Driving improvement and change in an organization is hard. It requires a lot of heavy lifting. Employees rarely embrace change because the mind doesn’t like uncertainty. When you talk about change, that leads to an uncertain future in many people’s minds. Here are four tips to make change stick in your organization.
1. Your company is being too casual about it
There is a saying in Lean, what is your burning platform? Early adopters ran into the very thing this blog is about. Employees don’t embrace change on their own.
If you develop a reason for change that all the employees can understand they will help any way that they can. Present a compelling reason why your company needs to change.
Ensure that everyone in the company understands top leadership is driving the burning platform. Without leadership support, nothing will happen.
Is it your competition? Reduced demand for your goods and services? The impact that COVID has had on your company? Develop that burning platform and share it with everyone in the company.
2. Share your Management System
Having a simple message in your Management System presents your burning platform to the employees. In daily huddles review the management system every day. Yes, every day, until everyone realizes this is your True North. This is why you exist as an organization.
It’s also the reason they come to work every day and add value. Hopefully, you have chosen employees that support the True North management system.
3. Use coaches to drive improvements
Lean transformation requires constant coaching. Coaching of leaders, mid-level managers, supervisors, and employees. It is easy for everyone to get distracted by conducting the day-to-day business.
It’s important to have coaches where that is their full-time job. It’s helpful to engage Lean consultants from the outside because they typically have broader experience than “homegrown” talent. At least in the beginning.
Make sure your coaches know that Lean is not just a set of tools, but for genuine success, requires employee engagement. Make sure they are hungry, humble, and smart and can communicate at all levels of the organization.
4. Share your successes
You must share all of your wins with the company. Not just the big wins, landing new customers, recent product releases, etc. But the small wins too.
Reducing lead time by 1%. Increasing equipment up-time by 2% for the month. Improving on-time delivery by 3% in the last quarter. Having 25 employees engaged in Lean activities in the last month.
Share all the wins with the company so employees know things are improving. You are moving toward the True North vision. Unless the employees were involved in the actual Lean events, they may never know the great improvements that are being made in the company.
If you follow these tips, you will be able to make change stick in your organization!
As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today.
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