When is a myth not entirely a myth? When it’s the myth that lean culture takes years to build.

“There is some truth in that,” says Mohamed Saleh. “But what I have seen is it's become a very convenient excuse by many organizations, by many lean practitioners and by many executives. You know, ‘judge me in 10 years.’”

In this episode of Behind the Curtain: Adventures in Continuous Improvement, cohosts Saleh and John Dyer continue their exploration of lean myths, debunking many or, as in this episode, saying the truth is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

Saleh and Dyer discuss how long it takes to build culture, narrowing it to between three and five years. Dyer, who leans toward the three-year framework, outlined how that development advances:

Year One: Training, organizing, forming initial teams. “You're seeing a lot of low-hanging-fruit kinds of things happening, and that's good. That's positive. You want to celebrate those things, even though they might seem minor,” Dyer explains.

Year Two: Teams start to gel and get comfortable using problem-solving tools. Kaizen events are “meatier,” he says.

Year Three: “Things are hitting on all cylinders, and that's where you see the most improvement,” Dyer says. But it’s not the end. “It then it goes on, and you try to get better and try to get better.”

He also discusses two elements to accelerate culture: 1. knowledge/learning and 2. changing promotional criteria so that it ties career advancement to team success. Saleh adds a third element—rituals, which can include leaders standard work, coaching and standard work observations.

Leader Behavior Can Change Overnight 

While building culture may take time, leaders have plenty of changes they can implement tomorrow, emphasized Saleh throughout the podcast.

“What are the things I could change tomorrow? I could go to the gemba instead of sitting in my office. I could do that tomorrow. I don't need to wait 20 years for that,” Saleh says. “I could ask versus tell. I could go [to the gemba] and practice open-ended questions, and do it with the right intent. I could start attending huddles.”

“The culture may not change overnight, but my behavior as the leader can.”

The continuous improvement duo also delve into  

• The difference between intensity and consistency, and why it matters.
• The ins and outs of a lean investment index.
• Why the length of a lean journey doesn’t automatically translate into how lean it is.

"One company I interacted with says that they've been doing lean for six years, and all they've done is 5s. That's it,” Dyer commented.