Lean hitting, fielding and

pitching at the same time:

A whole new ballgame for middle

management

ELEC 2015 16-18 September 2015

2nd European Lean Educators Conference

Drs. Freek Hermkens CMC

Background

• Principal business consultant MLC

• >10 years experience as consultant

• financial service industry

• Trainer at MLC

• PhD student at TuE

How and to what extent does middle management influence continuous improvement of organizations in the financial service

industry?

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Keep in mind the following questions

• What are the pitfalls for Middle Management for

successful implementation of Continuous Improvement?

• How does the role of Middle Management relates to

change management?

• At which specific aspects of Continuous Improvement

Middle Management can play a role?

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Why this subject?

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When we talk about … middle manager

“Any manager two levels below the CEO and one level

above line managers” (Huy 2001, pp. 73).

Can be broadly defined as managers holding positions

between the first level supervisors and the level of

executives, below those who have company wide

responsibilities (Herzing and Jimmieson 2006, pp. 628).

The middle manager stands in a unique organizational

position. They are close to the daily operations but far

enough away to see the bigger picture (Huy 2001).

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Middle Management

• Their unique position between operational and upper

management and knowledge about what motivates

employees in their unit/department allows middle managers to

enhance the chances of realizing change.

• Drawing on an analogy with baseball, middle managers are

typically expected to be able to hit, field and pitch at the same

time.

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Introduction

• Changes within and around organizations are order of the day, arising from

the need to simultaneously e.g.

• reduce cost

• improve quality

• reduce lead times and

• enhance flexibility (Stewart & Melnyk 2000; Homan 2006)

• Many organizations adopt Lean to establish continuous improvement (CI) as

an approach to cope with (some of) these changes (Bhuiyan et al. 2006).

• However, implementing Lean (or any other CI method) is a challenging

process and demands substantial organizational changes and commitment

of people involved (Drew et al. 2004).

• The success / failure of Lean programs thus to a large extent depends on

the people responsible for implementing the method, such as middle

management (Fine et al. 2008).

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Findings

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Middle management in the Bermuda triangle

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© Freek Hermkens (2014)

Stuck in the triangle

• Middle Managers key agents in facilitating change

• Stuck in the Triangle

• Top management needs to actively support

• Lead by example

• Focus for cutting cost to changing the organizational culture

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The demanding playing field of middle

management

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© Freek Hermkens (2014)

Demanding Playing field

• Failure of CI methods has been said to be poor leadership (CI)

• Move away from the role of supervisor to the role of coach (PH)

• As culture and values are to a large extent top management driven

(TM)

• Perceive the empowering of their subordinates as beneficial to the

organization but not beneficial to themselves (WF)

• Reduced job security for middle managers and increased work

pressure and peer pressure (PP)

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Four key dimensions for sustainability in CI

Adapted from (Fine et al 2008)

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Filling the pieces of the puzzle

• Process management controlling, influencing, monitoring and

predicting

• Risk of sub optimization on the end-to-end process

• Working a philosophy not just a set of tools

• Visual management is essential if an organizations wants to change

• Middle management can make or break change

• Middle managers have value-adding ideas for making the

organization better

• Commitment and a change in behavior and attitude from the entire

organization,

• Organizations often focus on tools and the change is insufficiently

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Middle management in relation to change and

continuous improvement

© Freek Hermkens (2015)

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Change and Middle Management

Two major angles regarding change and middle

management:

1) The role and influence a middle manager has on

implementing (strategic) change

a. Positive influence

b. Negative influence

2) Impact of organizational change on the middle manager

job and behaviour

a. Positive influence

b. Negative influence

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Further research

We intend to investigate these outcomes in more detail, as

follows:

• Several case studies of (middle managers’ role in)

Lean initiatives/programs; these case studies are

currently being conducted.

• Development and testing of an instrument, in the form

of practical guidelines that help managers to identify

the conditions and strategies that are likely to enhance

the success of a Lean initiative.

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Questions

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For more information

Freek Hermkens

F.J.A.hermkens@tue.nl

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