Lean is Not a Life Preserver


What makes a company a likely candidate to success- fully develop a lean culture depends on many variables, but one of them is stability, Manley noted. “Dr. Deming used to say he liked to see a constancy of purpose in an organization. There are a lot of companies that need help transforming and becoming lean think- ers, but lean is not the equivalent of a life preserver that you throw out to somebody who’s drowning.


“I don’t pick companies to work with that are in dire straits. If they’re reorga- nizing, bankrupt, severely downsizing, or looking to be sold, well, they could benefit from lean thinking—anybody can. But it’s not a good learning envi- ronment. The workers are under stress and the company is probably going to have expectations that they can’t meet. Often, the company isn’t going to have the patience that a lean transformation requires. Deming always said, ‘there’s no such thing as instant pudding.’ I don’t think anybody ever listened to him. Learning lean is, as Steven Covey used to say, like the law of the farm: You have to plant, you have to weed, you nurture and tend, and then you reap at the end of the harvest season.”


Lean is Not Coffee and Cigarettes Manley noted that we live in an in- stant-gratification culture, which doesn’t lend itself for the patience needed to examine and change work behaviors that have been instilled over years or de- cades. Lean is going to take some time. Unfortunately, there are those who cater to this desire for quick change. “There’s a consultant out there who advertises something like ‘two-second lean,’ offering quick fixes with some of the lean tools,” Manly said. “I’m sure he’s a fine guy and all. But approach-


ing lean this way reminds me of something my mom used to do when I was a kid. She used to go on cigarette-and-coffee diets. There would be an event coming up and she’d want to be able to slip into a size-eight dress, so she’d go on coffee


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