Lean Leadership and Sustainment

Leading a Sustainable Lean Culture

TBM has built its reputation by working side-by-side with senior management to promote operational excellence, drive culture change, transfer Lean Sigma knowledge, and generate immediate results. We help business leaders break down obstacles, define performance metrics and continuously push improvement in every facet of your business and supply chain.  The net result:

  • Improved leadership involvement, commitment and accountability 
  • Organizational alignment and establishment of lean as a core business strategy
  • A faster rate of change that is sustained from month to month and year to year.

Lean activities invariably lead to double-digit productivity gains, quality improvements and better on-time delivery.  Reductions in lead time, floor space, inventory, labor and overhead requirements contribute to improved margins and drive sales growth. A growing lean organization requires a management team who can apply a unique set of leadership knowledge and skills on a daily basis. 

At some point in every successful lean journey, the executive leadership team must proactively “look inward” and ask: Are we prepared to lead the company we are becoming? Do we have the skills to compete profitably in the rapidly evolving global marketplace? 

Directors and executives of lean companies must be able to adapt quickly to new situations and information. They must learn how to manage more direct reports, grow interpersonal skills, and handle additional and more varied tasks.  They must develop individual skill sets that are aligned with the company’s future direction and grow along with the high-performance culture being created.  Over time, your company’s career development process should become leaner, and your investments in talent development will lead to an increased number of internal promotions and a more cohesive leadership infrastructure.

TBM’s Lean Leadership and Sustainment practice customizes robust leadership development tools to the unique requirements of a lean company and the specific needs of the executives and managers within your organization. Typical elements include: 

  • Vision & Alignment: Assessing leaders’ individual skills, creating alignment through Leadership Development Roadmaps, cascading key performance indicators, and assigning accountability for sustaining a lean business strategy.
  • Skills & Tools: Learning the essential leadership tools and skills necessary for driving a sustainable lean culture.
  • Executive Development: Coaching and developing both individuals and leadership teams, implementing a lean talent development and management system.

The impact of these leadership investments can be tracked on multiple levels. Direct measures include management performance improvements, retention of key employees, customer retention, business growth, internal promotion rates, and customer satisfaction. Indirect indicators include the ability of managers to articulate explicit goals and work outside of old comfort zones.  More importantly, lean leaders apply the personal development tools from both training and mentoring to encourage leadership and professional growth in their direct reports. The ultimate indicator of success is steady progress, sustained from quarter to quarter with no backsliding, that continues when individual leaders move up and have more opportunities to make a broader impact on an organization’s cultural development.

“Lean organizations are committed to learning, creating great students and making them into great teachers to drive talent development deep into every aspect of the company. Ultimately, that’s how they create better business results.” — Herb Brown, Global Client Manager, TBM Consulting Group

Measuring Personal Development


The goal of a Lean Leadership and Sustainment program is to strategically develop both individuals and leadership teams to expedite and intensify the rate of business improvement. Here are some of the leadership development measurements that can contribute to “bottom line” improvements.
  • Customer satisfaction  (as measured by a third-party)
  • Management involvement, commitment and accountability 
  • Greater employee retention at both the direct and salary levels
  • Leadership engagement (time devoted to supporting lean activities)
  • Results sustainment (duration of improvement initiatives, project follow-up and close out)
  • Organizational capacity for growth
  • Fast and effective response to abnormalities and “root cause” problem solving
  • Individual contribution improvement (suggestions, projects and initiatives)
  • Employee satisfaction surveys