A few posts back I hastily wrote about demolishing the silo walls that prohibited others from adding their value and seeing what everyone is doing. I took steps to start this progress but it has quickly been pulled back and built even higher than before. This blog is about lean and trying to learn and implement in the United States Army. However I am learning that all the reading I’ve been doing doesn’t discuss the organizational norms and challenges that can derail lean progress. Most lean books talk about challenges in defining VSM, getting buy-in, creating flow, removing muda and striving for perfection. One thing sorely lacking is the story of the change agent trying desperately to implement lean for the betterment of the organization, team and customer while constantly being backstabbed, derailed, left-out, hijacked and simply ignored. This is my story
Walking the gemba is the prime tool for defining value and identifying muda, and it also shows the lean thinker the personalities and roles that they will encounter along their journey. So far I’ve encountered mostly highly skilled professionals, thus the reasoning for breaking silos and establishing collaboration to involve everyone in defining and creating value. With this comes the personalities, I’ve withheld these observations from my writing because I didn’t want to portray my subjective view. In the organization (definitely not a team) we have a lot of silos with some of the following characteristics. We have superman, the wicked witch, characters from the Mean Girls (lots of gossip and whispers when you walk by), Hulk and without popular culture identity we have people that have no vision, local optima superstars, legacy minded anti-change saboteurs and an overall theme of self-gratification and personal highlights.
What a mouth full, isn’t it? I put that there because daily I learn lean and work to implement but equally I am pushed to the side like a lunatic that doesn’t understand the way things are here. Secret meetings, blatant lying, cloaked discussions to pollute and plain avoidance are all I’ve learned from everyone that could help in making positive change. In a room full of leaders I proposed these changes about two months ago, with some grumbling but I did have the senior leaders in the local organization to at least publicly agree it is a necessary change and offer their support. Fast forward two months, no progress and I publicly bring the idea to the spotlight in front of the same audience and they acted like they didn’t know what I was talking about and we need to begin these discussions. Absolute lip service
Then secret meetings are held to discuss their agenda and their vision of change without any awareness on my part. To be honest this is some serious gut check right now. Learning lean and trying to implement is difficult but being stifled by those that should support you is even more demoralizing. I obviously can’t resign or change jobs so I am stuck in this position. A chance that could be exciting and very rewarding but there are serious challenges that make me feel like I’m scaling Mt. Everest with no Sherpas. Or like I’m doing laps in a pool with 25 pound cinder blocks tied to each leg. Nonetheless there is no support to change the incredible toxic and broken environment that I unfortunately find myself a part.
I leave you with a story from Eddie Obeng that he delivered with his TED talk “Smart failure for a fast-changing world.” Enjoy
“An experimenter puts 5 monkeys in a large cage. High up at the top of the cage, well beyond the reach of the monkeys, is a bunch of bananas. Underneath the bananas is a ladder.
The monkeys immediately spot the bananas and one begins to climb the ladder. As he does, however, the experimenter sprays him with a stream of cold water. Then, he proceeds to spray each of the other monkeys.
The monkey on the ladder scrambles off. And all 5 sit for a time on the floor, wet, cold, and bewildered. Soon, though, the temptation of the bananas is too great, and another monkey begins to climb the ladder. Again, the experimenter sprays the ambitious monkey with cold water and all the other monkeys as well. When a third monkey tries to climb the ladder, the other monkeys, wanting to avoid the cold spray, pull him off the ladder and beat him.
Now one monkey is removed and a new monkey is introduced to the cage. Spotting the bananas, he naively begins to climb the ladder. The other monkeys pull him off and beat him.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The experimenter removes a second one of the original monkeys from the cage and replaces him with a new monkey. Again, the new monkey begins to climb the ladder and, again, the other monkeys pull him off and beat him – including the monkey who had never been sprayed.
By the end of the experiment, none of the original monkeys were left and yet, despite none of them ever experiencing the cold, wet, spray, they had all learned never to try and go for the bananas.”
The Lean Army 