Get out of the waste in the daily management routine

Managers are under great pressure in today's hectic environment. The average weekly working time is far above the usual 42-hour week and the daily leadership routine in the management team and in the executive board is characterized by countless meetings and interruptions, especially in the form of e-mails (Jürgens, 2000). The reasons for this are manifold: asynchronous distribution of information (e.g. coordination and exchange of information is ad hoc and not structured), poor/impracticable management tools (e.g. no management bases available, wrong incentives, lack of visualization), no or poor transparency as well as many unclear responsibilities and processes (tasks, competencies and responsibilities have not been clarified for years) as well as insufficient personnel development (dpa, 2013).

In addition, the manager rarely receives a reflection on his or her leadership performance and can therefore only develop his or her own working methods to a limited extent. This leads to many activities that should actually not be in the job profile of the manager. The manager finds himself in the operational hamster wheel. This results in the classic statement: "I don't have time".

The reality without Lean Leadership
This is where Lean Leadership comes in and supports leaders to concentrate on the actual task of a leader: Developing and shaping the future of the company. The following conditions can often be observed in companies without Lean Leadership:

• The management team and the executive board are in meetings for more than four hours a day.
• Executives receive more than 32 emails a day.
• The manager's workday lasts more than 48 hours per week.
• During holidays and days of absence, managers have one foot in the office and remain connected to the company by e-mail and mobile phone. The only "real" holiday is Christmas, on 25 and 26 December.
• Staff appraisals rarely take place and the further development of staff can be greatly improved. Furthermore, these are often an ordered compulsory exercise and bring neither the supervisor nor the employees much.
• Staff appraisals rarely take place and the further development of staff can be greatly improved. Furthermore, these are often an ordered compulsory exercise and bring neither the supervisor nor the employees much.
• The operational tasks characterize the daily management routine.
• Planning often falls by the wayside and/or the daily tasks undertaken are rarely completed. Instead, new tasks are always added.

More qualitative time
By using lean leadership approaches and methods, leaders get about 20 to 30% more "quality time" and leadership effort can be further reduced by reducing waste in day-to-day leadership. Lean leadership is not a magic bullet, but starts with leadership performance. This means adjusting leadership behaviors and rhythms, as well as leadership culture. The change starts first and foremost with the individual and ends with the leadership team, which has the greatest impact on all other employees in the organization. Lean leadership is a further development of existing leadership concepts and aims at the "enable instead of teach" principles (Liker and Convis, 2011). In a first phase, lean leadership focuses on the reduction of waste in one's own day-to-day management. In a second phase, elements from Kata Coaching (Rother, 2009) can be integrated.

Companies that develop and advance leadership performance show significantly higher performance across the entire organization (Jones, Womack and Jones, 2006). All too often, major lean initiatives are launched only to fizzle out after 6, 12 or 24 months. Now the question arises as to why such developments can be observed? Where is the connection between leadership and successful projects? Often the reasons can be reduced to a few points:

1. Managers who, due to overwork, do not (cannot) adequately fulfil their role model function and do not (cannot) enforce discipline.
2. Managers who "don't have time" to develop the organization and thus do not sufficiently plan and structure the establishment of new routines and lean activities.
3. In case of disruptions or non-optimal changes, the hand towel is thrown instead of further developing the organization with these inputs.

Through the use of Lean Leadership, these issues are directly addressed and worked on.

Role model function of the leaders
Managers who do not exemplify the required values and standards have little effect in the company: How is a company supposed to deliver its products on time if the meetings start 10 minutes late? In addition, the managers are often externally determined by their open calendars and thus have no time to further develop the organization and to work on improvements for the future. By using a goal-oriented improvement rhythm, e.g. reserving 10 % of the total working hours in the company for improvements, the company gets "time" to shape the future instead of just managing the present. This is a long-term investment and also requires perseverance. An insufficiently structured way of working - also in top management and in the board of directors - not only causes the company to lose important company resources, but also leaves behind frustrated and thus unsuccessful employees. By means of a transformation plan or a Lean Road-map, a company can be moved forward in the medium and long term. In this context, Lean Leadership acts as a catalyst and opens up new opportunities within and outside the company.

Take-home-message for the executives

• De-clutter your workday by defining fixed email or phone times, for example, and sticking to them with discipline.
• Develop a goal-oriented improvement rhythm for your organisation, e.g. every second Wednesday is an improvement day or every day between 1 and 2 p.m. all employees work on improvements.
• Pursue an internal zero email strategy. This vision will inspire you to take email waste seriously and address it, for example, through an initial analysis of incoming mail.
• Be stingy with your meeting time and reduce the number of meetings by 50 %.
• Be a role model inside and outside the company and develop several trouble-free zones during the week (guideline approx. 8 to 16 hours).
• Lead the way in improvement and show a strong commitment to the development of the organisation and its people. When problems arise, focus on further development and not on discarding ideas.