Nearly 30 years after the start of the Lean movement, there is widespread agreement that things have not gone according to plan. Of course, there have been some notable successes (particularly those who worked with Shingijutsu), yet they are far fewer in number than anyone expected given the wide-ranging benefits of Lean management to all stakeholders. I have previously commented on the strategic errors that were made, but I’d like to expand upon that here.
This is not criticism resulting from hindsight – far from it. What happened could be seen and understood in real-time or after short delays after one to three years. These are the miscalculations that I observed:
- The strength to which people are attracted to tools to improve their existing management practices, and, conversely, the near-total lack of interest in a completely new system of management. Thus, Lean tools that are peripheral to core industrial engineering methods used in kaizen became very popular. This includes 5S, visual controls, value stream maps, A3 reports, and gemba walks.
- Not emphasizing kaizen, strongly, from the very start. The critical importance of kaizen for teaching people Lean principles (“Continuous Improvement” and “Respect for People”) and core Lean concepts and practices. It is the most important thing. Yet, people unpacked kaizen tools and methods and applied them outside of the context of kaizen, to little effect.
- Waiting until 2007 to recognize and promote the “Respect for People” principle, when its importance was apparent decades earlier – both at Toyota and in the days Scientific Management 100 years ago. The many layoffs that came as a result of Lean are a tragedy and its most obvious and regrettable failure.
- Waiting until 2010 to transition from “Lean production” to “Lean management.”
- Judging the history of Scientific Management to be irrelevant, and therefore useless to learn from to address current-day problems regarding the acceptance and advancement of progressive Lean management. As a result, we are witness to a history that has now repeated itself.
- Not emphasizing flow, and the inseparable connection between it, kaizen, and the “Respect for People” principle.
- Vastly overestimating the extent to which conservative business leaders might be interested in a progressive system of management, and the extent of their interest in improving their leadership behaviors and competencies.
- Overestimating the extent to which people in top leadership positions care about people. If Lean is, as some say, “all about people,” then it is clear that most leaders don’t care about people, particularly when the distance between them and the shop or office floor, both physically or in rank, is great.
- Promoting “wealth creation” instead of humbler, more basic, aspirations and outcomes; the kind of positive results that everyone wants to experience, such as process simplification, made possible by human creativity and innovative ideas in a fun and non-threatening work environment.
- Overconfidence on the part of the bigwigs who study the Toyota Production System and The Toyota Way (Lean) to think that they could understand it, and hence lead others, without ever actually creating, with their own hands, a functioning flowline in an industrial setting. That they would become the arbiters of Lean thought and practice is remarkable. The unwillingness of people to challenge them made matters worse.
It is apparent that the Lean movement did the Plan-Do, but it did not do the Check-Act. The lack of timely problem recognition and corrective action stands out, in my view, was a major error that compounded the impacts of these miscalculations.
The way forward is unclear, indicating that we will need to try many different things. We will also need to think for ourselves to figure out what to do and not outsource it to establishment players. On the one hand, I feel that Lean management’s time has yet to come – despite these serious stumbles (third time is the charm?). When it does, it will be seen as a management innovation of strategic significance, become widely embraced, and evolve in ways that help humanity survive its many challenges in the long run.
On the other hand, we must be aware that Lean has limited appeal going forward because of strategic errors, miscalculations, and deeply-rooted negative associations to things like layoffs, Fake Taylorism practice, and bureaucracy (check-the-box Lean). Hopefully, this will not result in Lean’s demise. What can you do to help make sure that does not happen?
from Bob Emiliani http://www.bobemiliani.com/what-went-wrong/
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