
What about lean management throughout the entire organization?
Start easy.
One area where EVERYONE in the whole company can focus on is
LEAN THINKING and LEAN SPEAKING.
Trust me - it might sound funny, but it can be quite challenging, especially if you want to change your meeting culture into that direction.
Lean thinking and lean speaking can be a very powerful way to change your organization.
Lean thinking includes a regular self-observation and reflection on one’s own thoughts and productivity.
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Lean thinking includes questions like:
Was this thought helpful for my progress/the company’s purpose?
How much time do I spend on positive and productive thinking versus repetitive or negative thinking?
Am I able to stop those thoughts which do not serve me?
Lean speaking is at least as powerful and important, because it impacts the speaker AND everyone listening. Especially in business meetings, there can be a tendency towards muda speaking, meaning that the words spoken could be avoided or shortened. Out of courtesy or due to hierarchical power, people rarely speak up and tell the speaker to change his communication style. Resulting in businesses spending huge amounts of time (which is money) on meetings.
Lean speaking can be achieved by using the following questions:
How much value do the words and time I use bring to the audience?
Do I speak more than others? If yes, is it beneficial and needed?
Could I use less words and still send the same message?
Have I ever asked for feedback regarding my communication style?
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If you want to consider a lean approach in your own work style, take the following steps:
1. Start with yourself. No matter if you are a leader or not, you can become a role model and live by these values.
2. Observe yourself. Do you enjoy talking? How much time do you spend exchanging with colleagues? Do you stick to your meeting agendas or do you usually need more time than expected? Is your communication precise and to the point or do you need a lot of time for the sake of exchanging?
(The value of relationships is not to be underestimated. However, we are focusing on lean management here.)
3. Be honest with yourself regarding what is needed and where you could save time. When listening to people who enjoy communicating, they often find many reasons for why it took them longer than planned. Only if you strongly focus on your individual power in any given situation, you will be able to change the outcome.
4. Practice. Pick one item which you want to improve. Then focus on it until you establish a new habit. For example, you decide to shorten a meeting and strictly follow the agenda in the time given. If the time is over, you will end the meeting, even if not everything has been discussed. If the leftovers remain urgent and important, you can set up a follow up. If not, they can be discussed another time or be postponed until they truly become more important.
5. Be patient. Don’t expect a complete change in a day. It takes time to discover what works best for you and your business. You can start immediately without much preparation, then experiment, observe, and adapt whenever needed.
6. When you have achieved a positive effect for yourself, broaden your vision. Observe your team or other people around you and see how you can help them become lean. The more people work on a lean thinking and lean speaking approach, the faster your culture will change into that direction.
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As mentioned in point 2, and working in Human Resources, I know about the value of relationships. If people always communicated with the minimum of words possible, relationships would suffer and remain more superficial in the long run. At the same time, if everyone focused on the lean approach on a regular basis, the effect on any organization would be tremendous. It is not about either/or - it is about choosing the right approach depending on the situation.
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