Kevin Anderson, Dr. Organizational Design

Why Lean Will Win Where BPI Failed (With Lessons for AI)

I recently came across one of the clearest explanations of why Business Process Reengineering (BPR) failed—and why Lean continues to succeed. It connected past mistakes to what many organizations are about to repeat with AI. [The Reengineering Is Coming – Lean Enterprise Institute]

At its core, BPR didn’t fail because the problems weren’t real. It failed because leadership lost touch with the work and the people doing it. As Tyson Heaton notes in the article, “the people closest to the work know the nature of the work.” And yet, when organizations reached a breaking point, they didn’t turn to those people. They brought in outsiders, mapped processes that employees could have described years earlier, and applied radical solutions that often resulted in large-scale layoffs.

Those outcomes weren’t inevitable. They were the accumulated cost of years without continuous improvement. Over time, small inefficiencies compound: handoffs break down, workarounds become standard, and leaders begin managing from dashboards instead of understanding how work actually flows. Eventually, the gap becomes too large, and the only perceived option is dramatic intervention.

Lean offers a different path.

Instead of waiting for a crisis, Lean starts with understanding. We go to the work, map value streams end-to-end, and involve the people doing the work in improving it.
The changes are often incremental at first, but over time they fundamentally reshape how the organization operates.

What I’ve consistently seen is that when you stabilize and improve processes, you don’t eliminate people—you unlock them. Capacity that was spent chasing errors, fixing broken handoffs, and compensating for poor design gets redirected toward solving real problems. People evolve from task executors into problem solvers. That’s where Lean wins—not just in efficiency, but in capability building.

This becomes even more important as AI adoption accelerates.

The real divide emerging is not between companies that use AI and those that don’t. It’s between organizations that understand their value streams well enough to apply AI to real problems, and those that layer AI onto processes they haven’t examined in years. Without that foundation, AI simply accelerates existing dysfunction.

We are already seeing this play out. Many AI pilots promise transformation but deliver limited impact because the underlying processes are unclear or broken. It’s the same pattern we saw with earlier waves of technology—automating inefficient work instead of improving it.

This is why Lean is not optional in an AI-enabled future.

In the Lean AI work we are doing:

We purposely start with real operational problems—cycle time delays, rework, unclear ownership—and then determine where AI can meaningfully enhance human capability.
We are not applying AI broadly and hoping for results. We are applying it deliberately to problems we understand.
By doing this, we avoid the conditions that led to BPR. We don’t let problems accumulate to the point where radical reengineering becomes necessary.

For leaders, this is the real takeaway.

Lean is not just a set of tools. It is a leadership orientation that requires staying connected to the work, developing people, and continuously improving the system. Organizations that operate this way don’t need periodic “transformations.” They evolve.

The reengineering wave may come again, driven this time by unmet expectations around AI. But organizations have a choice. They can wait for the gap to widen and accept the consequences—or they can do the harder work now.

That path is Lean.

Note: This blog does not reflect the views of my employer.

Complex vs. Complicated Problems: It Makes a Difference!

I’ve started to notice that the word “unprecedented” doesn’t carry much weight anymore. It shows up so often in organizations that it’s become part of the background noise. That alone should tell us something—uncertainty is no longer the exception; it is the environment we are operating in every day.

This realization sat at the core of my recent work and presentation, and it led me back to a distinction that continues to shape how I approach organization design: the difference between complicated and complex problems.

In my experience, we tend to treat most business challenges as if they are complicated. We assume the issue can be defined clearly, analyzed thoroughly, and solved with enough structure and expertise. And to be fair, that approach works well in certain situations. A budgeting process or a system implementation may be difficult, but with enough effort and the right skillsets, the path forward becomes clear.

However, much of the work we do in organization design does not behave this way. Leadership alignment, culture change, or shifting how teams collaborate rarely follow a predictable path. These challenges evolve as people react, interpret, and adjust. What feels true one week can shift the next. That is what I would describe as complex.

I’ve seen this play out repeatedly. Leaders invest heavily in detailed plans, future-state designs, and tightly managed rollouts. Yet despite all that effort, the outcomes often don’t match expectations. The issue is not a lack of competence or effort. It is that the system itself is dynamic, and the moment we intervene, it responds.

