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On the surface at least, the Lean and Mean movement was an attempt to check the waste and redundancy that is the unfortunate hallmark of many an organization. But it misses the mark where it equates low head count with high productivity – for two very important reasons. |
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First, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." We have all heard that one before, and it is true. The Lean and Mean approach fails to account for the synergies that occur when committed people can work together intelligently and with purpose. Truth be told, commitment, purpose and especially synergy, are all forgotten by the Lean and Mean paradigm. |
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This is particularly evident when top management sets a uniform budget reduction target for the entire organization. Such across-the-board targets are set in an attempt to be fair to everyone - a hallmark of bureaucracy - the results of which can be decidedly unfair. (Uniformity of Bureaucratic Performance Measurement) In reality, uniform targets disregard the fact that every organization naturally has some departments that are leaner than others. Across-the-board reduction targets penalize these departments, while leaving "fat" deposits elsewhere. |
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The second issue is one of value, and what to do with it. The Lean and Mean approach takes the value out of a company, and puts it in the pockets of the company’s shareholders. To succeed in the new millennium, companies must be prepared to re-invest new found efficiencies back into operations, to out-compete for the favour of their competitor’s customers. In time and over the long-term, all of the company’s stakeholders will benefit, shareholders especially. |
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When restructuring or reengineering efforts allow a company to do more with less, they should not at that point conduct a wholesale downsizing. Rather, they would be far better off to re-deploy their people to offer new and improved products and services – raising their level of quality above that of the competition. As we shall see, this is the only way to compete and win in this third millennium. |
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The ever-quickening trends of complexity, competition and change demand that companies handle extremely large amounts of knowledge and information in short order. They must do so with an in depth understanding of customer identities, and an intuitive focus on customer needs. Successful companies already know that the only way to serve up this very tall order is with teamwork. |
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When companies deal with employees as disposable components, a culture of teamwork is impossible. Cost cutting strategies that eliminate employees may satisfy shareholders in the short-term, but eventually the remaining employees will swing the pendulum back in the opposite direction, towards low performance and reduced profits. Effective teamwork is only possible when there is a positive vision of growth and prosperity for the future. (Shared Vision as Motivation) Cost cutting is a negative action that fails to foster commitment or energy. If any corporate initiative is to have a positive effect, it must draw on a positive vision, it must consider employee commitment to be a fundamental ingredient, and it must nurture teamwork — not destroy it. |
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