Commitment, Patience and Value

Over at Evolving Excellence Kevin Meyer had an interesting post about value from a worker perspective: The Value in Jobs which was itself a reaction to a post at Cafe Hayek by Don Boudreaux: Creating Value. These two posts fit in nicely with my current theme of value in product development change initiatives.

Don kicked off the conversation by describing the world of work as divided between two camps: those who think of their jobs as boxes with levers inside that trigger salaries, and those who thought of their jobs as opportunities to create value for customers - for pay that is tied to the value delivered. He then characterized corporate managers as people clearly in the second camp but who provide essential coordination and direction for those in the first camp so that their activities also create value. Kevin used Don's description of the role of management to support his belief that top management must have patient commitment for a lean transformation to succeed.

However, Kevin makes the mistake that I see so often in the lean community: any activity - including a lean transformation - must deliver clear, measurable results. Patience and commitment are not enough if the lean transformation accomplishes very little for the customer or for the business in proportion to the investment required within a reasonable timeframe.

Kevin argues that lean transformations fail because management lacks patience and commitment. But my observations tell me otherwise. I have observed that lean transformations that deliver clear, timely results tend to succeed - sometimes in spite of management commitment to give things time - and that lean efforts that promise benefits too far in the future tend to fail - sometimes because managers were so patient for results that they didn't question the lean transformation's direction.