Just as your product value streams require brilliant processes to deliver value, your leadership team also requires a brilliant management process to lead effectively. Here are some questions to ask yourself about your management processes:

· Quick, where does your team stand with your three most important business objectives?

· Does every individual on your team know what’s required of them today, this week, this month, this quarter and this year to achieve these objectives?

· Do you have a process that links and tracks individual activities to your objectives to ensure your team will succeed?

· Does your team know on a continuous basis if they are ahead, behind or on schedule?

A prerequisite for effectively leading an organization of any significant size is a well defined and executed management system. Yet conventional planning systems are plagued by disconnects that create the most serious waste of all - that of knowledge, experience, and creativity. Indeed, conventional planning has been called every manager’s “unfavorite” activity.

A Lean Management System seeks to create flow of information, ideas and strategies so that the company can align itself with the needs of its customers and stakeholders. It enables you, the lean executive, as part of your daily routine to:

· Identify and address critical business needs

· Align company resources at all levels effectively and efficiently

· Apply the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle to systematically and quickly identify and eliminate the root cause of problems the first time

· Strengthen the capability of people and processes

· Consistently achieve critical results.

Key point: If your senior management does not understand the linkage between their business level goals and their team’s daily activities, they will quickly lose interest in your Lean transformation. It won’t be relevant to them.