Efficient Thinking

Whenever change is put in place or even suggested, there is bound to be some reluctance by the masses. People don't like change because it is intimidating or at least it can appear to be scary if you don't know exactly what is going on. That is why it is so very important for everybody to be on the same page and to know what is going to happen before it happens.

That doesn't mean that you have to have a soothsayer or mind reader on the payroll, but you do need whoever is leading the lean initiative to be a good communicator; but not just a good communicator to the person or persons that they will need to present their findings and ideas to, but also to the people that they want to change. That means that they need to sell their ideas to the people that the changes will most affect.

Natually these people won't be making the final decision, but having them on board will only make the job of changing that much simpler; but more importantly, being able to communicate the ideas in a way that makes sense to everybody and makes sense for the business is the only way that anybody is going to pull the trigger and let you implement the plans that you have. That may seem fairly obvious, but this isn't rocket science, these things are pretty straight forward, you just have to be able to show them why one way has an advantage over the other way.

This will need to make sense to the employees when you explain it, but you also have to have facts and figures to support what you intend on changing. There is no room for guessing, these facts and figures need to show why the change is better and why it is needed. You aren't just changing for the sake of change, to say that you are changing just to keep people busy, you are changing to make the company better. You are changing to make the company better by increasing productivity and efficiency and eliminating as much waste as feasible.

Only then can you reach your full potential. Just remember that people do not like change and making their jobs seem harder than they were will be a hard sell, so having clear reasoning and statistics to back these finding up is the key to changing their minds.