Build Relationships (Principle)
“It’s just business.” That has to be one of the all-time worst expressions to come from the corporate world. The intent is to make people feel better about themselves when they are hurting others in order to get ahead. If you read into those three little words, the meaning is that the people that are affected by decisions are irrelevant.
The truth is, though, that unless you have some massive advantage at your disposal, you can’t get away with treating people badly for very long. And even if you do have some sort of leverage, it is still fundamentally wrong to mistreat people. Ethics and morals should not change because of the strength of a balance sheet.
But the need to build relationships in continuous improvement goes far beyond personal values. Because so much waste gets removed from a Lean organization, there is very little margin for error. That means that when a problem occurs, teamwork takes on a completely different level of importance when compared to a typical organization.
Prerequisites
There are no specific prerequisites for this section. You should, however, be starting on the “Committing” phase of your journey.
Section Details
Estimated Time for Section: Ongoing principle.
Difficulty: High. Adhering to this principle often takes fundamental shifts in behaviors.
Risk: High. Getting this principle wrong means that people won’t be able to work together well. It may not affect teams significantly early on, but the as you try to integrate more advanced cultural changes, you’ll see problems.
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