The success of the journey towards organizational change is dependent on the ability of management to dedicate itself to the process, to represent the common purpose and vision for all of the stakeholders in the organization and to discover leadership that can bring all of these to fruition. In order to generate broad organizational support for change, senior management must develop a vision that represents the organization at its best – creating value for its customers, its employees, its suppliers and its stockholders.
Supporting the change processes in a variety of organizations has proven that focused support for the team that is leading the organization is a crucial component of change. The process of adapting the Lean Transformation perspective will bring managers to view their organization from the point of view of the customer and not merely to view the customer from the point of view of the organization. The support of the management team and the group of change agents will include five dimensions: articulating purpose; defining the course of the value-creating processes; training activists in the A3 problem-solving methodology; redefinition of the role of the manager and the component of leadership, and, finally, design of the organizational culture (basic assumptions, values and accepted patterns of behavior).
Support for management includes, among other components, Gemba walks and conversations with customers and the people who are doing the work. The learning from the walks through the field will be processed and purified into the organizational process and operative programs for its realization. Management will learn to support the journey towards change as Mentors for the intermediate-level managers and workers. Personal training through simulations and role playing is most effective in developing the ability to ask questions rather than provide answers. The job of the members of management transforms from setting objectives and monitoring their achievement to the role of change-leaders who develop a different organizational culture based on attentiveness to customers and constant improvement of work processes in order to provide greater value for the customer. The managers learn how to identify and minimize waste (anything that does not directly or indirectly bring value to the customer) and enlist the entire managerial and work lineup in this important endeavor. Management will learn how to observe the existing organizational culture and how to improve it through cycles of PDCA and experiments.
ILE and LGN view the processes of change in the views of management as a central focus for their activities. The process of Lean Transformation for change is the foundation and framework for all of the institute’s activities.