Correcting Bad Information, Part 2: The Real UFO Lean

The Real UFO Lean: Leaving Without a System or a Return Visit

Here’s the deal. Another LinkedIn post caught my attention, and I want to respond to it. The post said, whatever you do, avoid UFO Lean construction. I will give the author credit that UFO is more original than calling people seagulls. The post described UFO Lean as when a Lean person swoops down onto a project and tries to set up the most sophisticated implementation possible.

Short answer: UFO Lean isn’t a consultant who brings too much system. It’s one who swoops in with vague advice, no system, and no return visit. Lean sticks when people get a proven system (templates, best practices, how-to guides) and someone comes back for monthly field walks until it becomes habit.

I am not exactly sure what that means, but here is what I do know. There is an exact system for how to run a Lean construction project. Any Lean person who would not come to a project and set up a Lean implementation as a system does not know what they are doing. You do have to do an assessment, but you cannot just go in, guess, invite people to do better, and leave. That is the true UFO, seagull Lean.

Why Some People Say You Cannot Deliver an Implementation System

When somebody says you cannot go into a project and deliver an implementation system or process, I suspect the reason is that they do not have one. That lack of a system can make it easier to philosophize about implementation than to do it.

The True Seagulls

The true UFOs and seagulls in construction are the ones who come in and say, we should listen to each other, we should kumbaya, we should hold hands, we should really care about what the foremen want to do, we should have huddles. They do not have any specifics, and they do not have any solutions. Then they leave, giving the project team false hope and leaving people frustrated, without actual ways to implement.

When you leave a system that people can follow, they can actually implement it and win, which is what people want to do.

Templates, Best Practices, and How-To Guides

The post went on to criticize templates, best practices, and how-to guides. I probably have more how-to guides, best practices, and templates than anybody, and they work everywhere. What is insanity, and not Lean, is taking hundreds of years of the best experience and not using it, and reinventing the wheel every time.

If somebody has a working template, a working best practice, and a working how-to guide, you should use it, and you should vet it. Everyone knows where this information is. You do not have to wonder whether Last Planner works. You do not have to wonder whether Takt works, or Scrum, or operational systems, or Elevating Construction Superintendents. They work everywhere they are tried, every single location. I am tired of hearing templates, best practices, and how-to guides bad-mouthed. Taken to its conclusion, that says we should burn all the books and make the same mistakes people made 200 years ago.

The Technology Is Too Advanced

The post also said the technology is too advanced for the people on the project to understand and maintain. I have never heard a more diminishing comment about people. Are we really saying people are too stupid to learn technology? People are smart. They can understand things and they can rise to the occasion.

I do not like technology that does not work, but that is not because people cannot understand it. When technology works, and there is quite a bit of it, it is not too complex. Here are some examples I would call amazing.

• Bluebeam.
• 360 Field.
• Mural.
• Smartsheet.
• AutoCAD and Revit.

I did not even go to school, and I am AutoCAD and Revit certified. So it is not about technology being too advanced. It is about having the right technology. The post also moves back and forth between practices and technology, templates and technology, best practices and technology, how-to guides and technology, so it is not even staying on one point.

When the Lean Person Leaves

The post said that when the Lean person leaves to help another project, the team will try their best to maintain the implementation, but because they never understood the technology, the quality degrades over time and falls back to the dark ages. That sentence is contradictory, and it insults human ability.

The post also said that people who deploy UFO Lean end up coming back to help their team maintain the technology they introduced, which would be a good source of repeat customers for consultants, but that if we focus on maintaining, we are not able to make progress.

First of all, every good company has consultants, and consultants are awesome. But here is the truth. You will not implement anything unless you come back to the project and do walks. The best way to scale Lean construction is monthly field walks. Then, after three months, six months, or eight months, it becomes habit. After a year, it becomes part of their character and how they do business, part of the company culture, and then it is sustained.

