Building Excellence: How Lean Leadership Stops Daily Firefighting
Do you remember the story of the big bad wolf?
He huffs and he puffs and he blows your house down.
Now, imagine the big bad wolf is all the fires, challenges, and crappy chaos that happens in your day to day.
Do you remember the three little pigs? Which little pig are you?
The first little pig built his house out of straw - there was no strong foundation, no direction, and no processes.
The second little pig built his house of sticks - he was a bit more determined, wanted something good, but couldn’t quite get there.
The third little pig built his house of bricks - he had a clear vision, the strength to do it, and the process to get it done.
Most businesses are the first or second piggie. And when the big bad wolf of chaos comes, their house blows down. This doesn’t mean they’re closing up shop, but they aren’t able to easily bounce back from big challenges. Their teams aren’t built out for adaptability or collaboration in order to really navigate challenges in ways that don’t impact customers or revenue too heavily.
The companies who built their house with bricks have implemented lean leadership. Their teams are resilient, their operations are strong, and there’s clear goals driving productivity. This house is sturdy and invites excellence.
This house has tremendously less firefighting. If your house is made of straw or stick (or maybe a little bit of both) then you’re probably stuck in daily firefighting. And if you’re spending most of your day reacting to challenges and tackling immediate crap, then you’re more of a business firefighter than a leader - and that’s not a fun or sustainable place to be for you or your employees. Burnout, frustration, and decreasing revenues are right around the corner.
Lean leadership creates a clear, simple pathway to get away from daily firefighting and allows us to develop strong teams so that we can strive for excellence together.
To build your house with bricks, you have to understand the brilliance of lean leadership. First, let’s be clear that it's not about being “lean and mean”. We’re not talking about treating our team members like efficiency-bots that need to be at peak productivity all the time. Cause who would want to work on that team??
Lean focuses on how to do things in the most efficient way possible while bringing out the best in our people. It's collaborative efficiency. At its core, lean leadership embodies qualities like humility, curiosity, communication, and a pursuit of excellence. The house built with lean leadership naturally reduces waste, produces top performers, an amazing culture, and consistent profitability.
There’s a few questions you can ask yourself to start laying down the bricks:
Are we organized? Do we know where to find important information when we need it?
Do we have clarity & confidence? Are we all clear on what we’re responsible for and are we confident that what we’re doing is pushing goals forward?
Do we have efficiency & ease? Do our processes make sense in ways that streamline workloads, limit waste, and minimize friction within our team and with our customers?
Can we achieve systematic scalability? Can we create and handle new phases of growth without burning out our team or displeasing our customers?
In the coming weeks, we’ll dive into our 6 Pillars of Excellence to help you say YES to these four crucial questions.
If you can’t say yes to these questions now, that’s okay. A lot of companies can’t. But you can make the choice today to start figuring out how you can break free from the cycle of daily firefighting. Reflect on your business practices, identify areas for improvement, and take proactive steps towards operational excellence. To get started, take our Operational Excellence Quiz to understand what kind of house you and your team are building.