Very early in my lean adventure as a new vice president of operations, when the idea of listening to workers was still a little strange, I returned from a week vacation to find that two of my peer managers had teamed up to convince the company president that I had “turned over the asylum to the inmates” and lost control of the factory.
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“It sounds like communism,” the president told me. “What do you think you’re doing? Your managers say you’re ignoring their concerns.” For a minute I was too floored to speak.
My accusers had expressed their concerns to me about “losing control” shortly before my vacation but I had no idea how desperate they were. These managers, call them Bob and Bill, were both what I considered good transactional leaders—give them a set process, and they would dependably lead like field generals. They were good keepers of the status quo. In this case the generals had planned a sneak attack.
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