If Lean Manufacturing in your company is really to comprise all workers, and not only few engineers from Continuous Improvement department, you should have your people throughout the company. They can be foremen, shift managers, masters or leaders appointed independently of the formal structure.

Read Mark’s story . 

If there are leaders similar to Mark in your company, do not even think of involving all workers in Lean. Stop daydreaming. In such a situation, companies usually decide to provide training for Middle Management. Managers go to the mountains, a female psychologist arrives, they even have great fun and act scenes. They get great materials which they put into a binder and proudly place on a shelf so as to never look in. After returning to work, these managers are drawn into the maelstrom of work and cannot apply any single technique studied at the training. Some time passes, and you send them again on other training in management, hoping that more expensive means better. The whole story repeats, and the shelf is filled with further binders containing materials. Your leaders complain that the same issues have already been studied on the previous training. And at work, they return to tested techniques of theory X.

How to break this vicious circle? For sure, not by further training courses in management bases, after which your leaders will come back to their old customs in a flash. Think about how difficult it is to get rid of old customs. For example, imagine that you would have to learn writing on a keyboard using ten fingers. Try it! The old custom of writing with four fingers will come back as a boomerang. Is it at all possible to change them? Yes, but is not an easy task. You have to have a long-term programme and start from a small step, put it into practice, exercise a lot, discuss progress and introduce further changes  

If you really want to change your Leaders’ behaviour – select Academy of Middle Management conducted by psychologists and experts in management from Polish Productivity Center. Academy of Middle Management can bring you the following benefits:

• Knowledge in small and acquisitive doses. Several two days’ sessions taking place every few weeks. During these sessions, your leaders will practise small doses of skills in management.
• Immediate application of newly acquired knowledge. Every time, your Leaders get a “homework” to do. They are to practise specific behaviours in everyday work situations. For example, they are given a small hint sheet in which the way of holding a disciplinary interview is presented point by point Their task is to test this scheme three times. In case of any difficulties or failure, they can contact our trainer any time or wait until the next session in order to discuss a problem.
• Adjusting examples and case studies to conditions present in your company. All sessions within Academy are carried out by the same trainers. They know Lean Manufacturing philosophy. They know your company and so, they can give real examples from it.
• Adjusting management skills to your company’s needs for Lean Manufacturing.  Implementing Lean elicits many new situations such as  teamwork during solving problems, common actions during 5S or the necessity to delegate rights. These are perfect situations to test new behaviours.
• Integration of your Leaders. At third or fourth session, your leaders will start to form a harmonious team. Some of them have better understanding of the fact that a manager is a member of the management team, and not the best colleague for their workers. So, they begin to treat other leaders as their team. They help each other in implementation processes.

See the exemplary programme of workshops within Academy of Middle Management. This is an example of workshops on the rudiments of management and motivation. Further sessions will include also such subject as  teamwork, work in a task-oriented team, project management, time management, advanced management techniques, interpersonal communication, creativity and its stimulation, conflict management, types of workers according to MBTI, problem solving, art of presentation, training for trainers and many others according to specific needs.

Order an offer tailored for your company at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .