Podcast: Does Size Matter in a Lean Transformation?

You have one manufacturing company that spans 16 countries, 48 plants and thousands of employees. The other enterprise is family owned and encompasses a single plant or maybe two. The workforce numbers 60.

The differentiator between these two organizations is size. The question: How does organizational size shape a lean transformation journey? Or any transformation journey?

In this podcast episode of Behind the Curtain: Adventures in Continuous Improvement, hosts Dr. Mohamed Saleh and John Dyer explore these questions.

Without a doubt, the transformation dynamic is very different in a large company versus a small organization, both continuous improvement experts agree. While an organizational transformation likely faces fewer layers and less bureaucracy in a smaller organization than a larger one, bigger enterprises typically have more resources and money available to make things happen, they say.

In this conversation, the podcast hosts home in on three elements of size that affect transformational change: scale, decision-making speed/bureaucracy and distance from the gemba.

Among their observations:

Narrow and deep approach: Saleh suggests that a narrow and deep approach to scaling up works better in a large organization—think model cell or demonstration area. “The wide and shallow approach in a large organization doesn't work, because if you go wide, you'll go very shallow. It won't have any roots anywhere,” Saleh says.

Decision-making speed/bureaucracy: Saleh discusses the “immune system” of the current state or the likelihood that the model cell or demonstration project will be attacked.

“Anyone that's a threat to the status quo is often … considered a virus, almost,” Saleh says. In a large organization, therefore, he says it takes a lot of effort to overcome the approval bottlenecks and bureaucracy to allow the model cell to become the “new way” of doing things.

Distance from the gemba: Saleh and Dyer discuss what Saleh refers to as the “gemba gap” or “information clot” and reminds leaders to be aware of these phenomena. In short, both refer to the idea that the more layers there are between you and the gemba (where the work gets done), the more removed from reality leaders likely are.

“I've worked for a few large organizations where I'll hear all these successes at the frontline team, but then when I'm sitting with the leadership team, they're saying how horrible this is going,” Saleh says, “There's a huge disconnect.”

The reverse holds true as well, he adds. Leadership believes everything is going great while the frontline team is outlining a disaster.