Below is part 5 of an excerpt from an email (with names and company specifics removed) in reply to an inquiry by the president of a Fortune 500 company. She was newly appointed as the executive sponsor for her division’s “Lean Enterprise Transformation”, and asked us: “What’s critical for the success of our transformation?”

5. Quickly achieve your first internal success story. A common trap we see is spending too much time “boiling the ocean” by organizing, meeting, training, and planning by management. Instead, engage your people by sponsoring a series of rapid “starbursts” (the Japanese use the term “Kaikaku”) to achieve breakthrough results within the first weeks. This creates an atmosphere of high energy, enthusiasm and confidence amongst your team. Starbursts also provide a “learn, do, succeed” platform for training your people. For production workers especially, immediately reinforcing training with “doing” and “succeeding” improves sustainability. As a bonus, your starbursts fund your lean transformation with tangible results. (A plug for us: this is an area where we can really help.)