I was not looking for management tools when I chose to take the Developing Lean Leadership course; I was looking to achieve a tipping point in my management model focused on people development.
After my 20-week journey with my coach I received exactly that and much more. I can now see that a change in mindset was key to improving my professional and personal life - it has served as the basis for a continuous learning and development.
The way the course is structured, especially the way that the coach established a trustful relationship, helped me stay in the action-mode instead of the thinking-mode, was a key factor for me.
Another important learning moment for me was to start seeing every problem as an opportunity to be better, an opportunity to define my true north (the target). I learned that closing the gap toward the true north can be achieved by advancing one step at a time, and that the continuous application of the problem-solving process is essential for people's development.
We had felt our efforts towards changing our company culture from command and control to a culture where everyone felt comfortable solving problems had ceased to make progress after 4 years. Our production supervisors were practicing daily problem solving but only on a small problem level and it had ceased expanding throughout the organization.
We decided the root cause was lack of leadership vision and training in how to use the problem-solving tool.
When we saw the training module assembled by Dr. Liker and George it was exactly the bridge we had sought for our leadership training needs.
The Institute is focused on the philosophy of leadership development with the base tool of problem solving. The training modules are very easy to adapt to your own company leadership tool details due to the tool agnostic nature of the training.
Overall, the Institute is an excellent foundation on which to build a leadership training program. You just need to add a few tools specific to your company (which vary by leader type and level) and you have a very robust leadership training program.
ESPEC North America has trained our first two levels of leaders and could not be happier with the results. Leaders are thinking more broadly about company problems and not just departmental problems.
From the team member perspective, they are noticing the change in leadership attitude and focus. When leaders change, it opens everyone up to change.
