Feb 17th 09 Posted by Bob Sevier in Leadership

When Lean Management Turns Mean

More and more, it appears as if colleges and universities have plundered the latest management bestsellers in a hunt for new ideas that will help them survive these challenging times. Conversations and plans are replete with terms like “tiger teams,” “ROI,” “accountability,” and “lean management.”

Of the myriad terms in play, it is the last term, “lean management,” that makes me the most nervous, not so much because it is a bad idea, but because it is being used to justify some bad behaviors.

At its most basic, lean management is a powerful concept. It stresses creating the greatest possible value for customers while using as few resources as possible. Central to the idea of lean management are two tenets: first, increasing effectiveness and efficiency, and second, protecting your core people.

In today’s tough economic climate, I fear that too many higher education administrators are distorting the first tenet of lean management-increasing effectiveness and efficiency-and are overlooking the second-protecting key people. Let me explain.

First, I sense that lean management has become a fancy way of saying, “do more with less.” There are two fundamental problems with a “do more with less” approach. First, “doing more” is seldom strategic and should never be construed as a measurement of effectiveness. It is, at best, a measure of busyness. Confusing doing more with doing right is like confusing output (we are busy) with outcomes (we are doing the right things).

This misinterpretation of lean management is destructive because it undermines any notion of measurement, the idea of continuous improvement (Kaizen), or moving purposefully. It reduces strategy to frenzy. John Kotter, in his latest book, A Sense of Urgency, notes correctly that there is a debilitating difference between frenzy and urgency. Frenzy, he says, is false urgency. The hallmark of false urgency is lots of people doing lots of things, but no larger vision of how these things fit together or where the organization is trying to go. “Get busy” is the battle cry of the manager. “Get strategic” is the battle cry of the leader.

The second fundamental problem with a “do more with less” approach is that it burns out the people whose performance you most need. Talented people are not alchemists. They cannot create something from nothing. They want to be successful. And they need to be supported with real resources. Without that support they will-like the gerbil on an exercise wheel-quickly tire of running in place. They will either slow down or move on to a place where they can perform and where their performance is recognized and rewarded.

While the first element of lean management has become distorted in today’s difficult climate, the second element-protecting key people-is increasingly being overlooked. Let me offer three observations.

First, consider what happens when key people, saddled with smaller budgets and reduced staff, are routinely asked to deliver the same, or even better, results. This sends a signal that their superiors have little real understanding of the enormity and complexity of the task, that there is no understanding of what it will take to be successful, and finally, that their contribution is not valued. The net result, as with other failures I have cited, is gradual but certain disenfranchisement.

The second lean management failure occurs when some people and departments are consistently put under the gun while others are not. There is a powerful temptation in higher education to hold those people whose performance can be easily measured to a higher standard than those people whose performance cannot. We see that most clearly in staff positions. Performance in admissions and advancement, for example, are easy to measure. Performance among library staff and student services are not. Please note that I am not picking on library staff and student services. What I am suggesting, in the larger sense, is that everyone who works at a university should understand how their performance will be measured and then held accountable for that performance.

There is another variation on this theme that I find particularly troubling: the protectionist fence that too often surrounds faculty. By any measure, the vast majority of the layoffs that have occurred through the fall and early 2009 have been directed at staff. Few faculty have been let go. Colleges note that faculty are central to the institution’s mission. Of course, by saying faculty are central to the institution’s mission, they are inferring that staff are not. I find this implication troublesome. Eventually someone will and should ask: Which is more important to institutional success, an irreplaceable staffer or a faculty member who teaches in a major or program that is undersubscribed and not essential to the institution’s mission?
The third instance of lean management is perhaps the most frustrating. It involves holding people responsible for results, but not giving them the authority they need to achieve those results. Recently, I had a conversation with a newly minted provost. He was hired, in part, to clean up the business operation of the university-a point that was repeatedly made clear during the hiring process. What wasn’t made clear until after he was hired was that he did not have the authority to release the individual who was largely responsible for the mess. “Find a suitable spot for him,” said the president, “somewhere else in the department where he won’t do us any harm.” The provost tried to make the case that this person would continue to do great harm regardless of where he was positioned at the school, but the president turned a deaf ear. This decision sent two signals, both of them destructive. First, the new provost was undermined. He learned that he cannot trust the president to support him. Second, the campus community learned, once again, that performance is not valued.

When lean management becomes mean management, three things-all of them bad-occur. First, it becomes punitive. Your best people-your A-team-is too often overburdened. Because they are the most talented and the most conscientious, they assume, or are given, a disproportionate share of the burden. Shouldering this burden can exact a terrible toll. One president recently mentioned that three of his vice presidents all had significant health issues related, he said, to being overworked. Of course, there is nothing wrong with working hard. There is something very wrong, however, with continually being asked to perform at the sacrificial level.

Second, your most talented people-the people you absolutely need-will tire of the crucible and get enticed away. Regardless of whatever hiring freeze might be in place, a well-led college or university is always looking for truly talented people, and when it spots those people, it will pounce. Interestingly, and sadly, when your best people get hired away you will be left, in the end, with those people who have no option but to stay in place.

Third, your young talent-the big contributors of tomorrow-will not be given an opportunity to grow. The resources they need for professional development will not be available. In addition, because they are short-staffed, they are so busy simply getting through the day that they will not be able to skunk-work the time and energy they need to synthesize, attend the conferences, read the books, and earn the degrees. Over time, instead of having five years’ worth of experience, they will have one year worth of experience repeated five times.

Everyone agrees that times are tough, and higher education should always be on the lookout for the tools that will help it become more effective and efficient. Lean management, properly defined and executed, is one such tool. Poorly defined and haphazardly applied, however, lean management will sacrifice the people that colleges and universities need most. At that point, it is no longer lean, but mean.

Photo by: botheredbybees