Why do so many Lean efforts fail at the leadership level? Jeffrey Liker explains how Toyota develops managers over time–through stability, daily coaching, and deep respect for people–rather than quick rotations or promotions.
Here is LeanBlog Podcast #41 with Dr. Jeffrey Liker, Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. Dr. Liker is most recently the co-author (with Michael Hoseus) of Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way and many other books, which can be found here on Amazon.com. This is part 3 of our recent series. Today, we talk about the development of managers within a Lean organization.
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LeanBlog Podcast #41 Key Points & Links
- From a listener: Many companies shift managers around almost constantly. How does Toyota develop its managers in a way that helps encourage “respect for people?”
- Other companies where Toyota can find similar leaders: NUMMI, Subaru
- Developing vs hiring leaders — does your culture just evolve or do you teach the culture?
- 3 years is typically the rule of thumb for how long a manager should be in place. More importantly, though, is who is there in the workgroup who provides leadership? Is there someone to pick up the leadership gap if one person leaves?
- Toyota does rotate leaders to develop people
- With the “quality people value stream,” you should be developing people every day
Transcript
Introduction and Context
Mark Graban: Celebrating our 20th year of Lean podcasting. Hey, it's Mark Raven. If you've ever felt like you had to be perfect at work or you're worried about making mistakes, check out my audio book, The Mistakes That Make Us. I share stories about how owning and learning from mistakes actually leads to better results, stronger teams, and real innovation.
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Announcer: Welcome to the Lean Blog podcast. Visit our website at www.leanblog.org. Now here's your host, Mark Graban.
Mark Graban: Hi, this is Mark Graban. This is episode number 41 of the Lean Blog podcast for April 27th, 2008. This is the third and final part of a recent series with Professor Jeffrey Liker from the University of Michigan, where we're talking about his most recent book, Toyota Culture.
Today we have a question that came in from a blog reader about developing managers and some of the trade-offs and factors involved in developing managers in place versus rotating them in the organization. What impact does rotating managers have on leadership and culture, and how Toyota handles that. So I hope you enjoy what Professor Liker has to say.
The Impact of Manager Rotation on Culture
Mark Graban: I wanted to ask one question that I think would tie in well to topics in the book. This is a question that actually came from a reader of my blog. He's an engineer at a really large, probably even Fortune 100 company. His question was: How often do frontline and the next level of management personnel change at Toyota or companies that have successfully implemented the Toyota Production System?.
He thought that this idea of respect for people would be better sustained when you have longer-term relationships between workers and their management. At a more traditional company, management changes every 18 months or so, and it's hard to develop those relationships. So I'm curious what your thoughts or comparisons are.
Jeff Liker: Well, I think the people value stream takes many years. Arguably, it takes at least a decade to develop an assistant manager, or you could develop a team leader a little bit more quickly than that. But the responsibility for leadership and for reinforcing Toyota culture is going on at every level from the president down to the team leader, and the team leader is an hourly person.
The team leader only has five to eight people who they support. So that's very intimate at that level. The team leader is working with those people every day doing the job, sometimes other times off the job supporting. At any of those levels, if you start to turn over people every 18 months, you never have time to even develop anybody to the level needed to be a teacher and a mentor.
Developing a “Critical Mass” of Leadership
Jeff Liker: So you need some sort of critical mass. I don't know exactly what that percentage is, whether it's 50% or 70% or 80%, but you need a core critical mass of people who stay there and who continue to learn. Then you can afford to have some turnover and movement, as long as you have that critical mass.
Now, Toyota actually does move people around inside the company to develop them, and that's part of that people value stream–they want people to continually grow and develop to the extent they want to.
- Staying in Place: One person may be happy to be a team leader and stay a team leader. To advance, they might need to go to the night shift, so that person stays a team leader for 25 years.
- Moving Up: Somebody else wants to move higher. Maybe they want to learn maintenance, or they move them to the Kaizen group or to a pilot team that introduces new products.
