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| Bas Bonnier - MSc Mech. Eng. EMFC |
In the last years I have investigated several Lean, Kaizen and other process improvement philosophies and have investigated their implementation. My main research contained the question why Lean implementations in organizations in the Netherlands appeared less successful than in Japan. Cultural differences between the two countries seemed to have a major impact on successful implementation. All my argumentation was based on personal experience, gut feeling and common sense. Recently I read the book Cultures and Organizations of Prof. Dr. Ir. Geert Hofstede that gave me the longed insight based on 40 years of academic research. In his book regarding cultural differences Hofstede describes Culture as the unwritten rules of the social game, the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others. He compares countries on different cultural dimensions. In the below mentioned graph the dimensions Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, Risk Avoidance and Pragmatism between the Netherlands and Japan are compared.
The Netherlands and Japan differ on all dimensions, on some dimensions more than on others. But especially on the dimension Masculinity we are each other’s opposites, two extremes. Japan is after Slovakia the most masculine country in the world and the Netherlands is after Latvia, Norway and Sweden the most feminine country in the world.
A high score (masculine) on this dimension indicates that the society will be driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the winner/best in field. A low score (feminine) on this dimension means that the dominant values in society are caring for others and quality of life. The fundamental issue here is what motivates people, wanting to be the best (masculine) or liking what you do (feminine). This difference in masculinity gives an explanation for the differences in implementation successes of Lean process improvements: Japanese organization members are improving processes to become better and to be able to do more in the same time. But we Dutch have, as process members, the intrinsic desire to make our life easier and more enjoyable, to do the same in less time. Our personal life improvement activities together with our high individualism lead often to sub-optimizations of company processes. This holds off results. Therefore, to be successful in the Netherlands, process improvers should spend much more time and energy on explaining, clarifying and creating goal congruence between the goals of the company and the goals of the employees.
Cyndi Lauper was right after all …
