Lean leadership and employee engagement

Hoshin kanri, also called policy deployment, is the lean method for cascading an organization's breakthrough objectives from executive leadership down to daily work on the shop floor. It runs in seven steps, from confirming True North, the organization's enduring statement of direction, through catchball on annual objectives and the X-matrix to daily execution and monthly, quarterly and annual reviews.

A gemba walk takes leaders to the place where the work actually happens to observe real conditions, instead of managing from reports. It closes the gap between what the office sees in the data and what operators already know from the floor.

Nemawashi is the informal process of building consensus with each stakeholder before a decision reaches a formal meeting. A decision announced cold in a meeting invites resistance, while one that stakeholders already understand and have helped shape becomes a formality to confirm. The word comes from gardening: carefully digging around a tree's roots before transplanting it.

Six common types are intrinsic rewards, extrinsic rewards, monetary rewards, non-monetary rewards, employee incentives and wellness-based rewards. A good paycheck matters, but on its own it is often not enough to keep your best people.