by Ted Stiles, Partner

I recently had a client that was hiring for a Director of Lean position. We went to work and lined up several interested individuals who all had classic backgrounds including pedigree training, 10-plus years in dedicated Lean positions and appropriate production environment histories (assembly, long lead times, low volume/high mix, etc.). 

However, the one who received the offer had less than two years’ experience in a dedicated Lean role.

This individual’s career was built across a wide range of functions including purchasing, operations leadership and engineering, with the majority of these roles in organizations that had fairly long-standing Lean/CI cultures. So, even though he didn’t have day-to-day responsibilities for the CI department, he was working and leading teams inside of organizations with a strong focus on the voice of the customer, process and people.

This is an increasingly common trend with our clients. They’re looking for people who can help create a vision and culture shift away from status quo thinking. Change agent CI leaders who have experience working in the departments where the work actually happens often connect deeply, build trust quickly and can demonstrate the use of Lean tools and concepts with high levels of credibility.