Lean Management: The Art of Asking the Right Questions

Posted on26. Apr, 2009 by carolesf.

How is Lean Management distinct from Lean Manufacturing and Lean Office?  If you have Lean Manufacturing, don’t you automatically have Lean Management?  If Lean is all about cutting out wasted time, then shouldn’t Lean Managers act quickly and decisively?  The faster a decision, the better — and more Lean — it must be, right?

Well, not exactly. 

How is Lean Management Different?

The difference between Lean Manufacturing / Lean Office and Lean Management is the same difference as between personal excellence and leadership. 

Lean Manufacturing and Lean Office are all about performing to high standards.  Lean Management, by contrast, is all about inspiring and enabling others to perform to equally high standards.  This is the mark of a true leader.  In the sense of inspiring and enabling excellence in others, all teachers are leaders, and all leaders are teachers.   

Consider a concert pianist honing his skills to the point where he can give a world-class performance.  Yet this same pianist might not be a very good teacher.  Why not?  He has achieved personal excellence of the highest order.  Shouldn’t that qualify him as an excellent teacher?  Not necessarily.  He may not relate well to beginners.  He may lack patience with those less skilled.  He may be a poor communicator.  In other words, he may not be able to inspire and enable others to achieve their own excellence. 

It’s all about leadership. 

Paradoxically, true leadership, the kind that inspires and enables fast, Lean production, does not necessarily come from quick decisions.  It’s not about finding fast answers, it’s about finding the right answers.  And you can’t find the right answers without asking the right questions. 

And to ask the right questions, it may take some time to assess, analyze, and apprehend the meaning of a given situation.  It takes trying, perhaps failing, and learning from that.

Lean Management means being free to fail?  What?  Wouldn’t that be wasteful?  Who wants to be wrong — and be seen to be wrong?  Don’t we all know someone (or know of someone) who has been fired for screwing up?  And now we’re supposed to believe that world-beating management should be given permission to fail?     

It may seem counterintuitive, but then didn’t the banishment of inventory stockpiles seem counterintuitive at first too?  How could a system that lacked the “padding” of a safety margin actually be more robust?  Yet that is the essence of Lean Manufacturing — and it has proven its worth. 

Lean Management will prove its worth too. 
 
You’re not allowed to learn from your failures because you’re not allowed to fail?  That just means you’re not allowed to be caught failing; no one is perfect.  Another way of saying that is, “Sending only good news upstairs.”  This is SOP in, well, just about any company you can think of.  Yet this is a recipe for destroying the morale of your best workers, and giving your competition a chance to blindside you — and both of these contribute to driving your customers elsewhere. 

The proper role of true leadership — Lean Management — is to find and expose your company’s problems, before your competition can exploit them to your detriment.  To ask the right questions.  To learn from failure.  To find an answer that you’re sure is the right one — not just the fastest one.  When you can do that — then you’ll know you’re a leader.  And your company will be one too.

Welcome back to Lean Six Sigma Source! Thanks for your continued support.

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