Frustration

Frustration is the feeling of anxiety or dissatisfaction that results from the gap between expectations and reality. Frustration happens when problems are unsolved and when things don’t go according to plan.

Lean depends heavily on employee engagement and job satisfaction to work at its best. Frustration reduces job satisfaction, thereby lowering the effectiveness of Lean efforts.

The opposite is also true. Rapidly dealing with frustration engages employees. They get more committed to making improvements, which further reduces frustration.

The hardest part of eliminating a frustration is identifying what the root cause of the problem really is. Often, what is really bothering someone is not something he wants to tell his boss directly (i.e. is feeling increasingly fatigued and stressed out because Lean reduced the amount of time he can talk to his friends in the warehouse).