Customer Reviews

Beyond Lean - Lessons for Leading Organizational Change

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I've spent lots of time reading about and teaching procedures for TQM, re-engineering, Lean, etc. transformations.
Despite all this effort about 85% of these programs Fail.
The reasons are that people follow procedures without understanding the philosophy.
Employees recognize programs like this for what they usually turn into--feeding fests of cost cutting and lost jobs.

Perhaps what's more important than what you do, is what you shouldn't do.
This book is very simple and straightforward. easy reading, easy to understand message. It boils down to the key issue in TQM philosophy described in Deming's 14 points "Drive out Fear!"
Are you afraid to admit to your boss that most of what you do adds no value? Are you afraid to admit your job is useless and go find something useful to do in the company? Fear keeps people sandbagging the useless jobs and fighting what otherwise could be be good programs to improve productivity.

All the rest of programs like TQM , re-engineering and Lean transformation is formality and procedures. Most people on the job want to do useful things. Allow people the freedom to pursue productivity without fear and they will seek it out. For technical discussion see an Operations course such as: [...]

Although it's useful to study the procedures of Lean, a good place to start is to read this book which clearly makes the point about what NOT to do. Start there. Good book. worth reading