Continual improvement does not happen just like that. To create an organization that is truly able to continuously improve, a number of conditions have to be met. First, problems should be detectable. Second, you should feel intrinsically responsible for it as it compromises the purpose of the team. Third, you should be allowed to act. And last, but certainly not least: you and your team should dispose of the required competencies, skills, means and time to actually be able to eliminate the problem and build a better standard. Autonomy therefore is key in Lean.

However, too often I see organizations that under the umbrella of Lean make use of phrases like creating ownership, empowering people, and putting responsibility low in the organization. All things that at first glance seem worth pursuing. But if I would be on the receiving end, whenever someone wants to hand me the responsibility for something, I would at the same time demand that I would get the possibilities to actually do something about the issues within my area of responsibility. Ownership implies consistency between responsibility, authority, competency and skills.

First, Some Words About Responsibility…

Responsibility relates to the purpose of the organization. You are responsible for delivering customer value. And customer value is provided through a process. Therefore, if you want to have people and teams to take and feel responsibility, it implies that the organization should be structured according to these value-delivering processes. Not by the individual steps required to deliver customer value (manufacturing, assembly, packaging, etc.). And also not by the individual aspects of something integrated as customer value (so not structured into quality, logistics, finance, etc.). It implies a structure in which teams are multi-competent and integrate all aspects of customer value. And teams that can take ownership of all the process steps required for creating customer value: from question to answer, from order to delivery (and possibly even beyond).

This isn’t always immediately possible, however. For a large part due to the technology sometimes in use in the process. So called “monuments” that are still in use in many processes, are often in the way to dedicating means to teams, hindering the development of their autonomy towards the customer. Organizations need to rightsize their equipment in such a way that they can be embedded in teams that are organized according to value-creating processes.

Then concerning the various aspects making up customer value: building up and developing the required competencies and skill levels for instance in the field of quality, maintenance, planning and scheduling does not pose significant challenges. They often more easily can be brought closer to the team, or even incorporated into the team.

Then, Something About Authority…

Teams that should take the responsibility over a (part of a) process should at the same time also be given the opportunity to actually improve something within their area of responsibility. This implies that the team should be able to detect and uncover problems in their area and process. That bringing problems to the table isn’t seen as something negative. That the team is allowed to experiment with suggestions that were put forward. And that time is made available for all of the foregoing. It also means that the leader will get more of a conditioning, boundary-managing, coaching and supportive role than a directing one within the organization.

And Last But Not Least, Some Words About Competencies And Skills…

When the team then has been given the responsibility and authority to continuously improve their area and process, it is still to be seen whether the team is actually capable of solving its problems. It is surely a nice idea to be given the ownership of something, but when the team members subsequently look at each other and shrug their shoulders not knowing how, there is not going to be a lot of improvement…

Therefore, it is of the utmost importance in an organization that has the ambition to become a Lean organization, that teams at all levels of the organization dispose of the right competencies and skill levels, consistent with their responsibility. Either by putting the people with those competencies and skills there where they are needed, or by developing the competencies and skills of the team that is already in place.

Without the right structure in place and the required autonomy at each level of that structure, the aspiration to become an organization truly capable of continual improvement will only yield frustrations. Frustrations of frontline associates as they will feel inconvenienced; frustrations of middle management as they will feel as if they fell between two stools; and frustrations of the leadership as they will continue to scratch their heads as they can’t seem to figure out why this Lean thing apparently doesn’t seem to work in their place…