The Lean Nation Hosted By Karl Wadensten
Interview > Living Lean
Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org) Interview excerpts with Karl:LEI: What has been the greatest challenge during the lean transformation and what did you have to do about it?
Wadensten: One of the biggest challenges was to get everybody rallied around continuous improvement and to encourage people not to be afraid of stepping out of their comfort zones. We tried to take everybody's uniqueness and differences into account, so we didn't just get rid of people because they weren’t falling in line with the continuous improvement effort. We were really really patient. The people who couldn’t see themselves changing left on their own. We didn't have to make the hard decision. Three or four people who were the cynics -- you'd think they’d jump on the bandwagon to change and improve -- self-selected themselves out.
LEI: Did you have to make any structural changes to support lean at VIBCO?
Wadensten: No. We're small enough so that people have been able to learn to work in different areas. They've learned different tasks. People in assembly now can go to the machine shop to help out or people in the office can go to production if needed. We've done a lot of cross-training and learning together. We’ve read a lot of books, we've had guest speakers, and we've gone on site visits. All of those things have really helped our team to become tacit learners who are mostly self-directed. So structurally we’ve gotten rid of having people manage minute tasks. They are all teachers now.
LEI: Did you have to change the way you manage and lead?
Wadensten: And I'm still changing. I’m less of a micro manager. I had to believe in the process because as you flex people and they leave work areas to work in different areas, the traditional mentally is to build big batches. I had to become more of a coach to everybody. I had to ask more "why" questions and more process-oriented questions. I had to really believe that people would do things on their own without direction from me, except for establishing a "True North" strategic direction.
LEI: What would you say is the key to sustaining the gains from the lean effort?
Wadensten: I have to be passionate and involved every day, be proud of people, and do these [President’s University] yokoten events to share with people from other companies. When our people share with others, they become teachers. As they teach visitors, they hone and improve their presentations each time. They collaborate and they synthesize information. They’ve become teachers and found their own genius.
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