Continuous improvement groups deliver lean guidance, results, and capability building
The Management Brief in September explored the role of continuous improvement (CI) groups in lean management. If you lead or belong to a CI group, we encourage you to use this month’s Brief as an opportunity for self-reflection.
We conducted four enlightening podcasts this month with:
- Jamie Bonini, President of the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) in the United States;
- Simon Rowley, Senior Manager, and Julian Ball, Section Manager, of the Toyota Lean Management Centre (TLMC) in the United Kingdom;
- Rich Calvaruso, Senior Director of the Lean Management Office for GE Appliances, a Haier Company; and
- Dr. Lisa Yerian, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical & Operational Improvement Officer, and Chad Cummings, Vice President of Lean Transformation & Continuous Improvement, of the Cleveland Clinic.
The executives talked about their experiences leading CI groups, from engaging others to accept and apply lean to the challenge of balancing direct involvement in problem solving with enabling leaders to own problems within their companies, departments, and functions.
Engaging Functions and Leaders
CI staff rarely if ever can successfully address a business-related problem in their own or other organizations without leaders, managers, and frontline associates being actively involved in making changes. CI personnel know how to solve problems and coach others to do likewise, but they don’t know the problem like those living it every day. And since demand for CI assistance frequently outweighs capacity, the heavy lifting must fall on those doing the work. The two parties — CI staff and individuals needing support — need to collaborate to achieve sustainable improvements, and that starts with clear communication.
“When we’re here at Toyota and having a discussion about TPS, it’s OK to assume that everyone has some level of knowledge and you can start using terms and think of activities you’re going to do, and everybody is kind of on the same page,” said Simon from TLMC, which was started by Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK in 2009 to support companies in the UK interested in implementing the Toyota Production System (TPS). “If you go to an external enterprise, first of all you have to change the way you communicate to people… We’ve taken a lot of effort to look at what we do with Toyota people and say, ‘We need to not rein it in but figure out how to communicate it differently.’”
Not everyone in a large organization, such as the Cleveland Clinic (23 hospitals, 280 outpatient locations, approximately 83,000 caregivers, and nearly 16 million patient encounters annually), necessarily wants to get involved with an improvement effort. Lisa said that can be frustrating. “I think a lot of people just get stuck and stop and say, ‘Why aren’t they doing what we want them to do.’” CI staff need to work to get beyond that. “You can’t stop there. You really have to listen and understand where they’re coming from.” She adds that working through those situations ultimately makes CI staff more impactful lean leaders and gets more problems solved and more people developed.
Jamie said that TPS/lean is typically new to the organizations encountered by TSSC. The not-for-profit corporation was started by Toyota Motor North America in 1992 and has shared Toyota knowhow with over 500 small- to mid-sized manufacturers, government entities, and non-profits. TSSC goes in looking to achieve an important goal or result by overlaying or adding some TPS principles to what an organization is already working to improve. The process — like the work of most CI groups — consists of:
- Identifying a small pilot/starter project based on an urgent business need,
- Learning TPS together within the organization in terms of how it applies to their company and business sector, and
- Spreading TPS beyond the project if it’s a good fit.
During a TSSC-client relationship, the parties assess the path forward, considering additional criteria such as the ability of TPS to deliver compelling business results, timing given other business priorities at the client, and the alignment of values with the company. “After six to nine months, we’re in a better place to figure out where to go, how to grow and scale, or [decide] this isn’t going to be a good fit,” said Jamie.
Lisa from the Cleveland Clinic said you can’t go into a project expecting managers and staff to immediately be on board and wanting to become lean converts: “If you are asking someone to support or believe, that’s too big, it’s too broad. Nobody knows what that means. What is it that you really need to get out of this interaction?” There needs to be a quick focus on a specific need. Both she and Rich from GE Appliances point to the lean transformation framework (LTF) — developed by John Shook, LEI Senior Advisor, and distilled from decades of his learning and observations — as the means to recognize a specific business problem and what is required to address it.
“The lean transformation framework that [LEI] put together … really sums it up,” said Rich, who for 15 years has led GE Appliances’ Lean Management Office. “A lot of folks have tried to package this lean stuff up into these different little toolkits and deployment models… They all have a little different take on it, but, honestly, I think a lot of those are confusing to people. It’s almost overwhelming. There are all these things you’ve got to learn. The lean transformation framework, you’ve simplified it. You made it simple and easy to understand and focused on a problem that needs solved for the business.”
“I am a big believer in the lean transformation framework, and I try to be very disciplined and rigorous in saying, ‘What is the problem we’re trying to solve, what’s our true value-driven purpose?’” said Lisa. “It’s really easy to get caught up in ‘I taught this in my last place’ or ‘We need to train everybody in X’ and not being really rigorous and deliberate in tying that back to purpose… If this capability or tool you want to introduce doesn’t help people solve a problem that is relevant for them or a problem they need to solve, then it’s not going to bring a lot of value.”
Changing Behaviors and Culture by Developing People
It’s been said that Toyota does not build products, but builds people. That adage is even more true for CI groups. Because of the sheer volume of demand for improvements across most organizations, CI groups need to develop the coaching and training abilities of leaders and managers, who, in turn, develop the problem-solving capabilities of every employee in their areas.
“If we want to make a change in our culture, we have to really think about what behaviors, right behaviors or correct behaviors, we want to drive, but even prior to that thinking about routines,” said Chad of the Cleveland Clinic. “Do we have the right routines in place that help to establish those behaviors. And to establish those routines you have to build capability in people. You have to give them the knowhow of what good looks like.”
