Module 1: discussion organizational behavior and management part 2

Respond to at least two response posts made to your classmates. 

Your responses should be more than, “I agree.” Find ways to respond to your classmates, though different ideas, including articles that support or challenge and/or videos.   Add your own experience and then ask questions that will help them to think further or apply their thoughts to different situations.

Peer 1 

Lean management entails identifying and eliminating waste from work processes. Employees are usually involved in this management, where they map out work processes and identify solutions to minimize steps, time, space, and other resources without jeopardizing job objectives. Some aspects of organizational effectiveness were overlooked in various situations, such as when the Sunderland Royal Hospital ignored Human Capital by obtaining ideas from the Nissan factory and not using their own stock knowledge to reduce their time in work processes so that they could spend more time performing surgery on more patients. 

Everything in lean management is viewed through the eyes of the client. The hospital did not seek outside advice on how to increase productivity and satisfaction. This will result in less effective growth for the organization than could have been accomplished if consumer input had been included.

Lean management may be difficult to adopt. Most people find change difficult, let alone a large group of people with diverse personalities. It might be difficult to know when and where to revamp an entire workflow within an organization. It is a whole new way of thinking across the organization, and it will be difficult to achieve consensus.

Reference: 

McLaughlin, Emily. “What Is Lean Management.” SearchCIO, TechTarget, 26 Aug. 2019, https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/lean-management.

Peer 2

I have never heard of lean management before, so it was interesting reading about and getting my first opinion about this practice. I can see lean management as an effective way to reduce wasteful activities. This will allow your workflow to be focused and allow for more value to be brought in. It can also improve one’s productivity and efficiency. “These major benefits work together to create a company that is more flexible and can address customer requirements in an improved and faster manner” (McLaughlin). Lean management can help a company be more flexible and can address customers faster, but I think that is when they ignore organizational effectiveness. In the case study that was talked about in the book, the hospital staff was looking to cut down the wait time and get patients in and out faster. This feels like they are helping the patients, so they don’t have to be in the waiting room for three hours, but does this make the patients feel rushed and pushed out the door and don’t feel like they had personal care. At the end of the day, their patients are their customers and they need to make sure that the customers are feeling heard and taken care of. If their focus is cutting down on the waiting time will customers feel like the personal care aspect is gone and feel rushed with their whole experience? 

I think what happens with lean management is to cut down on some things there are going to be negatives effects in other areas. Lean management is about changing what a company normally does and for some people that is hard because change is hard. At the same time, however, every business should not use lean management and should do their research and figure out if lean management is right for the company. I think businesses that focus on delivering to customers should not use lean management. Lean management is about reducing wasteful activities which also means having a smaller error margin. As we know deliveries get delayed due to unpredictable circumstances like weather or a crash and those are things that lean management wouldn’t be effective in. If it is a delivery company shipping out supplies and the supplies are late the company might not have enough raw materials to meet the customer’s demand and it will lead to late deliveries. Lean management is about better using the resources the company has and not wasting them. I think lean management is also about consistency and if the business is consistent then it makes sense to only use the resources that the company needs. As for a delivery company that needs extra resources that might seem wasteful is important because deliveries are not consistent and may take longer than expected. 

McLaughlin, E. (2019, August 26). What is Lean Management. SearchCIO. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/lean-management (Links to an external site.)

Lawal, A.K., Rotter, T., Kinsman, L. et al. Lean management in health care: definition, concepts, methodology and effects reported (systematic review protocol). Syst Rev 3, 103 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-3-103