Creative Leadership in Action

This chapter focuses on the creative leadership model in action. Toyota provides a pioneering example that has spread to the rest of the world under the name of Toyotism and lean management. Toyotism: The Toyota case highlights the three main aspects of a successful creative model of leadership in action. Pulling the flow of operations from the final customer demand gave everyone a way to formulate meaningful goals and identify with the whole organization. As empowerment, horizontal cooperation, and continuous improvement became core principles, the company made a considerable effort to hire and develop employees capable of adapting to a teamwork culture and ready to experiment and learn. The number of hierarchical levels and the complexity of interactions could be reduced as teamwork became prevalent and managers worked closer to field operations. Learning from errors was made possible by increasing visual checks and making hidden problems visible. Continuous improvement and learning led to the development of a strong culture of relational engagement, in a climate of trust. A management center was essential to orchestrate the coherence of the whole. Turning around Virginia Mason: This second example shows how Gary Kaplan succeeded in turning around the problematic situation at the Virginia Mason Hospital Center. Once again we see in action the three aspects, strategic vision, leadership style, and cultural context. The strategic and long-term vision of the whole organization was focused on the patient and Gary Kaplan deployed this new approach by remaining modest, adopting an open style of leadership, and recruiting or retaining the best talent. He instituted a continuous improvement approach by empowering people to take initiatives and by increasing opportunities for team experimentation. By mapping the flow of patients that crossed different units, it was possible to reveal not just sources of waste but also sources of innovation. Gary Kaplan was convinced of the necessity of creating a context and a culture of relational engagement by developing team collaboration and transversal cooperation between groups and work units. The flattening of hierarchy occurred naturally as people worked in teams and a learning culture developed in a climate of psychological safety. Cultural change would not work without a systematic and deliberate approach involving the whole organization, under the guidance of a promotion and monitoring office.