For many years, a large army of dedicated people have toiled to sell Lean management to the top leaders of businesses. Many different approaches have been tried, yet all have yielded virtually the same results. In most cases, we have been unsuccessful in selling top leaders the entire management … [Read more...] about Selling Lean to Business Leaders
The Outcome of Serious Research
“…the outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where one question grew before.” – Thorstein Veblen in “The Evolution of the Scientific Point of View,” University of California Chronicle, Vol. X, No. 4, October 1908, pp. 395-416Is Lean management research … [Read more...] about The Outcome of Serious Research
How to Never Run Out of Ideas
"Every organization constantly deteriorates. And this is especially true of a business organization. It loses customers -- through death, through change in location, through the lures of competitors. It loses its personnel from the same causes. Its physical equipment is constantly wearing out and … [Read more...] about How to Never Run Out of Ideas
Why Do CEOs Hate Operations?
Prior to around 1980, the leaders of large corporations had a strong affection for manufacturing operations -- the part of the business that makes money for the company by producing the goods that people want and pay for. Operations was widely seen as a noble part of the company that employees were … [Read more...] about Why Do CEOs Hate Operations?
One Strategy, Two Paths
For many years, certain people have proclaimed that Lean is a corporate strategy. In support of that claim, a book titled The Lean Strategy: Using Lean to Create Competitive Advantage, Unleash Innovation, and Deliver Sustainable Growth was recently published (click here to read my book review). But … [Read more...] about One Strategy, Two Paths
Management as an Engineering Problem
What has been Lean's contribution to business and society over the last 35 years? Has it been great or small? And for whom?I recently read a fabulously informative and beautifully written 1992 doctoral dissertation by Carlos E. Pabon, titled: "Regulating Capitalism: The Taylor Society and … [Read more...] about Management as an Engineering Problem
Lean and the Burning Platform
Corporate financial distress -- the so-called "burning platform" -- has long been cited as the crisis necessary to propel a management team to adopt Lean management. Is it? In my book, Triumph of Classical Management Over Lean Management, I said: "Even Lean’s supposed savior, 'the burning platform' … [Read more...] about Lean and the Burning Platform
Lean Retrospective
After nearly 25 years of study, practice, and teaching Toyota's management system and Lean management, it is time for a quick look back.Over the years I have found that many people are confused by my work because I am neither a pure Lean promoter nor a pure Lean critic. My body of work spans … [Read more...] about Lean Retrospective
Why Business Leaders Vote “No” for Lean
Every Lean promoter and advocate knows that the adoption of Lean management is in business leaders’ interests, not against their interests. The interests encompass that of the business itself and all its stakeholders: employees (executive and non-executive), suppliers, customers, investors, … [Read more...] about Why Business Leaders Vote “No” for Lean