A Reflection – Lean, Post Covid 19.

I’ve been at home, by myself, for nine days now.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been in regular contact with my family via the phone, and have Skyped into the odd meeting at work, so I am not entirely cut-off. I also have a mind which is conceiving lots of things that I can do, so I am by no means bored either.

But what I have had is time to reflect.

In the world of lean knowledge and coaching, it is in the reflection that the learning and growth take place.

My focus, naturally, has drifted to those simple things that I will enjoy when the lockdown lifts. With the lighter evenings, attention slides to those long summer days. Maybe, I will be able to have a walk along the beach, or visit a friend, or go into a shop and find the products I want. I hope that I will enjoy these things with a greater depth. I also hope that I will appreciate those around me more. I wish, in short, to have changed, slightly at least, for the better.

This has been my growth, in reflection.

But there is also the realization that I am missing the structure and camaraderie of work. How might that have changed when I return, if it changes at all?

Lean is a people system that runs on principles. Principles are those truths upon which we can be certain. They are there to be our touchstones in times of crisis, but are we rattled so profoundly that people will start to question their principles of lean?

Fundamentally, I hope the answer is no. I live by two overarching lean principles that give me everything else. They are to “respect people” and to “create a learning environment.”

I have already stated that I hope we will return to work ready to appreciate each other a lot more but, while working from home, have we become tied up in our own projects? It will be natural that we will wish to follow these up back in the workplace. However, decisions will need making. With budgets now tighter, we will need to return to observing a critical lean principle. What do we need to work on that is currently most closely aligned to what the customer wants?

We may find offices shrinking in size as we realize that a lot of our team were able to work effectively from home. This idea has been around for decades, where businesses become central hubs that one only visits occasionally. But people have a strong need to belong and collaborate. I have a strong sense of identity when I pull on my uniform in the morning. When we blur the line between work and home, the two tend to merge. Work can stretch out into the times that were previously the reserve of family. Would this be an exercise in respect? It is that structure and compartmental feel of my day that I miss.

Covid-19 has ushered in an extraordinary time within the community. Different businesses have reacted in different ways. Maybe those businesses that remained central in their communities will enjoy mutual bonhomie with their staff and customers, for a while, at least.

Social media has been quick to condemn those companies perceived (and perception is all it takes) to have behaved unfairly towards their staff. If the general public has lost trust, then what about their teams, the very experts who are needed to drive the new consolidation? Our principle of “respect for people” has been played out in a very public way over the last weeks. In the aftermath, customers and workers are asking, “who should we trust?” Reputations, built carefully over the years, have disappeared in a matter of hours. Respect for people has become externalized. Some organizations out there will need to fight hard to win back trust. Insincerity in this endeavour will continue to be called out.

One hallmark of future thinking, in the short-term, at least, is sure to be caution.

Deplenished war chests will need to build back up. Some projects might be put back. But conversely, there will be an overwhelming temptation to carry more stock. Buffers keep the wheels turning. For a while, the stripped-down notion of Just in Time (JIT) may not make sense. By extension, many companies are probably working frantically to keep small, single-source suppliers afloat. Some of these might need to be subsumed into their customer companies, bringing the requisite skills under the same roof. The diverse, patchwork landscape of different size business will look totally different if only the big boys survive.

In following the principle of “creating a learning environment,” we will inevitably sit down, as groups and as individuals, to ask what we learned.

We saw, in the instances of public panic buying, that an instinct is to increase inventory. If we have more, and the supply is interrupted, it will be longer before we run out. But, as we know, we hold that stock at our own cost. Pictures have emerged, over recent days, of household bins full of uneaten food, obsolete before it had the chance to add value in the form of a meal. We must resist the temptation to build the waste of inventory into our systems.

In the end, it will come back to the simple truth that was there all along. We must remove waste, overburden, and unevenness from our processes. We always knew that, but now that waste will cut a bit deeper, as we aim to get back to where we were. TIMWOODS will be the mantra, and the gemba is where we all need to be.

Lean thinking will be more vital than ever. People will respond, because people are great: especially those who are respected and learning.