The fastest way to overlook your most valuable contributors to a lean transformation is to assume the journey belongs solely to engineers.

That’s a key message from John Dyer and Dr. Mohamed Saleh in this episode of Behind the Curtain: Adventures in Continuous Improvement, where the cohosts continue their exploration into the myths of lean and team-based continuous improvement. Here they address the myth that you need to have an engineering degree to be a lean facilitator or a skilled problem solver.

“Some of the best lean facilitators I've ever met in my career have nothing to do with engineering. They have people skills; they have influential skills. They're great listeners. They know how to ask good questions, and I think that's what distinguishes them over many of the lean practitioners out there,” Saleh says.

The cohosts point out that technical prowess isn’t a required skill of a lean facilitator. Problem-solving and soft skills are.

“Problem solving is really about intelligence. Does engineering help problem solving? Yes, especially those that took as much math as I did— because that's what it taught you: how to problem solve,” Saleh says. “… what it doesn't teach you is a lot of things that lean does need, such as relationship-building skills.”

Saleh adds, “But most of all, you need humility.”

Dyer argues that frontline workers can excel in lean implementations because they are dealing with problems every day. Teach them problem-solving tools and “they can then become some of your biggest champions,” he says.  

Dyer shares what he believes is the best combination to drive lean forward: a humble engineer who is partnered with a group of frontline workers. For example, he says, suppose the frontline workers come up with an idea for a fix or for an improvement that requires some experimentation or scientific thinking.

“They don't have the time to go off the line to go run these experiments, and they may not have that skill set,” Dyer says. “But a humble engineer can take those ideas and say, ‘Hey, let me run some design of experiments,’ or ‘let me do some plan, do, check, act cycles, and see if this actually has a shot of working.’ Or ‘maybe I need to contact a supplier or the people who designed the equipment in the first place, and bring them in.’”

Dyer continues, “They have the power to do those kinds of things offline, versus the workers that are working to keep product and services going. So, you marry up a humble engineer with a group of frontline workers, both of which understand the tools, understand the methodologies, understand the cultural requirements, and they can accomplish anything.”

Saleh takes the conversation into a health care setting.

“Some of the best lean people are nurses, and they're very humble people, but they're able to see a problem, diagnose the symptoms, get to the root cause, figure out a treatment plan for this problem, and then understand the follow up to it. And they have applied their scientific thinking of problem solving because that's what they do in the clinical world every day,” Saleh says.

In conclusion, Dyer says, “Anyone, we agree, can be a tremendous lean facilitator for your organization, with or without an engineering degree. The most important thing is the mindset, the willingness to learn, the willingness to work as a team, the willingness to try new things, the willingness to admit that you have problems.”