Authored by Dave Rizzardo, Associate Director, MWCC

What are the highest-performing lean organizations doing that others are either unable or unwilling to do? What enables them to develop what can accurately be described as a lean culture of continuous improvement?

In short, the highest performers have more employees moving the company forward towards its goals—their  folks are engaged. Engagement refers to employees’ motivation to support the company’s mission, and their willingness to act and utilize their brainpower to help fulfill that mission. Engagement is action-based; actions aligned with lean principles.

Engaged employees are highlighting and solving problems; following standard work and experimenting to improve to new standards; and collaborating with teammates throughout the organization to add more value for the customer. These are just a few behaviors of the engaged associates, and this naturally leads to improvements in a multitude of business-performance measures.

Developing this engaged workforce is probably the most challenging part of the lean journey, but also the most impactful and rewarding. So, what are the keys to developing an engaged workforce?

There’s not a short simple answer to that question. One of the complicating factors is the variation in what motivates each one of us humans.