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Lean Retrospective

July 27, 2018 by Bob Emiliani

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 both categories. My work also spans Lean transformation process success and failure. That adds to the confusion. Despite the hazards that my curiosity generates, this comprehensive work needed to be done because without it our understanding of progressive management (both TPS and Lean, and Scientific Management before them) would be incomplete. Vast gaps, obvious to most people, had to be closed. While Lean promotion and Lean success stories are both necessary and useful, robust criticism and detailed failure analysis of Lean are also necessary and useful because they offer the most potent learning in the service of continuous improvement.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my hands-on practice of TPS/Lean and sharing my knowledge and personal learning through writing books, blog posts, academic papers, teaching degree-seeking students, and executive training. It has been a magnificent and satisfying romp through a vast expanse of exciting new ways of thinking and doing things. My TPS teachers, Shingijutsu consultants, provided my initial (and perpetual) inspiration, followed by the work of Womack and Jones, Ohno and other Toyota leaders, the Toyoda family, Monden, Fujimoto, Byrne, Kaplan, Taylor, the Gilbreths, Cooke, Gantt, and numerous other progressive management practitioners and authors.

As a teacher, I have always had three intertwined goals: 1) Learn TPS/Lean via hands-on application, 2) Create new contributions to the body of Lean knowledge, and 3) Help people learn, improve, and succeed. I believe I have largely achieved these goals — notwithstanding one is never done learning, and there is always more to do.

Over the last 25 years, my research has focused on the most important questions. The period 1994-2011 focused on these three questions:

  • What is Lean leadership?
  • How do you lead a Lean transformation?
  • How do you lead a Lean business?

The results are documented in nearly two dozen academic papers, hundreds of blog posts, and numerous books including:

  • Practical Lean Leadership: A Strategic Leadership Guide for Executives
  • Better Thinking, Better Results: Case Study and Analysis of an Enterprise-Wide Lean Transformation
  • Kaizen Forever: Teachings of Chihiro Nakao
  • Shingijutsu-Kaizen: The Art of Discovery and Learning
  • Lean Is Not Mean: 68 Practical Lessons in Lean Leadership
  • Moving Forward Faster: The Mental Evolution from Fake Lean to REAL Lean
  • REAL LEAN Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6

I, like many others, sought to learn and communicate how to achieve a successful Lean transformation. In doing so, we advocate for and promote Lean. Yet, that is only half the job — it provides only half the necessary information — and it is where nearly everyone stops. Importantly, “everyone” includes all the biggest names in Lean.

The other half of the job is to figure out why Lean transformation processes fail. Over the last three decades, 100 percent of this half of the effort has focused on the first-order, or surface-level, phenomena such as lack of leadership commitment, poor training, Lean tools focus, wrong metrics, resistance to change, Lean not understood as a strategy, etc. Stopping at the surface-level reflects a satisfaction with these answers and indifference to deeper exploration. I chose to do more.

So while continuing to work on the above questions, I began researching new questions during the period 2007-2018 to solve the elusive Lean transformation problem:

  • Why are executives disinterested in Lean management?
  • Why do executives resist Lean?
  • Why does Lean fail to take root in organizations?

The deeper causes that I examined include the economic, social, political, historical, philosophical, and business (with some psychology too). The results are documented in this book:

  • The Triumph of Classical Management Over Lean Management: How Tradition Prevails and What to Do About It

and in these blog posts:

  • The Business Philosophy Triangle
  • What’s Holding Lean Back?
  • The Problem Lean May Never Overcome
  • Business Leaders’ Case for Ignoring Lean
  • Money vs. Process View of Cost
  • How Leaders Sabotage Lean
  • Lean People Never Understood CEOs
  • Why Business Leaders Vote “No” for Lean
FP 1
Click on image to enlarge.

Over the years there has been more interest in the first set of questions than the second set, likely because people simply prefer to avoid uncomfortable questions that have no easy answers. This preference is highly consequential in that it weakens both the ability to advance Lean in industry and the ability to defend Lean in organizations where success has been achieved.

Yet, the second set of questions, and my published findings, are actually far more important than the first set. That is because without answers to the second set of questions, answers to the first set of questions are largely irrelevant — meaning, the adoption of Lean management may succeed for a time, but it will eventually be quickly undone by the answers I found to the second set of questions. Said another way, the two sets of research questions complement and inform one another. One without the other is useless, so you need to know both.

The failure of Lean management to take root across all industries and displace Classical management is, in truth, a human failure to adapt to changing circumstances and evolve. The many ties to traditions bind the mind so tightly that it cannot escape to even imagine, let alone create, a new reality that better serves human interests. Occasionally, a leader is able to break their binds and do some great things for people. Rather than being the exception, we strive to make such leaders the rule. But this cannot become the rule unless the nature of the ties that bind people to tradition are thoroughly understood. That is why the second set of research questions is so important. As Taiichi Ohno said (TPS, p. 107):

“[Tradition] might be acceptable in private life, but in industry, outdated customs must be eliminated.”

Therefore, I hope many in the Lean community will seek to comprehend my results from 2007-2018 to better understand and apply the results from 1994-2011 (or the work of luminaries such as Michael Ballé, Jean Cunningham, Daniel Jones, Jeffery Liker, Karen Martin, Mike Rother, John Shook, or James Womack). This long-missing information may well prove to be the most important factor in determining the future success or failure of Lean itself. Ignore it at your own risk (i.e. wasted time, wasted money etc.) or embrace it to find new ways to improve the Lean transformation process and resulting outcomes.

Filed Under: BobEmiliani.com, Continuous Improvement, Conventional v. Lean Thinking, Lean Leadership, Respect for People Tagged With: Fano Plane, Lean, Lean Failure, Lean Transformation, Toyota

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tuula Löytty says

    July 27, 2018 at 6:28 am

    Dear Bob,

    I have one semantic based comment….

    You’ve written above “Occasionally, a leader is able to break their binds and do some great things for people”. I would like to add two words …..do some great things for AND WITH people.

    In corporations the leadership is based still too much on top-down command and control. It’s not sustainable and it doesn’t correlate with the basic value of Lean: Respect People. I expect and hope the start-ups and clever managers will increasingly adopt bottom-up approach in order to engage and inspire the staff into continuous improvement.

    Best
    Tuula

  2. Bob Emiliani says

    July 27, 2018 at 7:12 am

    Hi Tuula – Yes, I agree — for and with. In that sentence, I had in mind the panoply of stakeholders, not just employees (so, within and outside of any hierarchy). Also, now that I think about it, the great thing that my leader did FOR me, as an employee, was allowing me to think. The great thing that my leader did WITH me, as an employee, was teaching and learning.

  3. Alexander Gray says

    February 24, 2019 at 10:03 am

    Your post reiterates the classic beliefs many people have when they think of LEAN. Many people see LEAN as a simple quick fix they can implement in their company. They believe it is something that revolves solely around plugging and chugging numbers. I’m glad to see you have analyzed not only the pros of LEAN over your career, but actually examined why it fails and its issues.

  4. Bob Emiliani says

    February 24, 2019 at 12:22 pm

    Hi Alexander – Serious research must look at both the positive and the negative, the good and the bad, the successes and the failures (see “The Outcome of Serious Research“). Unfortunately, Lean transformation process failures have been something that most other researchers would rather avoid than confront head-on and examine it in great detail. Their lack of interest in Lean transformation process failure is both astonishing and undercuts their credibility.

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