Succession Planning and Lateral Moves
Jeff Liker: Of course, when they do that, they're taken out of their role. And now that group has to replace them. The group leader is responsible for knowing the next three people in line to be team leaders who come from the group. Those people should already be trained and ready to go when he loses a team leader to the pilot team.
“If the group leader changes at that same time and all the team leaders were to change, that work group is gonna be in trouble.”
They might have to move people from another part of the plant to rebuild that group, and then of course, that group is now weaker, so it has a domino effect. But that's the kind of movement they do.
At a higher level, if a general manager leaves, they have to have assistant general managers there. Occasionally, I have to hire somebody from outside. When they do that, they have to find somebody who already has the characteristics. Fortunately, there are other companies like Subaru or NUMMI where they can find people with similar sorts of experience.
Mark Graban: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Liker: Then they have to be surrounded by people who've been there for a long time who could then teach them and indoctrinate them. They have to have the mentality that “I'm here to learn, I'm not here to lead and bring my way to Toyota”.
The point is that you always have to have a critical mass of people in any one area that have grown up and understand the [Toyota] Way. Then they can absorb new people who fit in and who are willing to learn.
Contrast with Traditional Companies
Jeff Liker: Now you go to another company that has the kind of turnover that you were talking about:
- Lack of Culture: They probably never really consciously developed a culture. It evolved, but they don't consciously try to teach it or define it.
- Constant Flux: People are coming and going with no rhyme or reason, so the culture is constantly in flux.
Most companies now try to do Lean, but they look at Lean as a set of tools to eliminate waste. They will get a certain amount of benefit because they probably have so much waste and low-hanging fruit. But once they get past that, they're going to have trouble sustaining even what they've done, let alone continually improving.
So the answer is yes, you have to have a degree of stability before you can create a culture of continuous improvement.
Integrating External Hires and Minimum Tenure
Mark Graban: So is it fair to assume then there's probably not a rote off-the-cuff number of “it makes sense to leave people in place for X number of years?” It's more of just figuring out what makes sense?.
Jeff Liker: The rule of thumb is three years as a minimum.
Mark Graban: Oh, okay.
Jeff Liker: In the case of the current president, that's a five-year position. At lower levels, it might be three years. Less than three years, it's hard to really learn enough and get the trust of the people enough to make a big contribution.
But more important than the number of years is who is there. Work group by work group–who provides the leadership and do they have the capacity if they lose one person?.
There is a lot of rotation in Toyota. The expectation is that if I'm a manager and my best person is needed to start up a new plant in Mexico… the expectation is I should say, “You need to do this for you. You need to take this opportunity. Don't worry, I'll figure it out”. It's not acceptable for me to just hang on to somebody just because I lean on them.
Mark Graban: Right. It seems like a lot of big companies, their idea of “we develop people” is by promoting them or moving them. And it seems like what you're describing… is that you should be developing people every day. It shouldn't require a promotion.
Jeff Liker: Right. And sometimes even moves are lateral moves. Somebody will say, “I was in assembly, now I'm doing the same thing in paint. I have so much to learn… before I could go up to a general manager level”.
Closing and Optiprise Overview
Mark Graban: Well, I appreciate your time and your thoughts here. Again, our guest was Professor Jeffrey Liker… author most recently of Toyota Culture. Would you also like to tell the listeners a little bit about Optiprise and the work you do through that organization?.
Jeff Liker: It's a private consulting company. We try to stick to the philosophy and teaching the way… taking the perspective that we're teachers and coaches. We're not here to implement XYZ tool and get this amount of cost savings. We're here to develop your people to understand this lean mindset. We focus on a few key people who become internal lean leaders because you have to start someplace.
Mark Graban: Okay. Well, great. Thanks for your time today.
Announcer: Thanks for listening. This has been The Lean Blog podcast. For lean news and commentary updated daily, visit www.leanblog.org.
If you’re working to build a culture where people feel safe to speak up, solve problems, and improve every day, I’d be glad to help. Let’s talk about how to strengthen Psychological Safety and Continuous Improvement in your organization.