If you are a consultant, you are irresponsible if you do not come back and do walks, and if you do not come back and help them maintain. You are not doing your customer a service if you are only going to do it once. I think this speaks to a lack of experience in scaling anything.

Why I Respond

Comments like these do not affect me personally. But when this kind of talk starts to reach the minds of people I care about, and I know those people are smart, I want to speak up. You can choose between his ideas and mine. I am not saying you are too stupid to figure it out, but I want both sides to be considered, because I am here to serve you. When somebody starts to tear down the beliefs of the group and the culture of where we are trying to go, that is when I get passionate and fired up.

Meeting People Where They Are

The post said you should meet people where they currently are, talk with them, understand their situation, and only introduce ideas they can understand and put into action. Nobody disagrees with meeting people where they are. But people can understand anything, and they can put into action anything they want to. Saying otherwise is diminishing talk.

The post also said the rate of Lean deployment should be equal to the rate of understanding. Great. That is up to them, at their pace, and they can go as fast or as far as they want, because they are incredible human beings.

Telling People What to Do

The post said, I cannot tell people what to do. I can only tell people what not to do, give them options, and let them decide for themselves. That is categorically untrue. Superintendents, project managers, and people with direct reports tell people what to do all the time. It works when it is the right thing. It works when it is with the team, when you are listening to your team, and when you are moving as a team. The problem is telling them to do the wrong things.

You also cannot just tell people what not to do. You have to go through the entire spectrum of what winning looks like and what not winning looks like.

Skills, Capabilities, and Unintended Consequences

The post said to pay more attention to the skills and capabilities of your team, and I do not disagree. It said not to introduce technology that people do not understand yet, and here I would say that people can understand any technology as long as it works. It said it can be tempting to look smart and deliver results quickly, but the unintended consequences can be quite harmful. I would ask what those are. Most people do not see the unintended consequences of their actions, and the post did not name any.

What Real Lean Practitioners Do

I disagree with most of that post. The real UFO Lean practitioners are the ones who tell you to come hold hands and then walk away with no solutions. Real Lean practitioners do the following.

• Tell you to listen to your foremen and your workers, and to respect them.
• Help you form a collaborative environment.
• Help you have a system and a plan, and know what you are doing.
• Hold people accountable to the plan.
• Help you have control of the circumstances and environment of your project, so people can flourish. That does not mean people are controlled. It means they are in a controlled environment where they can be their best selves.

And those Lean consultants, if they are worth their salt, come back to your project to support you and do walks until it sticks, because that is what it takes.

What It Takes for It to Stick

It takes coaching. It takes continuous training and immersion events. It takes consistency, cultural scaling, and a long time. If you want to learn from somebody who really knows how to scale, learn from Niklas Modig and his programs. As I understand it, he does not do quick programs. He does not just come by the project and tell everybody to hold hands. His implementations run six months, a year, or eighteen months, a slow drip over time, so the culture can make the shift together as a team.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

So here is the challenge. Look at your Lean effort and ask two things. Do people have a system they can follow, and is someone coming back every month to walk the project with them?

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “People are smart. They can understand things and they can rise to the occasion.”

On we go.

FAQ

What does Jason say the true UFO Lean is?

Coming to a project, guessing, inviting people to do better with no specifics or solutions, and leaving. That gives the team false hope and leaves people frustrated without ways to implement.

Why does Jason defend templates, best practices, and how-to guides?

Because taking the best experience that already exists and not using it is the opposite of Lean. Working templates should be used, vetted, and improved, not reinvented each time.

Why does Jason say consultants should come back?

Because implementation only sticks with follow-up. He recommends monthly field walks, coaching, continuous training, and immersion events until it becomes habit, then part of the company culture.

What does Jason say about technology being too advanced for project teams?

That it is a diminishing comment about people. People are smart and can understand technology that works. The issue is having the right technology.

Series:
Correcting Bad Information – Part 1
Correcting Bad Information – Part 3