Why lean works well in crisis situations?

Crisis has almost always made lean to work. But why? Let’s discuss the possible reasons for this.

Lean requires huge amount of change. It will challenge your core beliefs. For an example you believed having work in progress is going to save you when there is a problem. But lean tells you the exact opposite. It tells you WIP is a waste. You believed you should be smart to continue your work when there is a problem in the system, till your system gets corrected. Lean says exact the opposite. Lean tells you to stop and fix the error. Put you in the shoes of people out there in your factory floor and offices. How would they feel? Will they resist lean? Surely they will.

When your organization does well, there are plenty of ways and logics to continue in the good old way. People will argue saying when everything is working fine why should you change anything? Remember management by exception? It makes perfect sense when everything goes good. Every executive and worker feels secure and their basic needs are satisfied. They get their salaries. They have no risk of losing their jobs. Everyone wants to climb the organizational ladder.

But when things are not smooth and not going well, it will throw few challenges to the people. Everyone is worried about their jobs and they want to be secure. When things got worse, when you have a crisis, this problem is much more pronounced. So everyone will try securing their basic needs. That is, everyone will try securing their job. In other words, needs will change.

This is when a movement like lean, where major changes required in organizational structures and organizational thinking, can thrive. You can now prove the good old way of doing things is not working. Nobody can challenge you. Consciously or unconsciously, people will be more receptive to your new ideas as they fear losing their jobs. Some people will want to see organization coming out of the problem. You can bring some hope to people including top management and to the shop floor workers.

Changes will become a part and partial of life when there is a crisis. People tend to learn new things quickly in these tough times. Making your organization lean is much easier in the times of crisis.

According to the Abraham Maslow theory of motivation, people are motivated by their basic needs first. When they have no job, hence no money, they are looking for money to fulfill their needs like food. When they find a way to satisfy their basic needs, say by getting a part time job, they want to have some security like having a full time permanent job. It goes on like it. But one of the most important aspect of this theory is basic needs do motivate people much more. For an example, when you have no money, rarely you will skip a job even if it is not an acceptable job in other circumstances.

In the time of crisis, people are motivated by their basic needs. When they are motivated by these lower level needs, the motivation levels are very high. This is why a system like lean can thrive in a situation where everything seems to be failing.

But will change happen if you threaten to throw people away from their jobs if they do not follow the process. I really doubt it. People will react negatively to such forces, making your implementation much more difficult.

It was not my aim to say crisis is a good thing or a bad thing. I am not even suggesting fear of losing jobs or the instability is a good thing. But I was fascinated by all the organizations thrived in these situations and wanted to look for a possible cause.

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