Traditional management
is more task oriented than task-improvement oriented.
The differences between traditional and lean management are related to culture, management approaches, employee involvement and improvement activities. Both styles of management are designed to develop strategies and to execute tactics that result in strategy execution. Both have succeeded to reduce costs and increase revenues in many companies. The differences point to very different ways of managing people and incorporating improvements.
Culture
Business culture refers to the way things get done, from how people communicate to how the organization is set up to execute strategies and assign work. Employees tend to respond to a culture that includes them and their ideas but that also controls and manages employees in a way that results in profitable decisions. Lean management tends to reward those who perform the business processes for suggesting improvements and devise ways to communicate, improve on, approve and implement those suggestions. Traditional management tends to tell employees what to do without expecting much employee feedback. Lean culture includes a set of philosophies and methods that everyone must be familiar with and implement. Traditional management can be much less structured in terms of management philosophy and the methods deployed.
Management Approaches
Traditional management tends to move information and tasks from the top executives down through the management ranks of the organization. Feedback from employees on their tasks and improvements to them is generally discouraged and is believed to hamper the flow of work and the amount of work that is done. Traditional management that solicits improvement suggestions usually requires cost justification. Cost accounting is usually an important part of making any changes in a traditional environment; this includes tasks like buying new machinery and changing business processes. Lean management focuses on cut waste from processes by incorporating ways to elicit, approve and implement improvement suggestions. Lean management believes all improvements should be considered no matter how small or how little cost is saved. Lean management includes processes for managing improvement suggestions, from eliciting them to implementing them. Traditional management seldom provides these processes, and when it does they are in the form of a short-lived campaign or program.
Employee Involvement
Lean management encourages employees to improve their workspace and business processes by targeting waste and eliciting improvement suggestions. Lean management assumes that no one knows the business processes better than the employee performing them. Employees are encouraged to focus on task achievement but also on targeting waste and suggesting improvements. Because lean management requires a structured approach agreed upon by employees and management, all employees are trained in lean culture, concepts and methods.
Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement connotes a constant and ongoing process. Improvement in a lean environment means any improvement is considered, not just those that achieve a certain cost threshold. Continuous improvement and waste reduction are the basic tenants of lean management, and they reveal the key difference between lean and traditional management.
Tags: Traditional management, business processes, improvement suggestions, Lean management, management tends