I was at the AME Conference 2017 in Boston, MA and was listening to a keynote speech by Paul Akers. If you don't know Paul, you ought to. He is one of the most high energy people you will ever meet. He is absolutely obsessed with Lean Thinking. Watching him speak, there was a phrase used. "Lean is the gasoline." This thought got me thinking about the idea of Lean Thinking as a fire that engulfs an organization.
After his keynote, I walked over to Paul and said "...if Lean is the gasoline, you are the spark." They recorded this interaction (you can see it here), This was my inspiration to start this site. I want to share my experiences with the people I call "Sparx." What does it mean? Be the spark of personality, of principle, and light the fire in yourself and your organization. Some will call this leadership, but this is more than just having leadership skills, this is the motivational drive behind everything we do.
If you have started your Lean Journey, you are bound to have heard or read that "it starts from the top." It starts at the top. The top of what? The top of the organization? The vision for an organization certainly starts at the top, but it takes more than a vision. It takes more than setting a mission statement, or setting a strategy. It takes a spark and fuel.
As an organization, you must decide that Lean is your fuel, and that you are the spark that lights the fire driving your organization to be truly world class. So how do you start? First you must decide, and commit to the whole idea of Lean Thinking. This requires a complete rethinking of how an organization is run and what you do as a leader.
This is the first mindset shift. As a Spark you need to see yourself as a support role for those that are creating the value. Before we can even define the value, we must be self aware that we are not actually creating the value for the customer. We are creating the culture, we are enabling others to develop themselves, develop the processes to create the value. If you can change how you think you are as a leader you will change how your organization runs.
The way I am organizing this is by stories. First we have to go through mindset shifts within ourselves. In Lean Leadership we have a term called "Hansei" (Han - say). It means, self-reflection. It will be the most important things you will learn as a leader. We will end the majority of the mindset chapters with a reflection. Paul Akers calls this "The One Thing" in his book, here we call it "The Reflection." Look into that mirror and ask "In what way do I exemplify this concept? In what way do I need to improve? What did I learn and what can I do right now?"
[Want to know more about Paul Akers? www.paulakers.net]
[Want to know more about AME? www.ame.org]