The turning point for me was recognizing that the problem was not always the design. It was how I was framing the problem. When I labeled something as complex rather than complicated, my approach changed. I became less focused on being right and more focused on understanding what was actually happening in real time.

We all have the ability to do this better than we think. If you reflect on how organizations adapted during COVID, it becomes clear that people can respond creatively when plans fall apart. Teams adjusted, leaders made decisions with incomplete information, and work continued in ways most of us would not have predicted.

What stands out to me is not how perfect those responses were, but how adaptable they were. That same adaptability exists in our day-to-day work if we can access it more intentionally.

For me, that starts with one simple shift: acknowledging when I am dealing with complexity and letting go of the need to control every variable. That shift creates room for curiosity, better questions, and ultimately better outcomes.

*This series of posts are from my presentation the Organization Design Forum 2026 Annual Conference based onJennifer Garvey Berger and Carolyn Couglin’s book “Unleash Your Complexity Genius”. In the next post, I will focus on two practices that have helped me do this more consistently—how I notice what is happening, and how I experiment in small ways to move work forward.

Note: This blog does not reflect the opinions of my employer.

Looking Forward to Organization Design Forum National Conference

A Development Role Where Community Isn’t A Buzzword – It’s Real!

Sometimes the Internet actually gets it right. An AI search says people move to Northern Minnesota for its exceptional quality of life — a deep connection to nature, lower cost of living, and a strong sense of community. As someone who grew up in Grand Rapids and still heads north every chance I get, I can attest: that “dream lifestyle” is real.

And here’s a rare opportunity to live it.

KAXE — an extraordinary Northern Minnesota community radio station — is hiring a Director of Development. I grew up volunteering at the station and remain active today. It is unlike any community radio station I’ve seen. This role isn’t just about fundraising strategy and campaigns — it’s about becoming part of a vibrant, deeply engaged regional community.

As the station’s lead development professional, your days would center on building relationships with people who show up for their towns simply because they care. In Northern Minnesota, community isn’t a talking point — it’s how people live. You’d be working alongside residents, organizers, artists, and civic leaders who actively shape their communities and see KAXE as a hub that connects them all.

The KAXE audience goes far beyond passive listeners. They are participants — sharing local events, conversations, and stories. The station brings people together, and as Development Director you would help sustain and grow that invaluable community resource. It’s a uniquely meaningful platform for a development professional who wants their work to truly matter.

And then there’s life outside of work: no traffic-filled commute, a more attainable cost of living, and immediate access to some of the most beautiful wilderness in the country.

Too good to be true? In this case, it’s very real. Tune into KAXE today from their website and see for yourself…

https://www.kaxe.org/development_director

Note: This blog/post does not reflect the views of my employer.

Supporting Community Radio in a Time It’s Needed Most

I’m thrilled to be leading a radio team retreat this month for KAXE, a northern Minnesota station rooted in people, place, and storytelling. In a time of shrinking federal and state support, their work is more vital than ever.

KAXE is at the forefront of community-powered radio, with programming that connects and inspires— a few examples of how the station:

Helps us identify the birds at our feeder (as well as other fascinating nature observations) through the program Phenology
Gets us up and dancing to the largest variety of music we’ve ever heard on Headwaters and On the River
Keeps us informed via in-depth Local News reporting on issues that matter to rural MN—like local government, housing, daycare and education

I have designed the team’s retreat to:

Tap into the energy of the local communities, including loyal listeners who raised $160K+ in a recent “Defunded but Not Defeated” campaign
Strengthen local news, music, and conversation. Our practical strategic planning involves reinforcing community radio’s vital role in free speech and amplifying underrepresented voices
Brainstorm how to celebrate KAXE’s 50th anniversary. Since the station is powered by the people of northern MN, we will craft events deeply rooted in community.

This moment is personal. I first volunteered at KAXE as a student, creating a youth news program. Now, years later, I get to support their mission via helping to empower a community radio station and radio team that is in short, irreplaceable.

This blog does not reflect the views of my clients.

Drivel vs Wisdom: How to Tell the Difference in Management Thinking

There’s no substitute for business advice that’s practical and useful. Yes, I’m talking about suggestions that actually work — as in, they make things better in the real world.

Drivel, on the other hand, is defined as “silly nonsense.” Unfortunately, there’s plenty of it floating around in the field of organizational development.