One responsibility for most CI groups is the facilitation of kaizen/rapid improvement events, which often last several days and focus on improving a specific, complex problem in an organization. Rich from GE Appliances sees benefit in conducting kaizen events, but warns that they alone cannot provide the learning needed to change culture or engage enough people in lean capability development. GE Appliances has decidedly moved to a reliance on its management system — which ties together standardized work and methods to improve the work — to get results and develop capabilities of people across production.
The Lean Management Office at GE Appliances also invests significant time with those who lead and should be coaching others. Its Immersion training program began in 2016 and develops senior leaders, plant managers, and staff. All the executives are required to attend the program and are taken off their regular jobs for up to four weeks. They get individual learning with a coach, and they work at making improvements on the plant floor, all while learning lean fundamentals such as standardized work and problem-solving methods.
Rich said there is “no place to hide,” and executives have found Immersion humbling. “We made them experience the work of a team member on the line. It created some empathy. But also they got to see not only how the tool works but the whole social aspect of how you make change… It was very, very powerful and rewarding for those folks. Ultimately, it changed their thinking, and I think once they went through it, they all started to lead differently.”
TSSC helps leaders learn how to solve problems and coach others to solve problems, with senior executives undergoing a three- to four-day workshop where they must solve actual problems on the frontlines. Jamie said, “Almost all the time we get the same feedback, which is, ‘Wow. We have a lot more problems out there than I had realized that can be solved. There’s a lot more improvement tension than I realized. This problem-solving method is pretty simple… but the actual practice is difficult. If we want our people to be able do this type of problem solving on a regular basis, we’re really going to have to provide management that is going to support and development them in that.’”
Simon from TLMC said that the best way to improve one’s TPS knowledge is “just to practice.” That approach helps those with whom TLMC partners as well as the TLMC staff helping them improve and develop. “In my experience of doing TPS, no two situations are the same. Whether it’s the people, whether it’s the problem, whether it’s the environment you’re working in. Experiencing as many of those problem opportunities to practice your TPS is really critical to improving. So, therefore, joining an organization like TLMC and getting to see lots of people with lots of problems is a great way to learn.”
One reason that TLMC was formed in 2009 was to utilize and develop Toyota UK staff rather than laying them off during the financial crash. “They saw this as an opportunity for development of their own people, going out to clients and helping them and coaching them in TPS and the Toyota Way, develop them to then go rotate back into the business and make our business stronger,” said Julian.
Perseverance Required
A lean transformation is not a short-term effort — for those engaged in doing the actual work as well as CI personnel guiding them on their improvement journey. And those doing the work and those supporting them will face challenges in the beginning and over time.
The Lean Management Office at GE Appliances had a critical role as the company began to build back its U.S. manufacturing capability and reshore products to Louisville, Ky., around 2009. “[After] two years of planning, we launched that first plant. It did not go as great as you’d want from a launch standpoint,” said Rich. “But, I think, in retrospect, it was about as good as we could have done, considering the fact that we had lost a lot of capability over the years in this space, and we were having to build that back. You can build a plant and bring a product back, but there’s a lot more that goes into manufacturing than the product and the building.”
Re-establishing GE Appliances as the No. 1 appliance maker in the U.S. took “leanshoring” not just reshoring. “You’re not just bringing back what you lost. You have to do it differently. You have to think about it differently.”
Over the years, Rich has learned that not every improvement project will be an immediate success: “Have a lot of perseverance. That’s required. Don’t expect everything to be perfect and everything to go exactly as planned. There will be some tough spots. Become a learner. Learn as much as you can and do as much as you can… Go do it with them. If you really want to spread this, go find somebody who has a business problem and partner up with them and try to solve it together. That’s the best way to get people on board… I always ask people one question and that is, ‘What problem are you trying to solve?’”
The Cleveland Clinic CI group had worked for years to develop a culture of improvement, establishing a tiered daily huddle system, kaizen system, and problem-solving capability and awareness throughout the organization. Then COVID struck. The culture and improvement methods and mindsets remained intact as the pandemic eased, but reflection and adjustment were required.
“In my role I realized we need to go back and reinvigorate some of that work, repeat some of that work, redo some of that work,” said Lisa. This included re-educating leaders on how to perform their roles: “What is the system, how do you participate, how do you make it effective, what is the intended outcome, how do know if it’s doing it or not?”
Both of us have had leading roles in CI groups — working with clients at LEI and previously at Starbucks (Josh) and TMMC (Mark). We achieved some significant, lasting improvements and also had some efforts that didn’t realize their full potential, or worse, deteriorated and were not fully sustained. As we reflect on our work, we recognize a few keys that may help CI personnel succeed as they transform their own and other organizations:
- Focus on addressing a critical business need or achieving a meaningful business result (using LTF to help you make that determination).
- Improve processes and develop people; neither alone is enough (which the LTF reminds you about).
- Establish systems that support the lean transformation, today and tomorrow (hoshin kanri, daily management, and structured problem solving).
- Change culture by changing the way leaders behave and think.
- Practice — keeping doing all the above every chance you get. PDCA, PDCA, PDCA…
Want to take these ideas further?
Go beyond the page and see lean leadership in action. The Lean Leadership Learning Tour (Nov. 10–13, 2025) takes you inside Toyota, GE Appliances, and Summit Polymers to witness real-world problem-solving, leadership development, and transformation at scale. Bring a colleague, align your vision, and return ready to accelerate change.
Lean Leadership Learning Tour
Go beyond theory—see lean leadership in action.
