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Company "X" was in business more than 120 years yet little progress had been made in more than 40 years. The equipment was ancient and there was a kind of reverence for tradition that precluded any type of innovation. The systems used to manage Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management and Distribution were out of date and ineffective.

The management seemed to be caretakers of an artifact rather than actively pursuing continuous process improvement (CPI). The company did not react to changes in the marketplace, was losing money, and then was sold which accelerated their decline. I was promoted to Plant Manager and was given 90 days to turn around their worst plant in their North American Operations. A turnaround would require a great deal of change to be implemented quickly. This article is a depository of the lessons I learned on successful change methodology which resulted in going from the worst plant in the company to the best in less than six months.

There are always obstacles to overcome whenever you implement change of any kind. You have to overcome the "inertia" factor which is the tendency to keep using the same methods even though they are no longer effective or efficient. In general, people get in their "comfort zone" and don't like to move out of it. Certainty is valued more than trail blazing in a new direction by many companies.

People in general do not like change, especially change for the worse. In time, they can come to embrace change for the better. Unfortunately many companies have a history of implementing change unsuccessfully; therefore, it is resisted either openly or in secret. People tend to remember failed attempts and the resulting stress from having to cope with a disaster, and this makes them extremely reluctant to potentially have a repeat performance. Conversely, if successes are common place and the support of the implementation team is unwavering, then change for the better will be welcomed.

In some companies there is a herd mentality which has been made worse with too large a dose of consensus management. Dissent is discouraged by peer pressure. Building consensus is a good thing, if everyone agrees on how to proceed, then the implementation phase is apt to go much smoother. Usually obvious errors are caught by consulting a number of people and good ideas can be made into great ones. However, the downside may be that an out of the box idea, which has enormous potential, is dismissed as too radical a departure from the status quo. Mediocrity can be the result. The least offensive and perhaps the least effective ideas may be adopted. It is something to be guarded against.

If someone is very passionate about their ideas and has the persistence to buck the group think, and are willing to put their skin in the game to prove that they are right, I'd be inclined to give them great leeway to give it a try, unless a failure would be disastrous

These are the very people you need to nurture and protect if you are to implement change successfully. If you do not have people like this on your staff, you need to seek them out and hire them. Often their different way of thinking, uncovers opportunities that would have remained hidden for years. They are rare individuals being both risk takers, visionaries, and champions of continuous improvement. The have persistence which helps them to take set backs in stride and keep trying out solutions until they have advanced the process to a higher level.

One thing to remember about the herd mentality is that you can make it work for YOU. Instead of having the herd stampeding away from your ideas, turn the herd around so they are following you. A string of successes goes a long way towards that happening.

Change is a three step process:

1. you unlock the status quo
   
2. you implement the change
   
3. you relock the new status quo

That being said, "relocking the status quo" must be TEMPORARY in nature under Continuous Process Improvement/LEAN. The method, process, or operation in place is only in use until a better way is found. In the mean time, experimentation is the order of the day.

Company X moved toward change at a glacial pace in a series of failed starts, punctuated by long periods of inactivity. Change was very unpredictable. The problems that cropped up during an implementation were not dealt with on a timely basis, creating a great deal of stress in the people forced to deal with awkward workarounds and benign neglect.

Successful change is the process of making the unfamiliar, familiar. The way I accomplished this was to make small changes continuously throughout the day with the full knowledge of everyone involved. Continuous successful change BECAME the status quo. In time, people became more invigorated by their work. An idea they had a eight in the morning may be already implemented before lunch time.

My job was to save the plant by reducing costs. The way I accomplished it to a large extent, was by making other people's work lives better. I don't believe that people should have to break their backs to get their jobs done. I also found out what they wanted. For example, some people wanted a paid day off for doing a job well done and for them it was a powerful motivator to help a project to become a success. If you are selfish and in it for yourself, you will only have one person working on your behalf. If you help 100 people, you will have a hundred people helping you advance your career. In effect, by helping them, I was helping myself.

I had interviews with all of my key staffers and set goals. We developed plans to help them to achieve them. I helped them to achieve their professional goals and in turn they supported my goals. I wrote letters for their personnel files documenting their contributions.

One thing I heard over and over was "we always did it this way, why change it." The strategy I used was "this is just an experiment; if it doesn't work out we can always try something else or go back to the old way." I also made sure I was available to smooth out any problems.

I always incorporated the ideas of the factory personnel into the project. I treated them as collaborators and colleagues whereas previously their ideas were not listened to and their ideas were rarely tried out at all. Since I really listened to them, they became more and more receptive to my ideas. If they were reluctant to talk to me, I would say "you're the expert on this, I need your opinion." I have found that this methodology of handling changes eliminates much of the initial resistance to new ideas.

Often, their problems and mine were closely related. I took a tour through the plant at least four times a day just to observe the operations first hand and I spoke to over thirty people a day asking them how we could make their jobs better. I took notes on the spot of anything they told me. It showed them the importance I placed on their expertise and I took immediate action on their suggestions. I learned about their hobbies, how they felt about their jobs, their aspirations and ideas for process improvement..