At their best, management tips and techniques have helped me navigate tough organizational challenges and find clear, successful solutions.

But when you’re in the middle of a structure, process, or people challenge, it’s tough to rise above the chaos and see a way forward. Yes, management thinkers really can be your best friends.

However, not all management thinking is created equal. In my experience, most of it falls into three buckets:

Bucket 1: Interesting, But Not Practical

Much of the academic work around management presents clever concepts that have limited real-world application. These are the kinds of ideas that are fun to think about — but when Monday morning rolls around, you’re left asking, “What exactly am I supposed to do with this?”

Take leadership styles, for example. The theory categorizes leaders as dictatorial, authoritarian, consultative, or participative. Great. So let’s say you want to be more participative — now what? What actions do you take, and what do you tell your team to create that environment?

These theories often answer the what without ever addressing the how. They describe what it means to be a manager, but don’t provide much guidance on how to actually do it. Interesting? Yes. Helpful? Not so much.

Bucket 2: Practical, But Not Useful

In this bucket, you’ll find management ideas that seem practical — but fall apart in execution. These are the ideas that leave you saying, “Well, it looked good on paper…”

One example is the business reengineering craze many organizations jumped on a decade ago. Reengineering called for reinventing the way work was done by redesigning processes and workflows. Sounds practical, right? But in practice, it often resulted in mass layoffs without improved performance. Employees quickly caught on that volunteering for a reengineering initiative wasn’t in their best interest.
Tony Carter, After the Aftermath of Reengineering (1999)

You can usually spot theories in this bucket by how your team responds. When you introduce these ideas, they’re often met with skepticism or confusion. Employees either ignore the advice because they suspect it won’t work, or try it and see poor results. These ideas are quickly abandoned.

Bucket 3: Practical and Useful

As in so many areas of life, we have no shortage of opinions — but wisdom is much harder to find.

Once we set aside the first two buckets, what we’re left with is a smaller group of management approaches that are both practical and useful. The good news? There’s less to learn — because you’re focused on what actually works.

The tools in this bucket are real organizational interventions. They consistently help people navigate structure, process, and people challenges. These are the approaches I’ve leaned on time and time again.

Here are a few examples that have stood the test of time in my own work:

Structure: Jay Galbraith’s Organizational Design Principles

Galbraith emphasized using design principles to ensure that organizational structures achieve their goals. These principles guide the design process, help with trade-off decisions, and keep everyone focused on a shared outcome.
This method helped me align a dozen independent marketing groups within a Fortune 100 company so they could quickly respond to customer needs and unexpected challenges.
🔗 www.jaygalbraith.com

Process: Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle

Deming’s PDCA framework is my go-to for managing improvement projects. It keeps teams focused on gathering data, analyzing root causes, and making meaningful change.
I’ve used this approach to save millions of dollars while improving the quality of products and services.
🔗 asq.org/learn-about-quality/project-planning-tools/overview/pdca-cycle.html

People: Start/Stop/Continue Exercise

‘Start/Stop/Continue’ is a simple group exercise any manager can run. It helps teams move from strategy to action, and it improves alignment, effectiveness, and efficiency.
I’ve had employees tell me this tool has been transformative for their teams — it’s that effective.
🔗 www.mindtools.com/pages/article/SKS-process.htm

There’s a huge volume of management thinking out there — but only a small slice of it is truly practical and useful.

If this post helps raise awareness about the need for real-world, actionable management thinking, then mission accomplished.

This blog does not reflect the opinions of my clients.

[Note: this post, first publishing in 2018 has been updated with new content]

Return to Office: Just Give Me A Reason

Why should we return to office? The lament reminds me of Pink’s song “Just Give Me A Reason” where she begs: “Just give me a reason, just a little bit’s enough.” To date, the headlines have instead focused on the reasons for staying home.

For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article cited the difficulties around getting urban workers to head to the office given increasing crime on public transportation, the cost of commuting and continued worry about Covid. [WSJ, Big Cities Can’t Get Workers Back to the Office, July, 7, 2022.]

Those pushing for return to office have missed the most important reason for gathering in-person: The work itself! As a life long organizational consultant I have experienced first-hand how compelling it is to bring people together to share experiences and collaborate. We are social animals. And let’s face it, many of us tire of staring at a screen all day.

