The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.
Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.
Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.
Lean tools like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.
"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"
Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.
Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.
"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."
My books Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me and its sequel, The Remedy, all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.
Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.
Cheers,
Pascal
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