What impressed them even more was when we implemented an idea of theirs and gave them credit for it. Once people knew they could trust me, the flood gates opened wide. People would come up to me and give their insight. They became enthusiasts and proponents for change for the better. The difference between people dragging themselves to work and looking forward to a better workplace was enormous.

Sometimes to accomplish something big, you have first start with something small. One of the first things I did was to save articles about LEAN success stories and circulate them to managers quietly on all levels. I did this over a period of months. Some people commented to me that they were intrigued by the idea of implementing LEAN, others had a negative reaction to the articles.

I then knew the potential allies in this venture and who were the skeptics. I worked to get the continued support of potential allies by answering their questions and keeping them updated with new information about LEAN. The skeptics were divided into two groups; those that would never consider the LEAN way because they thought it would invalidate the way they had run operations for 30 years, and those who could be won over.

I thought that the best way to convince the latter group was to show them through an innocuous pilot project, how LEAN would work with our products. We chose an area that was far out of the mainstream that was supervised by a foreman who was willing to give LEAN a try.

DO NOT hire a brass band or plaster banners all over the plant. DO NOT tell everyone your plans and don't make any speeches. If you do all this, all that will be accomplished is to marshal the forces of inertia, mobilize the naysayers against you, and raise expectations too high. They most likely will stop you before you get started. If your company has a history of failed projects, this is how they usually start, followed by a rapid crash and burn. Do not telegraph your plans! Under-promise and over-deliver; that is a much better strategy.

When you consider a pilot project, you should select one that you think has the best chance of being a quick success. The attitude of the foreman, and his staff are critical. If they are gung-ho, they will overcome many obstacles on their own. When I approached the pilot group that would launch our LEAN journey, I called a brief meeting and told them they had been singled out as "hard chargers" who were known throughout the company. I explained to them that the future of the company was in their hands and that I had all the faith in the world in their abilities, so much so I was betting my job on it. That really inspired them. I found that this approach worked well. When this small scale project succeeds, do NOT make a big deal out of it. Just thank everyone informally.

Even though the pilot project was a success and did shore up our support, some senior managers did not give full backing to the effort. Change was also hard for them. I perceived my job was to make THEM look good. I gave them credit.

One of the impediments I found was that LEAN was perceived as a "Japanese" phenomenon. A few of the senior managers were against doing anything "Japanese." This was a manifestation of the old "not invented here" syndrome. It is prevalent in many companies to think that they are unique. This is undoubtedly true to some extent, but this kind of company spirit can be taken to a detrimental level. They will say things like "that may work for automobiles, but we are making high tech electronics here. It just won't work for us!" Sometimes the "we are different" philosophy leads people to reinvent the wheel. I recently saw one company buy two multi- million dollar Enterprise Resource Planning (E.R.P.) systems, never implement either of them and regress to using spreadsheets and writing in-house programs, all in the name of "we are different". Yet these two software packages are used successfully in hundreds of companies in dozens of industries.

The quietly executed successful pilot program helps to lessen the validity of such thinking. In our case, I pointed out to them statements by prominent Japanese LEAN practitioners acknowledging that they were merely emulating Henry Ford's system of manufacturing! This swayed a few more folks to jump on the LEAN bandwagon.

I found that the ability to get things done, rested with line foremen, maintenance workers, and factory employees. It became a bottom up strategy. Senior management rarely even visited the factory. Once in a while they would notice a change and would make a comment about it. They would also find that the foreman and the factory employees were happy with the changes. The plant productivity increased greatly, on time delivery shot up from 66% to over 97%, while inventory turns more than tripled too and that was hard to dismiss. Senior management didn't ever reverse a single one of our changes. Working without too much hoopla, definitely had its advantages. We implemented changes gradually so outsiders never really noticed what we were up to until it was too late to reverse our course.

One error I see is that some managers do not operate within their span of control. They ask their superiors to approve decisions that are well within their own authority. If a decision that you make can be implemented by your team, minimize the risk by all means, and keep senior management informed if that is protocol, but stop asking permission to do your job! From the viewpoint of the senior manager, this has its benefits. If you fail, it is YOUR failure, not theirs.

Methodology

I would go into their department and work with them to implement change. After a while they were able to do this on their own. In fact, some of them really changed from being timid to being bold. I empowered them to make changes without asking me.

I made a rule that if the change cost $500.00 or less, they could just do it. The foreman also began trading "war stories" and many times a solution developed in one area spread to several others. I had foremen switch out of their home departments and manage other areas. This led to numerous new ideas for improvement. It turned out that while they may have been somewhat reluctant to change their own area, they were more than ready to change the other forman's.

Strategies

We adopted two main principles to promote process improvement. The first was the "Grinding Theory." We chipped away at problems, grinding away at them daily on a continuous basis. In this manner we made many small changes frequently rather than making large changes occasionally. By controlling the rate of change it was easier to gain acceptance of them. We focused on areas that caused problems every day. As we resolved those, it greatly reduced our time spent on "emergencies" giving us time to take on larger projects.

