It's up to you. If you want to shift your mindset, that is ultimately your choice. I cannot tell you that Lean is the way to go for you company or organization, nor can I say that any of the principles will definitely work for you and your teams. I think it is required that we face this "elephant in the room" together early on. It is important as a team that you face this together as well.
Why are we doing this?
As a team, ask yourselves this question: "Why do we want to transform our organizational culture?" You may want to ask a few more "Why" questions here specific for your team. It's ultimately up to you to go forth with this. There is no top down dictatorial action that can change how you or anyone else thinks about their work, life, or role as a leader. If you feel you have no organizational influence, ask this question of yourself.
We have previously talked about the two major mindset shifts of Supporting the Value and Respect Every Individual. This is the last of mindset posts before we get into more of the stories of sparks, and how they use Lean concepts and principles to build world class cultures. This shift is simple. You can only change yourself.
All too often I have found people say things similar to "well if only they would change how they do things." I've read in multiple books on culture, and spoke with many people who have focused on the culture change in their organizations and they all say it is up to you. Personally and as an organization, it is up to you. There is nothing else to it. You can influence others, but their minds can only change when they want to change.
What's your personal Journey? How will you coach others on their Journey?
We normally talk about an organization's Lean Journey, but truly it is our own Lean Journey. Each individual will develop in their own way, and each will have to go through similar mindset shifts as we all have. They must first see themselves as a support and development role in the organization, then they must realize that everything they do is to respect the individual. All the remaining "Lean Principles" are learned skills, but think about this. How hard would it be to change the individual that you are today to do something you've never done before? How hard is it just to change your routine in the morning? How hard is it to put your right shoe on before your left? The point is, no change, especially changes in how we fundamentally think about the world, are overnight changes. We must be curious and want to learn, and reinforce our change in mindset with action. The ideas are simple enough to understand, but in practice what does it mean to us?
We recently have discussed this cultural change concept with some very influential people within our organization. We continue to struggle with the idea of "how will they take this?" and "are we ready in our maturity for this?" I think we have to come to that conclusion individually and as a team. Individually you need to take that first step and say "I'm willing to try" and as a team we must say "We are willing to work through these concepts together and learn together."
I've been quite inspired by Paul Akers, Robert Hafey, Michael Ballé, Jim Womack, John Shook, and many like them. There is a consistent message within their teachings (and those of Ohno and Shingo), and that is that none of what Lean is can help you if you don't commit to the ideals of developing people, respecting people, and supporting people. If you cannot make any of those commitments, or you cannot reflect upon yourself, then there is little more you will get from any further reading in this blog, or any books on Lean. Find a coach, or a group, go to a conference, watch some Lean culture videos, visit a Lean company - if you even do any of those things to better convince yourself that this is the path you want to take, you are already ahead of the game. The small commitment to improve yourself is what it takes to become a spark.
As we move forward now, I will be focusing on stories of these sparks, personal stories of those that have influenced me, and stories I've heard from others, and I will try to tie these all back to the Lean culture, and how as sparks, we build the culture and help it spread through coaching and developing others to make that self commitment to thinking and being Lean, and ultimately becoming a Lean Spark as well.