Building a Lean Culture.

To accelerate understanding and implementation of Lean throughout a large general contracting company, the Lean leadership group, with the support of management at all levels, shifted from training employees on tools and solutions, to educating them about Lean principles as an overarching way to run their projects. This industry paper describes the work that the company has and is currently doing to train professionals in all its business units. It explains why and how the effort started, the feedback received from participants who have attended a new course in Lean leadership, and the plans to expand this program to increase and sustain Lean implementation. The paper provides a contribution to the literature on Lean implementation and change management and underscores the importance of creating a culture based on solid understanding of the Lean vocabulary, principles, and goals to create a critical mass across projects.