The second precept we utilized was the "Roughly Right" principle. If an idea seemed roughly right, then we tried it. If it did not work out, we refined the solution or tried something else. We kept the action oriented spirit alive at all times. I had found that in the past, many problems had persisted for years because it took a mountain of "proof" and reports to be assembled before anything was given an honest try.

I created new work spaces so all the foremen could move out of their offices and onto the factory floor. They became more accessible to their work force and by working in the trenches they were no longer insulated from the reality of their departmental operations. Problems that had lingered for years were solved quickly.

We installed trouble lights and the employees were instructed to turn them on. When there was a work stoppage, a revolving red light went on with a blaring siren. An entire crew of engineers, foremen, planners and mechanics rushed to the scene and worked on the problem until it was solved. I believed this worked on many levels. It made problems extremely visible and the employees were given reinforcement that we were now a team. Previously, anyone who brought up a problem was viewed as a "trouble maker."

We also became very sharp at keeping the costs of the changes down. We became world class scroungers and were very creative. I remember we traded in an old folk lift truck and rented a clamp truck with the proceeds. This move alone improved our material handling operation in the warehouse by more than 50% and reduced scrap. It is important not to raise any red flags by going over the budget. If you overestimate your projected expenditures and spend less, you will be a hero. If you underestimate and spend a dime more you will have to answer for it. Since we had been turned down on capital equipment requests, we built up our machine shop and made unavailable spare parts ourselves. We also began making our own equipment and purchasing others thru used equipment dealers.

I learned that when dealing with senior managers that the "packaging" of the idea is extremely important. At my company their core belief was that improved on-time delivery of products would increase business. The senior management was against LEAN, so I repackaged the idea as a way to increase on-time delivery of products. I also decided to sell the idea in increments. Instead of trying sell senior management on LEAN as large, sweeping, company-wide projects, I first sold them on the idea of revising the layout of a small, relatively obscure production area.

You have to find out what senior management will support and sell your ideas as complementary to theirs. If I had originally packaged LEAN as the "operation on-time delivery" it would have gained acceptance much faster since that supported THEIR goals.

We never had an "official" implementation team, but I did have a small cadre of warriors who were very committed to LEAN. I reasoned with them, either we make these changes and risk getting fired or we keep doing the same old things and the company will go under.

I had 90 days to turn around the whole plant or the division would go out of business. One thing this did for us, was to create a real sense of urgency. We didn't have the time to form task forces, make elaborate implementation plans, and test out our ideas 100% before implementing them. Planning and Implementing change is a difficult undertaking. Far too often, too much emphasis is based on the planning stage and not nearly enough in the implementation. I've seen some Kaizens that produce reams of paperwork, elaborate plans, diagrams, gannt charts and the like but literally none of it gets implemented. It all ends up neatly filed in a cabinet. Do not use up all of your time planning, the very act of starting an implementation and keeping it rolling daily incrementally also reveals more than all of the plans in the world. Keep an optimal balance between planning and implementation.

In retrospect, our focus was on "getting the job done." We focused our energy entirely on the obstacles before us. This was a great advantage. When we eliminated problems that occurred daily, we had more time to focus on the future. In the past, we had sat in meetings for hours discussing problems but precious little time was spent in actually solving them. Problems had been pigeon holed as belonging to maintenance, engineering, or quality etc. I formed cross- functional teams that solved problems as a group.

Our only option was to work on the problems on a priority basis, take our best shot at it, and then smooth out the bumps as they came up. We couldn't afford to slow production down in the least while all of the changes were taking place. We did our best to anticipate problems and became very adept at putting out fires. The teamwork we had was extraordinary. Many of the changes happened on the fly. On Friday we were doing production one way and Monday morning, we were using an entirely new approach. We were always pushing the envelope to do better.

Union problems did crop up. I stayed in close contact with union representatives and they came to trust me. I was sensitive to their perspective, and built a partnership with them. The union leader though was always trying to stir up trouble. Eventually the "bottom up" approach worked as it had with senior management. The factory personnel and the second level of union representatives came to support the changes. One thing to consider is that whenever you make a change, people will always ask "what's in it for me?" I told the union that due to LEAN the employees would be greatly cross trained. This would not only make them more valuable to our company, they would become more marketable if they wanted a job from another company. The purpose of the cross training was to increase the flexibility of the employees to move from one area to another yet it did produce more skilled employees too.

Even though the first few months were extremely tough, our jobs actually got easier over time. As we solved major problems of all types, previously ineffective production operations that had sapped our strength were running smoothly and no longer required as much of our time. We were able to expand our horizons and continually refine our aggregate process rather than get beat up by the same problems week after week.

Innovation and Continuous Process Improvement became our "tradition." Change for the better became welcome because it really did improve people's work lives. It was a "win-win" situation for everyone involved. Hopefully this article has given you insight on how you can make successful change at your company.