Over the past few months I have witnessed amazing workplace dynamics resulting from face-to-face experiences:

A global team that was headed in many different directions aligned, moving together towards their goal. This required focusing team members on the specific tasks at hand. The team members shared what help they needed from their peers in order to perform. This led to dynamic discussions about what the team can realistically provide each other.
A support team determined how they can accomplish annual goals via working in new ways. Team members indicated that they were floundering as they tried to navigate new work challenges on their own from home. The team members shared best practices. They identified ways to collaborate in order to gain new capabilities and adopt new approaches.
An operations team was able to meet face-to-face for the first time in years. Many of the team members were new to their roles. They shared moving life stories and work experiences. At the conclusion, team members indicated that they had gained newfound energy for their work due to really getting to know one another for the first time

The above breakthroughs did not come quickly. It was not as easy as simply gathering team members in-person and hoping for positive outcomes. Rather, powerful interactions happened as a result of planned deep engagement. These carefully designed interactions lasted several days. A number of important factors were at play:

In some cases team members needed to be in person in order to have the time and focus for in depth topics which led to understanding of the work at hand and how their roles overlapped.
In other instances team members benefited from a great deal of spontaneous back and forth discussion resulting from in-person interaction.
In most cases, the age old challenge of trust played out. Team members needed to spend time together building up their faith in their peers in order to open up themselves.

The team collaborations described above do not require us to be in the office all the time. In fact, many teams are carving out chunks of time to gather together each quarter, month and/or week. This is the new brand of hybrid work.

We need a reason to face the risk, cost and just plain old inconvenience of hauling ourselves to the office. Just give me one reason to return: The people!

Note: This blog does not reflect the views of my employer.

Go Ahead and “Enable” Your Clients Given All We Have Been Through!

Given the challenges our clients are facing, we should “enable” them to improve #organizational performance. Yes, I used the word “enable!” I fully recognize that this term is often times seen as a negative. As in, I “enabled” my dysfunctional cousins to drink themselves silly.” Not so cool.

The type of “enabling” I am talking about involves clients who are currently immobilized by the dozens of challenges they have faced over the past two years. The #pandemic alone has resulted in many of our clients having to take herculean efforts to keep their organizations functioning. Many teams are now transitioning again to #returntooffice which creates additional stressors. [I write about the challenges and triumphs of delivering our work virtually and hybrid in my new book: https://amzn.to/3zvtzyv]

All this adds up to some burned out folks who are not in a good place for launching new #organizationalimprovement efforts. … And yet, we all need to keep getting better! …

Given this back drop, I find myself going the extra step to kick start some performance improvement efforts. A few examples:

Kick Off: I have taken a more active role in getting teams together in order to start an improvement effort. There are a number of leaders and team members who have #organizationaldevelopment efforts on their docket. At the same time, they are so swamped with day-to-day people, process and technology challenges that they do not have the bandwidth to get the effort kicked off. I have found that by doing a bit of work upfront to push the effort into gear, the leaders then quickly follow with action.

Project Approaches: A number of leaders and teams I work with do not have the mindshare to brainstorm ways to approach our performance effort. Again, they are so overloaded with other challenges that the exercise of coming up with new, innovative ideas for improvement is simply overwhelming. In these instances I find myself offering up a slate of ideas to get the conversation going. This provides the initial fuel leading to robust conversations.

Scale Back: I am fine with leaders and teams needing me to prime the pump to get a project going (per the above two bullets). However, this is the case only IF the team is then able and willing to do the heavy lifting. In cases where the team is truly overloaded, I suggest that the project be scaled back, delayed or dropped altogether. It is much better to back away from a project that would end up flailing than to push it forward.

In summary, I am finding that in some cases leaders and teams need a little nudge to get them going on organizational improvement. Given the huge challenges over the past few years I am willing to do a bit of extra work/hand holding beyond what consultants typically offer given these extra-ordinary times (how many times have we heard that term!).

I am being provocative by using the word “enabling”. Is the consultant by doing a bit of extra work to get an effort going “enabling”? If so, then I guess I am an enabler….

Note: This blog does not reflect the views of my employer.

