Interview guide

Appendix 1: Interview guide

Questions to the leader:

1. Give a short presentation of yourself. For how long have you worked at the company? Tell us about your background. (0)

2. Describe your organisational structure? (0)

3. What does an ordinary day look like? How much are you involved in the daily work? Is there any difference from before you implemented Lean? (3)

4. Give a short description of your Lean implementation. (0) Why did you implement Lean? What expectations did you have when you implemented Lean? (4)

5. What is your primary goal with Lean? (Economic, in terms of production, communication, working structure, working environment and motivation)? (4)

6. Please rank

a. Three difficulties

b. Three key factors when working with Lean as a leader? (0/1/2/3/4)

7. How do you anchor new strategies and goals in the company? How do you know that goals are achieved? Do you have sub-goals? What time horizon do you set up for each goal? (4)

8. How good was goals- and strategy management before Lean? (4)

Very bad Very good

9. How good is goals- and strategy management today? (4)

Very bad Very good

10. How has the leadership changed due to Lean? (1)

11. How do you identify a leader? What are your strengths and weaknesses as a leader? How can you develop? What are important skills for a leader when working with Lean? (1)

12. How do you perceive that your leadership has affected (economic, quality, etc.) results in the company? (0/1/2/3/4)

13. How are you working in order to motivate employees to work with Lean? What difficulties have you experienced when motivating employees to work with Lean? (2)

14. How do you make employees involved to work with continuous improvements and how do you develop your employees? (2)

15. How do you bring problems to surface and do you have any specific strategy to solve these? (3)

16. What has been your most important task as a leader during the implementation of Lean? (1)

17. What are the primary changes or improvements due to Lean? In the short term/Future? (0/1/2/3/4) How can your Lean initiative sustain? (0/1/2/3/4)

18. Do you have any other comments that you would like to add when it comes to work with Lean and leadership? (0/1/2/3/4)

Questions to employee

1. Give a short presentation of yourself. For how long have you worked at the company? Tell us about your background. (0)

2. What is your opinion and how do you experience working with Lean? (0/1/2/3/4)

3. What are the major changes in your daily work, due to Lean? (0/1/2/3/4)

4. What are the difficulties and benefits associated with working with Lean? (0/1/2/3/4)

5. How do you experience that the leader anchors decisions, goals and vision among employees? Do you experience any changes from before the implementation of Lean? (4) How can your Lean initiative sustain? (0/1/2/3/4)

6. How do you describe your leader? What are his/her strengths and weaknesses? What leadership skills do you think are important when working with Lean? (1)

7. How do you experience the leadership before Lean? (1)

Very bad Very good

8. How do you experience the leadership today? (1)

Very bad Very good In what way has the leadership changed or not changed?

9. How have your involvement and motivation changed since the implementation of Lean? (2)

10. What factors in the leadership make you more or less motivated? (2)

11. What are the major changes due to Lean in terms of (working structure, working environment, communication and motivation)? (3)

12. How would you describe the relationship between you and your leader and between employees? How can these relationships improve? (2)

13. Do you have any other comments that you would like to add when it comes to Lean? (0/1/2/3/4)

Questions to Lean coach

1. What role do you play as a Lean coach? (0)

2. To what extend do leaders need education to achieve a sustainable Lean initiative? (1)

3. How would you define a good leader? What leadership skills are central when implementing Lean in agricultural firms? (0/1/2/3/4)

4. How would you rank three difficulties and key factors when working with Lean? (0/1/2/3/4)

5. How do you experience the leadership at the company? (0/1/2/3/4)

6. How do you experience that the leadership has affected (motivation, communication, working structure and working environment) results in the company? (0/1/2/3/4)

7. How do you experience that the company anchor goals, strategies and vision in the organisation? (4)

8. How do you experience that the company motivates and coach employees? (2)

9. How do you experience that the company visualize problems and bring them to surface? (3)

10. What is the difference between working with Lean in an agricultural business compared with the industry from the viewpoint of a leader? (0/1/2/3/4)

11. Do you have any comments that you would like to add when it comes to Lean and leadership? (0/1/2/3/4)

0= Introduction 1= Self-development 2=Coach and develop others 3=Support daily kaizen 4=Create vision and align goals 0/1/2/3/4= General comments/concluding remarks