I was called into a company that had invested in the tools, the belts, and the software, but improvements were slow, if at all.
The issue isn’t the statistics. It’s the Mirror.
In Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, he describes Level 5 Leaders as individuals who:
Look out the window to credit others for success.
Look in the mirror to take responsibility when things go wrong.
The Lean Culture Gap
In many organisations, we see the opposite. Teams are terrified to set ambitious targets because they fear the Mirror. When a root cause analysis points toward a process they manage, they get defensive instead of curious.
If your culture rewards hiding the red on a dashboard, your LSS tools are useless.
Hard Tools + Level 5 Humility
To truly outperform the competition, you need a fusion of two worlds:
The Hard Tools: The precision of LSS, the structure of Global 8D, and the logic of Lean.
The Soft Skills: The humility to accept what the data says and the Level 5 Leadership resolve to fix it.
I work with organisations to develop Great Leadership behaviours. This means building a culture where:
✅ Targets are a challenge, not a threat.
✅ Root causes are opportunities, not blame games.
✅ We don’t shy away from getting the right people on the bus and the wrong ones off.
When you marry the statistical rigour of Six Sigma with the humility and will of Level 5 Leadership, you don’t just improve, you become a Great company.
Contact me if you’d like to chat more about Leadership Behaviours.
Gavin (Counter Gravity Consulting Lead Consultant)
