Lean Management –

Five mantras for leaders of lean

Ella Bennett

We’ve all heard of the not-invented-here syndrome: the knee-jerk rejection of a new practice or process that’s dumped on a team along with the implication that someone else, somewhere else, knows how to run the business better. Disappointed leaders often rail at what they see as timid resistance to change, further souring the atmosphere.

Lean management is potentially the most powerful vehicle available to all organisations, even those that have run out of ideas for improving their operations. Lean is a way of seeing, thinking and doing, it isn’t about grabbing what seems to have worked elsewhere, and plugging it into your own environment. Whatever your organisation, its sector, size or heritage – it’s your observations, standards and assessments that count, not other peoples. Going lean means departing from the path of the herd and committing to the path that’s right for your business. 

The challenge for any organisation that wants to become lean is not centred on the tools, the jargon or the mindset of lean. It’s about the organisation’s ability to understand itself, and to make the small, repeated changes which, over time, add up to transformation.

Ella Bennett is responsible for the team delivering our lean programme. Building on our branded Sense and Respond approach, this organisation-wide transition will further differentiate our IT services by instilling the continuous improvement mindset of lean philosophy.

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