As an organization chooses to implement Lean, or some version of the Toyota Production System, it is a complete change of business. Every line of business changes in some way because the thinking changes. For instance, when an HR department thinks about respect and seeing waste in the process, the hiring practices change, the way we address employee issues changes, and the way we do training changes. What happens if we don't make change the constant though? Without change, there can be no kaizen. Without standards, there can be no kaizen. These statements sound counter to each other, but in practice, they are complementary. This post I'm thinking about changes in nature and how we often can see this idea is similar to that of evolution.
What is so interesting to me is to look at the bones of a human hand and arm, and that of our sea fairing relatives. In the image above are the bones of a human and a dolphin. We share many commonalities with our mammalian relatives. Here's another example, this is the flipper of a manatee:
You can see so many similarities in our structures, but when you look at the creatures as a whole, you find that we are all adapted to our own environments. So what makes us so similar? We have all evolved into what we are today over millions and millions of years. Small mutations occur, creating new and interesting ways things can interact with their environments. Sometimes those mutations, or changes, are better suited for survival, and sometimes they are not. Each small change is then solidified in the genome, and when other mutations occur, it builds upon the last change. As we learn more about all the different genomes of all different types of species, we have found that humans share up to 50% of our DNA with bananas! While we seem so separate from a banana, it's interesting to see how alike genetically we all are. The process by which all this happens is that of evolution.
There is a constant in our existence, that of change. In order for our existence, think back to the millions, even billions of years of changes that had to occur. It's quite amazing to go through this thought experiment. Now, what does this all mean when we think about business and lean organizations? Well, the one constant in lean organizations is that of change. Every day people are looking at their own work and thinking about what can be changed to make things better. Think about what happens in this situation. Like evolution, small changes create better suitability to the environment, which enables the organization to survive changes to its environment. When certain conditions are right, large changes may occur. In a lean organization, this is often called innovative change or kaikaku. In evolutionary terms this could be a creation of a whole new species, while in an organization this could be a whole new value stream.
Why then is change so uncomfortable if it's supposed to be a natural process? There is a comfort with not having to adapt. Humans generally are extremely adaptable due to our creative minds. We farm our food, we have global supply chains networks, and we create all types of things to keep us cool in heat and warm in cold. Generally though, our business environments have been much more apt to creating environments of very little change, especially in large organizations. We call this lack of change bureaucracy. The problem with this is that the environment around the organization is in constant change, whether we find it comfortable or not. Our comfort with not changing is that we continue to survive, and there's nothing really pushing for us to adapt. However, technology advances, financial events occur, and general consumer wants/needs change. When an organization is not comfortable with the change, it means they have not create the environment for change to happen. When things happen that require the organization to adapt, it cannot, and could die. Look recently to Sears, KMart, and JCPenney.
This I think where the ideas around change management come into play. They answer the question, "how can we get people are comfortable with change?" I think the difference between world class lean organizations and those just starting out, is the idea of having all people make the change rather than have the change happen to them. Methods like ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) help people become comfortable with a change that is about to happen or happening. Thinking about this holistically though, we need more of a way to be comfortable with being those that create the changes, constantly searching for something to change rather than just being comfortable with the changes happening to us. So if one is just starting their lean journey, ADKAR or similar change management methods will help people become comfortable with the change of the different way things operate in a learn organization. It really is something that is "happening to them." However, the true goal is to create the environment for all to embrace and create their own changes. We do this because, like evolution, we need our business to be extremely adaptable.
To create that environment, it requires that our whole system support it. Think about the entire organization as the environment that allows for evolution to occur. In general, we need mutations, we need experimentation, we need people to be constantly creating some sort of small changes. What then must we do to have this happen? We must build the skills to make changes, and we must be catalysts of change. Support others' changes. If things go well, we encourage them, and if things go not so well, we encourage them. The encouraging and supportive environment allows people to constantly think about and make change.
Now before you say "what about what Ohno said about standards and kaizen" well I'm getting to that. Like in evolution, we see times where changes aren't so apparent. It doesn't necessarily mean changes aren't happening though! It's just that the changes that are happening have not created something better. So the standard is just what is happening right now. It is the observable state that we all follow. Underlying to this standard is the environment of change, people thinking about what can be changed, and trying out different ways to make things better. When you have so many people thinking this way, you are bound to find something innovative. Toyota doesn't just make cars, they also make other material handling equipment for factories, and internally they make multitudes of one-off products that make their work easier. I'll leave you with an example of what happens when you make this environment for change and when you truly create an environment that allows people to make evolutionary changes. Enjoy the following video from Cambridge Engineering!