Train 2 Fail

In this series of (what will be) nine posts on why Lean fails, we have already explored failures due to the way Lean is operated, planned, led or communicated.

Having explored these four issues, the fifth reason for failure can normally be found in problems to do with how individuals and teams are trained and there can be a number of critical problems with these areas, including:

Insufficient Training
Not giving those involved the skills to enable them to lead Lean improvement programmes is perhaps the primary reason for failure under this category. Sometimes it is caused by inexperienced leaders and trainers thinking Lean is something 'easy in the head and therefore easy in the hand' and sometimes it is down to the speed of implementation, but whatever the cause it can demoralise teams, remove confidence and delay/stall progress.

Over-Training
The complete opposite of the first problem is the application of never ending training and failing to ever move to action.

Incorrect Training
The Japanese Lean Sensei have a saying, 'Be careful who you learn from' - there are a lot of 'Lean Jockeys' who have read a book, been able to see someone at work and done a couple of events and then set up in business as a Lean consultant - check your references for trainers!

Inappropriate Training
Giving people skills in (say) Jidoka when the processes they will be improving need little more than a bit of 5S(+1) and Kanban is both an inappropriate use of time and demoralising to a lot of people. Make the training appropriate and progressive so the higher skills are learnt at the point they are needed.

To counter these sorts of problems, we focus on developing Change Agents who have higher level skills, along with varying levels of skills and awareness of people directly involved or affected by the change process.

We also run a number of open workshops which can be found listed on our website (www.amnis-uk.com) or you can email me for details of the on-site training programmes we run by sending an email to markeaton(a)amnis-uk.com.

One final thing - we are also running a series of workshops with the IOM and you can download the brochure HERE.