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Lean Projects Are Defined by Lean Behaviors

Ifollow numerous blogs, news groups and twitter posts on lean. I’ve noticed a change in the last few months from talking about lean tools to talking about lean behaviors. It’s a refreshing change. Toyota made a shift early this century in the way they spoke about their approach. In essence, they started speaking about the Toyota Way vs. the Toyota Production System. Under the TPS, the two pillars were Just-in-Time production and Jidoka (autonomation). Now they speak about the two pillars of continuous improvement and respect for people. It’s a shift from tools to tool users. I don’t think that Toyota made a big shift in the way they manage. Rather, they noticed something different about what they do on an everyday basis. It’s exactly that noticing that we all should pay attention to for our own operations.

Lean is a mindset. It’s not a set of practices. Greg Howell, my colleague and business partner, characterizes lean as a constant focus on learning…learning from everything that happens on an everyday basis. Lean companies are learning faster than their competitors. But what does that mean? How do they do that? Steven Spear, co-author of Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System and author of Chasing the Rabbit, offers an insight on what Toyota and other lean companies are doing.

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