DISCUSIÓN

Organisational leaders have a strong influence in moulding an organisations culture. If we look back at what the Iceberg Model recommends the role of the leader is seen as a crucial aspect in embedding a CI culture. Emiliani (2000) emphasises that it is the organisational leaders’ responsibility to transform themselves and their organisation into learning enterprises in order to sustain improvements. The experiences of organisations like Toyota who have embedded a CI culture also show that the organisational leader or sensei has a very important role to play in nurturing people

for CI. Evidence suggests that the failure to sustain lean in NZ manufacturing organisations essentially relates to a difference in the leadership culture between NZ and Japan. Toyota’s leaders have simply concentrated on developing Toyota into an ‘outward focused learning organisation’ through investing in their people and case study data shows that NZ manufacturers do not carry this notion of long-term learning.

Evidence suggests for lean to work in NZ organisational leaders need to shift from their short-term profit driven thinking to a long-term learning driven philosophy where people are nurtured to continuously improve the business processes. NZ leaders need to shift from running an inward focused profit driven enterprise to an outward focused learning enterprise. Lean transformations are not about imitating the tools used by Toyota in a particular manufacturing process; lean is about leaders developing principles that are right for an organisation and diligently practicing them to achieve high performance that continues to add value to customers and society (Liker 2004). Understanding Toyota’s success and quality improvement systems does not automatically mean one can transform a company with a different culture and context.

Currently, NZ leaders are not committed to the long-term transformation of their companies into learning organisations and are simply picking and choosing from the multitude of CI tools and programmes, making ‘quick-wins’ and waiting for the next fad to appear. Data suggests that there is some merit in NZ leaders adopting a ‘quick- wins’ tools focused approach to implementing CI methodologies such as lean. Implementing the common lean tools will deliver ‘quick-wins’ and likely boost productivity in the short-term as some of the case-study organisations experienced. However, as mentioned previously, sustained improvements are not realised through implementing lean tools for ‘quick wins’, it results from having a long-term philosophy of CI through ongoing learning.

The NZ manufacturing organisations and the sector in general will continue to perform poorly and struggle to be competitive without the leaders buy-in to a long- term culture change to CI. One avenue to get NZ leaders to commit to this change is exposure to new business ideas and its benefits through education and learning.

Giving organisational leaders tangible incentives is another plausible option to getting them to commit to organisational change. One viable way of achieving this would be for the Government to offer tax breaks to companies who invest a certain level of profit back into their enterprises towards developing their people, processes and technologies.

NZ leaders need to accept that moving from short-term fixes to long-term improvements is an ongoing process. For this to happen leaders not only require long- term thinking but they need to demonstrate continuity in leadership. Leaders need to embrace the fact that it may take decades to lay foundations for radically transforming the organisation’s culture and they need to be ready to make significant long-term investments in educating and changing the thinking of their employees. It is therefore critical that these leaders invest into life-long learning for long-term organisational growth.

Most, if not all the common problems experienced by the case study organisations could be solved with a greater emphasis on ongoing learning. The problems of lack of ability to strategise, staff resistance to change, weak management commitment, erroneous understanding of lean, weak drivers for change and poorly trained lean champions could be overcome through ongoing education. High staff turnover could also potentially be reduced with the professional development of staff. Factors such as an economic downturn are out of the organisation’s control but a company that has a learning culture would be much better equipped to handle such changes in the external environment.

The owners of small businesses in NZ need access to affordable, high quality instruction on the philosophy and practice of CI. The substantial differences between batch-and-queue mass production and methodologies such as lean manufacturing must be made very clear, including the implications for leadership and human resource management. The successful and sustained application of CI tools and techniques will need leaders to have a deeper business philosophy based on the ability to understand people and human motivations. Leaders need to be personally involved in the change process and constantly go to the Gemba to facilitate and participate in change activities. Knowledgeable third parties can be important resources to facilitate

implementation in an unbiased and less threatening manner. It is not just the role of outside teachers to impart knowledge. The owners have a responsibility to read some of the books and articles published to date to gain added depth of understanding, teach their employees, and reinforce their leadership role.

NZ leaders also need to bear in mind the fundamental differences between the Japanese and the NZ culture if they are attempting a lean transformation. It is important that the NZ leaders acknowledge and understand the uniqueness of the NZ culture and incorporate these traits into their organisational culture. They need to focus on changing the culture by aligning objectives, measurements, and visual systems to reinforce the appropriate behaviours every day. They need to develop an organisational culture that will encourage new employees to change their ways or leave. A strong organisational culture may help the company negotiate factors that are beyond the leaders control such as a downturn in demand. Leaders also need to work on creating effective supply-chain networks to share resources and experiences. If a company has committed, knowledgeable and long-term thinkers at the highest level, they are well on their way to becoming a learning organisation. Leadership development is the key to embedding and sustaining a culture of CI in NZ. Further research needs to be carried out to determine exactly how NZ can develop such organisational leaders.

5.5 The NZTE Aichi and Direct Lean Programmes

NZTE’s current lean approach has done little to boost long-term productivity growth rates for the NZ manufacturing sector. NZTE advocating lean through their lean programmes has proved to be a good model for promoting lean in NZ but funding consultants to implement lean changes has proved to be a very poor format for sustaining improvements. There was a clear disconnection between NZTE’s lean strategy and how lean was implemented through the manufacturing sector. The funding was seen as an opportunity for ‘quick-gains’ and the organisations used the funding for this purpose. Organisations failed to engage in learning and implementing the ‘front-end’ aspects of change such as developing a robust strategy for change, understanding customer value, getting staff commitment to change, etc. which are crucial in sustaining improvements.

Wilson et al. (2008) argue that continued NZTE co-funding through the Aichi format is crucial for firms to sustain the lean momentum. They state that in terms of practical implementations, the Aichi format should become the main vehicle for sponsored lean implementations in the future. In their judgement, the elements that worked best were the co-funding for the first 12 months, the on-going interactions in forums and cluster meetings, and the visits to the exemplar firms. Wilson et al. (2008) also recommend that efforts to sustain lean should be focused on setting in place periodic external checks, not on dictating compliance through any disciplinary measures, but rather to encourage compliance through accountability for progress. This study does not concur with these findings and recommendations. Evidence clearly shows that co-funding was not an effective driver for sustainability and that organisations need to focus on nurturing people through ongoing learning for embedding a CI culture and not rely on embedding CI through accountability. Case study evidence also suggests that the cluster meetings have been ineffective to date due to poor administration. For these clusters to be effective NZTE needs to ensure that the meetings are properly structured with a defined focus on lean sustainability.