Five Lean Transformation Tips

Learning and transformation are essential elements of a successful lean journey, but it's easy to lose sight of what's important when you're dealing with numerous challenges and a busy schedule. Here are five tips to help you stay on track:

1. Show respect for everyone. Model the values and principles you'd like to see in others, and create a blame-free environment where people can experiment, learn, and succeed.
2. Teach people to solve their own problems and give them the autonomy, responsibility, and support to do it. Leaders need to provide space for people to experiment and learn.
3. Know the 7 Deadly Wastes and work tirelessly to eliminate them. Develop a system to identify and prioritize opportunities for improvement and teach others to spot waste in all processes.
4. Aim for small, incremental improvements from everyone every day. Don't let perfect get in the way of better. Work quickly in small PDCA cycles to make incremental improvements that will add up to significant gains over time.
5. Connect team members to the goals and vision of the organization through clear and open communication cascading from the top of the organization through every level of the org chart. Brief stand-up meetings at the beginning of the day are an excellent way to achieve this.

Staying the course on your lean journey requires dedication and focus, but these five tips can help you and your organization achieve success.