At Castlefirth we say that an organisation needs to have some key elements in place to be on the road to that utopian goal. To have ingredients missing is not necessarily wrong, that depends on what they are. Like making a cake some ingredients missing would just reduce the flavour others missing could result in disaster,
Defining the Purpose
Having a vision of where you want to be as a company is pretty important. It eliminates wasted effort in developing and improving the wrong areas of the business and creates a focus for the team to deliver. It also shows how ambitious the business wants to be. A great vision will have its own “gravitational pull” causing the business to move towards it because it is so clear that that is the destination.
Developing People
Performing as a lean organisation is all about developing the right culture and behaviours. It is essential to involve team members in collaborative improvement. Each member of the business needs to be able to see and understand waste. They also need to understand the concept of flow. This is the only way to avoid errors and engage teams in delivering your goals. Holding, and building upon, the gains made will only happened is the team feel in on the improvement. Leaders need to demonstrate their support in making that happen by being inclusive and delegating responsibility to those teams.
Improving Process
All great lean companies have improving processes at their core. Developing teams that will make improvements in daily increments and larger breakthrough steps is important. Creating the ability to rapidly change process and improve flow will deliver dramatic results for you. Build on these changes with daily problem solving and that will ensure robust change happens as a routine in your business.
If you have these elements in place then you are well on the road to becoming a lean business. As evidence you should be seeing double digit improvement year on year. You should be outrunning your competitors and you should be the employer of choice for your employees. If you are not there yet then we can definitely help you to achieve that it really does not take that long to establish the foundations for making this scale of improvement.