Erica explains what Lean is, by clarifying a few things it is not.
Sometimes I get questions about what Lean is. Let’s start with what it’s not:
Lean is not being too short-staffed to deliver the result your team is committed to.
Lean is not cutting corners. It’s not about pushing people.
Most importantly of all: Lean is not cutting jobs.
Some managers do use it that way, in order to save money. But they can do it a different way. They can do the improvement, promising up front that no one is going to lose their job as a result. You can certainly reallocate people, but don’t get rid of them.
When you make that choice, it opens people up. It creates safety for people to participate. They may even get excited and start to feel ownership over the improvements and the line’s performance, as they do in Sparkplug, which I designed especially for manufacturing.
When you do an improvement and then use it to cut jobs it’s a short-lived gain. When you work with your people and make it safe for them, you’re going to get those gains over and over again: a much better strategy.
One of the pillars of the philosophy is learning and solving problems together. So try it that way: keep your people on board and work with them. They will adopt your definition of success, follow you and trust you as a leader, if you make it safe for them to do so.
