You guys are talking the same old nonsense. We got to think differently.
Brad Pitt in the film Moneyball
I have never been a Lean consultant nor do I aspire to be one. My role has always been that of a practitioner, educator, researcher, author, and trainer. I also like to carefully observe what is going on and reflect. To that end, I have known many Lean consultants and I see patterns of thought that I find perplexing, if not disturbing.
Lean consultants are, by definition, enlightened thinkers and, in general, they are expert problem-solvers. Yet, they come up empty when faced with what is probably their biggest problem: What to do about the fact that most leaders resist, reject, or ignore Lean management. Most of the leaders who accept Lean management do so for the expected benefits that arise from employees’ use of “Lean tools” and have little interest in Wiremold Company-type of enterprise-wide Lean transformation (or, more accurately, enterprise wide evolution from classical management to progressive Toyota-style management).
In my work, I have carefully analyzed and comprehensively articulated the causes for leaders’ disinterest in Lean management. The hoped-for effect from reading the books shown below is that Lean consultants and other interested persons and organizations will develop countermeasures to experiment with. But it seems most Lean consultants are disinclined to do the required work that is central to the long-term success of their businesses, their client’s business, and the so-called Lean movement.
The principals who run Lean consulting businesses seem to me to suffer from groupthink, one that bears a remarkable resemblance to that of their predecessors 100 years ago — the glory days of Scientific Management. Likely unaware of the disappointing history of Scientific Management consulting, what I have long seen is a repetition of that same disappointment in our own time.
Yet through my work, we now understand causality in great detail. Lean consultants and others now have a valuable and highly usable “outside view,” as W. Edwards Deming said, to work with. And as expert problem-solvers, Lean consultants can now do the work of finding practical countermeasures. But instead, I find them happy to trade stories about the various ways that they find new clients — take them on a gemba walk, show the overall business impact, show the bottom line financial impact, share testimonials from customers, etc. There is no new thinking, no creativity, and no innovation in these approaches to selling Lean consulting services. These are the same approaches used for finding new clients 100 years ago.
Additionally, the business of Lean consulting is overcrowded and lacking in differentiation. It is filled with people ranging from expert to barely capable to charlatans, all of whom have an unbelievable string of success stories with nary a failure. It is obvious that bullshit is the most effective of all the Lean tools. Yet, to its clients, Lean consultants, expert or not, will regurgitate the importance of seeing reality and responding to it without themselves bothering to do so.
Lean consulting is an income, often a lucrative one. It pays the business and personal bills, and it is almost always better to have a customer as your boss than a regular boss. It is great to own your own business despite the heavy demands on one’s time and on family life. I realize that business priorities can hinder or preclude Lean consultants working on important problems, just as it does for any business. But one would expect better from Lean consultants given their disposition as heterodox thinkers.
Fortunately for Lean consultants, there are hundreds of millions of businesses worldwide. So, there will always be some CEOs who have an interest in Lean, whether real or apparent. And because of CEO churn, there have been enough willing CEOs to sustain a large number of Lean consulting businesses for more than 35 years. But the Lean consulting market could shrink, slowly or suddenly, for various reasons, not the least of which is the aforementioned unrealistic claims of unbridled success. At some point, CEOs are going to catch on (maybe).
Presently, there are many CEOs who have lost interest in Lean and they have a huge influence on their underlings who will one-day assume the role of CEO. In addition, I have made the case that there has long existed a silent majority of CEOs who are anti-Lean because it corrupts the classical management system that they know and love. Why do they love it so much? Because it maximizes CEOs status, rights, privileges, and protections — extremely important social aspects of CEOs’ identity that Lean management diminishes. Furthermore, these CEOs do not see Lean as an improvement in management practice and they do not like the changes in leadership thinking and practice that Lean requires.
Of course, that could all change in the space of a few year. Millions of CEOs may suddenly embrace Lean management in its fullest form due to business, national, or global exigencies. Or not. CEOs may instead decide they entertained Lean management long enough and turn their attention to new or emerging technologies to solve the problems that Lean management could not. Either way, Lean consultants would be wise to reflect on the questions listed in the image below, which stem from my recent article, “The Anti-Lean Movement.” These questions should catalyze a meaningful discussion among Lean community leaders, Lean consultants, academics, and others. It should. But will it?