Return-to-Work, Virtual or Hybrid: A Millennial Wonders If It Matters!

welcome back written on yellow sticky note- vector illustration

A consulting colleague stared at me with disbelief that I had spent time during the #pandemic writing a book The New Workforce: Productivity Through Virtual and Hybrid Teams https://amzn.to/3zvtzyv on navigating these new environments. She explained that she has always operated in #in-person and #online environments, seamlessly switching between the two.

I am an “elder” consultant with decades of experience. My colleague is a millennial new to the game. This gap in perspective is playing out every day in organizations across the globe. This is especially true as many businesses are now asking employees to #return-to-work during 2022, along with remaining virtual for part of the time.

This transition is creating some angst for professionals not acquainted with fluidly moving between work settings. However, should this type of ongoing transition lead to drama? Is focusing time and energy on work settings taking valuable energy away from asking more important questions about how to resolve critical organizational issues of the day?

I believe the below comments of my millennial colleague featured in my book suggest that she would answer these critical questions in the affirmative:

“I’ve spent most, if not all, of my professional career operating in hybrid virtual/in-person work environments on global teams. I was 24 when I joined one of the largest business consulting firms in the world, where I was expected to travel 100% for work, which in my case meant I was getting on a plane each Monday at 6 a.m., coming home each Thursday by 11 p.m., and working from home on Fridays.

Across all industries I worked in, from manufacturing, to consumer-packaged goods, to retail, my clients expected consultants to be onsite physically each week. This was even the case when I was put on a project based in Budapest, Hungary, where I was able to finagle a “2 weeks onsite, 2 weeks working from home” schedule for a year.

I’ve worked on deliverables and carried out entire meetings and workshops on planes, busses, and trains, in coffee shops, lobbies, my parents’ kitchen, the client’s onsite cafeteria—you name it. The idea of “going into work to get things done” is an interesting one in my experience, because I have had to constantly learn how to work with others in whatever context was presented to me. …

If nothing else, this pandemic has tested our assumptions, truths, and rules that we may have held close. By allowing ourselves the space and possibility to hold multiple truths together, we can continue to stay agile and continue operating in whatever environment or context is presented to us next—whether it be a plane, a coffee house, or my parents’ kitchen. I look forward to it.”

In my book I conclude that the virtual approaches I share, such as online polling and whiteboards, can be easily leveraged in hybrid and in-person environments. The key is to become adept at tools and techniques that will help your teams succeed regardless of where they are delivered.

As a fellow “elder” consultant said to me last week: “We have a lot to learn from the millennials about how we approach work.”

Note: This blog does not reflect the views of my employer.

Recreating “Water Cooler” Conversations in the #Virtual and #Hybrid Work World

This is an excerpt from my new book The New Workforce: Productivity Through Virtual and Hybrid Teams. For additional ways of getting teams to higher performance in an online world purchase book here and please write a review: https://amzn.to/3zvtzyv

When we worked in-person, the problem of the day was the main topic of conversation. As soon as we landed at the office, someone would ask, “Did you hear about the ERP system?” An emergency meeting invite regarding an angry large customer would appear as soon as we turned on our computers. As we poured our first cups of coffee, team members were huddled together in the cafeteria excitedly talking about the production line that went down.

The office setting provided many forums where team members could share what they knew about the challenge and explore together how it happened. Perhaps most telling, the gaggle of employees in the cafeteria was essentially an informal problem-solving session helping make sense of the current challenges. This was happening at the same time leaders were dropping into each other’s offices to carry out similar debriefs.

After going virtual, the first thing I noticed at our initial online meeting was that team members were no longer benefiting from those hallway and cafeteria conversations. This wasn’t surprising since the hallways and cafeterias were closed. Because the employees were working from home, they no longer had those important informal chats. Virtual employees were now making sense of the problem for the first time when I convened them for an initial meeting. …

I realized that I needed to re-create these pregame informal discussions in a virtual setting where teams hashed through the nature of the problem ahead of time. … The first thing I do is jump onto one-on-one virtual calls with team members to get these conversations going. … I ask them a few pointed questions and make a number of suggestions:

I ask what the problem is and if they know its root cause. I also ask how they know this is the source of the problem.
I encourage them to initiate additional virtual live conversations with their peers.
I point out that exchanging ideas about the problem on collaboration software like Microsoft Teams or Slack builds understanding.
I suggest shooting off a few emails if they don’t have time for live conversations.

These methods spur teams into productive action in our online world…

This blog does not reflect the views of my employer