Addressing the challenges of modern leadership TEXT: MAYA WITTERS | PHOTOS: OBEYA
Leadership coach and consultant Tim Wiegel experienced an ‘aha’-moment when he learned about the Obeya concept in 2014. First coined in Japan, this method helps multidisciplinary teams share essential context to act towards a common goal. Wiegel now uses Obeya as a foundation to help teams develop more effective management practices on all levels of an organisation. “Leadership is a craft that management teams should practice and develop together.” Obeya, literally ‘large room’ in Japanese, was first used by Toyota during the creation of the revolutionary Prius model. By visualising goals, performance and activities and physically displaying them on the walls, teams become more aware of the context in which they are working, which enables them to act and learn togeth70 | Issue 75 | March 2020
er. At Toyota, this meant that the Prius was finished months before an already strenuous deadline, delivering a car that would pioneer the hybrid market.
ally, our current cultural management philosophy leads us to focus on shortterm goals rather than the long-term strategic objectives.”
Creating context together
“If different teams want to work together towards a common goal, they need consensus about what that goal is, what it means to their current organisation, what the different steps are, and which step happens when. If those aspects are unclear – or worse, if different managers have different opinions about them – teams will be steered in different directions, which leads to a lot of wasted effort.”
Wiegel, who is writing a book about the application of Obeya for leading organisations, immediately recognised its potential for leadership teams. “Research shows that over half of employees in large organisations cannot relate their work to the organisation’s strategic goals, and that they’re not sure if their work is valuable. If that’s the case, what are people actually spending their time on?” “I realised that the issue often lies in a lack of clarity and shared context,” explains Wiegel. “Companies and projects are increasingly complex in nature, and our brains are not well-equipped to deal with such levels of complexity. Addition-
“Managers need to relearn how to think of the organisational system as a whole, and understand how different parts are linked. If you make a change in your product design, it will affect everyone from manufacturing to marketing and customer care. Obeya helps to bring is-