Why is it that the discussion of Lean so rarely becomes a discussion of how Lean can address the issues of burnout while reducing waste and improving value for patients? If Lean were presented with a more robust description and elucidation of its mechanisms that enhance the experience of everyone in the enterprise as a counter to the burnout that is so prevalent in healthcare, could it be possible that more executives and boards would become interested in launching their own Lean journey?
We frequently present Lean in technical terms, limiting the discussion of what it does to an explanation of how it creates value for customers and removes waste. We imply that removing waste creates efficiencies that lower production costs, thereby improving profitability with a better price and better quality that yields a win-win for the customer and for the enterprise.
Rarely do we talk about the benefit of Lean to the employee or the executive. Lean’s impact on waste reduction and increased value for the consumer is good. Lean’s ability to improve the work life and satisfaction of the provider, healthcare professional and even the healthcare executive is equally good. It should be even more reason to intrigue all of us and make us want to learn more about how Lean can give us relief from burnout. We can all predict that for decades to come there will be continuing downward pressure on healthcare revenues that so many of us feel will threaten quality and safety and this pressure will simultaneously be the origin of stress that will engender burnout for many.
Knowing more certainly that Lean is an antidote for burnout may generate a willingness to invest resources to transform the workplace and the workforce. The knowledge may be just as good a reason to begin a Lean journey for those (physicians, executives and other staff ) for whom burnout or employee dissatisfaction is an obvious daily barrier to performance as it is for others who see Lean as the road to sustainable margins and higher quality in an era of downward pressure on revenue.
Lean’s “true North” values include staff development. We say that Lean is built on respect for employees and their ability to improve products because they are the ones who do the work. We talk about how Lean enables everyone to recognize and eliminate waste and innovate when the controlling bridles of “Sloan Management” culture are discarded and replaced by the creative freedom of a true Lean culture that exists from the boardroom to the front desk and exam room or to the emergency room and operating room. That said, we do not go far enough in presenting how Lean is the “balm that can heal” the chronic issues that plague all of us at work.
I think the magic of Lean works in at least two ways to reduce burnout. Fundamentally it is easier to work and be productive in an environment where there is good flow and everyone is participating with well-defined roles and responsibilities. Even more satisfying and even more beneficial as an antidote to burnout is the ability of individuals to see their own contributions to the continuing improvement of their environment and the product of their work. It is wonderful when every new day offers everyone an opportunity to participate in the evolution of better better quality and service. The heuristic joy of solving problems must be the most potent part of Lean’s role as the antidote to the mind-numbing days that produce burnout.
