Leadership Communication in Lean-Oriented Companies

摘要

The concept of lean management is one of the most successful production concepts of the world. The main objective of the approach is to produce value through smoothing the work by focusing on the value added processes and using limited resources very carefully. One important factor is how the management succeeds in implementing the idea of lean management with the company's employees, e.g. by communicating und discussing targets, methods and tools. Communication within teams as well as between teams and the management are essential success factors. This paper presents an exploratory study which is based on 6 qualitative in-depth interviews focusing on the communicative behavior of executives from the perspective of lean-oriented companies in Germany (industries: manufacturing, machinery and plant engineering). The study is guided by questions on how executives perceive and manage communication as part of their daily work, which factors are impacting their communicative behavior and which communicative principles of the lean management approach are known by executives in lean-oriented companies and how do they use them. Overall, the results indicate an extraordinarily rich field of topics that need further research. The paper ends with an overview on relevant topics for the research field lean management communication and how the topic should be implemented for companies and training.