FAMILY & HOME
Always Lean
Toward LEAN
In his book, “Big-Hearted Leadership,” Mercy executive vice president of operations Donn Sorensen shares his Five Keys to Create
Success Through Compassion. In this time of electronic communication, we selected a topic to preview from the book that we think
will resonate with our aspirational readership. The following comes from Chapter One: Give Your People a Structure They Can
Lean On. “Big-Hearted Leadership” is available at amazon.com or donnsorensen.com.
M
y friend George Roman served as a top executive
for the Boeing Company for more than 33 years.
Today, he’s a business consultant. He helps clients
all over the world succeed by implementing
disciplined and measurable processes to help them
accomplish their goals in a far more efficient way. Later in his career, he
learned of a systematic manufacturing method originally implemented
by the Toyota Motor Company in Japan, but innovated and applied
brilliantly by Boeing. That method is often referred to as “LEAN”
manufacturing or the “LEAN” method.
I love LEAN. I’ve had the opportunity to walk through the Boeing
factories myself here in St. Louis and observe LEAN in real life. I
marveled as fighter jet after fighter jet rolled off the line. I’ve also
implemented LEAN principles and processes at the company I serve.
I love LEAN because it promotes the best of both worlds. It is
remarkable at eliminating waste, making the complicated simple, and
keeping only those actions or processes that truly add value.
But it doesn’t achieve those goals at the expense of people. Quite
the opposite: The LEAN process values employees and increases
their involvement. For instance, two core principles of LEAN are (1)
the continual educational development of employees and (2) granting
employees on every level the authority to halt production if they
identify a threat to quality. Suffice it to say, LEAN is not an either/or
kind of system. It is a both/and.
Obviously, this is not the place to go into a point-by-point
explanation of LEAN. My point is that there is already a tried-and-true
organizational method in existence that values and promotes both
productivity and people. In my opinion, the LEAN structure and a Big-
Hearted leader are a match made in heaven!
And just in case you’re wondering: If your business doesn’t involve
manufacturing, that’s OK. The basic principles and processes of LEAN
can be almost universally applied. By the way, books on LEAN are
legion, but you can check out “The Toyota Way” by Jeffrey K. Liker for
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GAZELLE STL
a good overview and explanation.
The bottom line is that the structure you choose should operate
on the same principles as LEAN. Does your structure have all the fat
trimmed off of it? Does it place equal value on productivity and people?
If it’s not LEAN, it better be like it.