Leading Lean

Chapter 1. Overcoming Today’s Crisis in Leadership

Putting the customer first is at the heart of Lean. Everything a Lean leader does must be driven by the goal of filling your customers’ unmet wants, needs, and/or desires. If that’s not happening, you’re not creating and delivering value. Are you just going through the motions, thinking what you do is value-driven? How do you know whether or not you’re moving toward your True North—that is, whether you’re accomplishing your vision through mission and purpose and fulfilling your value proposition?

The greatest challenges a Lean leader faces today spring forth from these questions because the meaning of customers is very broad in the world of Lean. They can be the employees who create and deliver your products/services, the customers who buy and consume them, and those in your community, your country, and yes, even the world (known as stakeholders) who are impacted by their existence—in other words, the Lean ecosystem that you as a leader call your “world.” That means your perspective needs to be far-reaching and not colored only by what is right in front of you.

It also means embracing agility and understanding that you must learn to effectively respond and adjust to change through continuous improvement and evolution. When you stop improving and evolving, the game is over and complacency sets in. Over 40% of all companies today will cease to exist within the next 10 years.¹ Will your company be one that survives and thrives, or ...