Creating Excellence in Multi cultural / Multi national Environment

Lean - a Japanese philosophy – to be implemented in Chinese Organization in China - to be spearheaded by an Indian. Truly a Global combination.

I was very excited when I was asked to lead the efforts of launching a Lean Implementation Program in the Joint Venture organization in China. It truly turned out to be an exciting, challenging and productive assignment. This experience asked from me to demonstrate a mindset of multi-cultural understanding and definitely raised my patience level. At the end, the “competencies and capabilities” developed over the years helped me and the organization in successfully launching a lean implementation program.

For the organization this JV is a strategic play and assumes key role for its success in the region. For JV, it was a leap forward to be part of the Global MNC. Strategic intents were matching and now it was a turn of executing the strategy perfectly.

Lean is often mis-understood as a set of Tools to improve efficiency to be implemented in a short period of time. A set up I was getting into.  Many of us know that this is far from the truth.

I remember two fundamental quotes related to Lean, which are imbibed in my mind since the day I started learning about lean, which is well over 15 years now.

“Implementing Lean concepts and principles is not a technological issue; it is primarily a management and human resource issue.” – Kenneth E. Kirby 

“Lean is not a program, it is a total strategy.” – Alex Miller 

My experience at China reinforced these thoughts time and again. My team and I had focussed on the wholistic approach from day one, which helped us to navigate the program from time to time. How do we assess the success of the launch of the program? We had focussed on establishing of Processes and People development for a sustainable performance.  Few of the key achievements of the team:-

·         Data based operations management and rigor of data collection

·         Takt time orientation of entire operations

·         A process of asking “Why” started…

·         Structured problem solving

·         Organization wide Learning & Development – Enhancing competencies

However, the team is very proud of influencing the culture of the organization.

Why organization culture? The most important learning from this experience is “How important” it is to have the RIGHT “Organization Culture” to successfully implement Lean program in the organization. It is difficult to define and quantify the culture. It’s tough to identify and pin point few factors which can be assessed to know if the organization is ready for lean implementation or not, but here is my attempt to identify factors which define “Culture” and which facilitates lean implementation. These are also my learning from my experience in China as well as in India.

1.       Leadership which is committed to the long-term benefits of the organization. Consciously I have avoided the word “vision” but used the word benefits.  In today’s KPI driven world, it is easy to get focused on short term KPIs, which are so often used for Compensation and Benefits and hence assume a dominant role for every leader. Hence the word “Long Term Benefits”. Lean implementation is a journey to establish a sustainable performance over a period of time. The leadership needs to understand and have to demonstrate commitment and patience to make this journey fruitful. A practicing Leader is the most ideal situation, but that’s not always possible in the Western oriented units. That’s where an external facilitator works very well to bridge the gap between the Leader and the Operations team. Trickiest situation is when the Organization has decided to implement “Lean” and the “Location Leader” is a reluctant passenger.

How to integrate “Long Term Benefits” in C&B is certainly an issue that needs answering. A start is needed at the very top for Lean implementation.

2.       Focus on Competency and Capability development. It’s easy to call this as a function of Human Resource department, but that’s exactly the pitfall one needs to avoid. A mechanism where competencies and capabilities of its people and processes are constantly assessed, reviewed and driven for improvement, is what is needed. This is a must for a successful lean implementation. A word of caution, this is not to be mis-understood for series of training programs conducted by HR. In fact, competency and capability development should be an integral part of every function manager. From the lean perspective, it is important to differentiate between Skills and Competency. While Skills is associated with “How”, Competency encompasses “How” and “Why”.  The lean philosophy is all about developing Competencies and Capabilities of its people and processes for sustainable results.

3.       “Promoting Dissent”. Lean philosophy drives its success by constantly asking “Why” and “How” multiple times and at multiple levels of the organization. Abilities to question in a healthy manner is a necessary part of lean implementation. It needs to be promoted right across the levels of organization, specially at the bottom level of the organization. Dissent as defined means “expression of opinions at variance with those commonly or officially held”. Everyone needs to challenges the status quo or time tested process for optimizing the same from time to time. This is not possible when the organization culture is “Top Down” and where saying “Yes” is a necessity. Promoting healthy “dis-agreements” leads to understanding the problem from multiple dimensions and facilitates a well-rounded solution. 

It’s the keenness of Chinese organization to implement Lean with lots of enthusiasm which is a cause for excitement to many multinational organizations. Chinese organizations have taken strides in implementing automation and now are also marching on the path of Lean philosophy. The “Cultural” factors may take time to evolve but in the current scenario where competitiveness is the driving force, I believe that in next few years, Chinese organizations will witness much more change and a new concept of “LEAN” will evolve. This new “LEAN” may be based on the current “Culture” of China. 

From the Indian organizations point of view, there are many facilitating factors which facilitates implementing lean philosophy. First and foremost, we love Dissent. We love questioning everything and we are fond of learning. Organizations in general have also trained manpower on various Japanese tools over a period of time makes it easy to appreciate the nuance of Lean philosophy easily. It may need to be structured comprehensively to give a strategic direction

How Operations Excellence plays an important role is a topic for the next blog.