Finger pointing, the blame game, excuses for unexpected or poor results…these are all too common behaviors in organizations today. Why is that?

Much of the reason is due to an organization’s intolerance for tactical failures and mistakes. If people know that regardless of intention and the soundness of strategy they will risk their reputation and maybe their job by admitting a mistake, then what behavior can you expect? Instead of sharing what is learned and creating a recovery plan, time and energy is spent on denial, cover up, and excuses.

I remember a scene from the HBO mini-series “To the Moon and Back”: While Grumman was testing the Lunar Excursion Module, its spider like landing gear frequently collapsed during simulated landings. This was a total surprise since the gear was designed with a generous safety factor. One evening while reviewing his work, the engineer responsible for determining the landing gear loads discovered that he made a simple yet large mistake in his calculations – resulting in an under-engineered landing gear design.

The next morning the engineer is in his boss’s office showing the mistake that he made. The boss then THANKED the engineer for finding his mistake quickly and bringing it to his attention. What behavior did the boss’s reaction encourage? It gave a clear message to the entire design team that he wants their energy focused on discovering problems and quickly fixing them as a team. He knew his team could not afford the time and energy needed for denial, cover up, and excuses.

Not long ago, I had a conversation with the hired CEO of a $200 million manufacturing firm, and I asked, “What’s your purpose?”

“Our purpose is to provide superior return for our stakeholders and market leading value for our customers” the CEO said.

“Ok, I get that. But tell me why this company exists. And tell me why you work here.” At this point, the CEO may have wondered if I was a lean consultant or communist. As our talk continued, it was clear that the CEO intellectually understood how his company’s products benefited society (every viable product does), but it was also clear that this was not that important for him personally. He was there mostly for the money and to build his resume. And his presence lacked passion (not to be confused with urgency – which he did express since he was not achieving plan).

So, why does an operations consultant ask questions about purpose? Over the years, I’ve discovered that one of the most telling leading indicators of success for a lean enterprise transformation (or just about any major change initiative, for that matter) is clarity of purpose.

For a senior executive, purpose is the answer to the question: Why? Why does your company exist? Why do you get up every morning and go to work? Why do you choose to lead this company?

It’s not a good indicator when the answer is some B-school gibberish about stakeholder return and value. As a front line worker, it’s just not inspiring to hear that your leadership team’s purpose is to make the owners richer.

My point is that a major change initiative requires engaging employees. Engaging employees requires a compelling, passionate purpose that your people can feel strongly about. It requires leadership that all stakeholders – employees, customers, investors, and suppliers - sense are genuine and authentic.

If you’re struggling with this message, then you will probably struggle with your lean transformation. Having a meaningful purpose really does make a difference.

So, what’s your purpose?

A COO of a large manufacturing firm lamented to me recently about the burden of assessments. “My plant managers see less and less value with the ISO, Baldrige, and corporate assessments.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Well, there’s a corporate requirement for semi-annual ISO assessments, plus and annual Baldrige assessment for each plant. It takes so much of their staff’s time, I think they feel it pulls them away from their work.”

“The goal of assessments is to show the path for improvement. Why would your plant management feel that this would pull them away from their work?” I asked.

“That’s just their point – the plants don’t feel that the assessments are helping them to improve. They view them as a grading exercise by corporate…just another bureaucratic reporting requirement.”

We then talked about the importance of adding value during the assessment process. And why this value must be perceived by those being assessed, not just by corporate. For example, if an assessment highlights that the daily management process is not well defined, go ahead and provide some training and coaching with daily management. In other words, offer help and coaching, not just a report card.

Here’s a lesson I learned…again…about how to talk about process thinking and TPS with non-manufacturing people. Last week I visited an organization whose primary output is events (conferences, seminars, workshops) and publications (books, journals, articles – not the physical product, but the content – the intellectual capital and ideas).

They shared that their organization is over 50 years old, yet they have never formally reviewed their business processes. Like many companies, when there was a new product, service or regulation, the teams put together the process to deliver or comply. This was usually done at a department level, so several departments often created their piece of the process on their own. And there was no practice to review the effectiveness of this process over time.

Message I got loud and clear: They really need some help.

They then asked me how lean thinking could help. And although I thought I had a short, eloquent answer, I made a near fatal mistake: I mentioned that many of the roots of lean come from the Toyota Production System. That’s a fact, but I’ve leaned a lesson: I need to be more conscious about sharing this fact too soon.

Because mentioning lean’s manufacturing roots invariably brings up the question of how can a manufacturing business model possibly apply to their service company with mostly knowledge workers?

And because mentioning lean’s manufacturing roots usually hijacks the conversation from talking about their business (productive conversation) to a lot of time spent handling their concern about using a manufacturing based methodology (less productive conversation).

Lesson learned: For non-manufacturing organizations, talk less about the origins of the methodology and more about how you can help the business.