All Systems Must Support Humanity – Including Lean

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

The Toyota Production System (TPA, aka ‘Lean’) is perhaps the world’s most powerful management system.

Many people (including the Lean Pathways team & I) have dedicated themselves to learning & practicing its methods & mindsets, and to unlocking its mysteries.

Practiced diligently TPS provides a bountiful harvest. Like all great systems, TPS can be all-encompassing. It can absorb practitioners to such an extent that we can lose sight of the most important things.

Such as why are we practising TPS/Lean? What’s our Purpose?

Strong companies & people define Purpose clearly & simply. They understand that Purpose (often called True North) must be simple, visual and compelling. Something for the head & something for the heart.

And therein lies the challenge. It’s easy to forget about the heart. The Lean system, the methodologies & their interplay, is so engrossing that it absorb all our attention.

All systems, including Lean, must support our humanity – not vice versa!

Sadly, we all know organizations that lose sight of this fundamental idea. There’s a hollowness to them, an emptiness that ultimately limits their achievement.

The history of the 20th century teaches us that supposedly “idealistic” systems can even turn monstrous when disconnected from humanity.

So what’s this mean for the practicing manager and leader? Practice what I call the “Warm Heart Principle”: Easy on the people, hard on the process.

It’s not all about efficiency. It’s about effectiveness, achieving both our head & heart goals.

Don’t want to be misunderstood. I am not saying it’s okay to relax standards. Leaders have to be crispy at times, and being so is not necessarily inhumane. (Quite the opposite, in fact.)

I am saying, keep your heart goal close. Let it inform the management system you are building.

All systems must support humanity.

Best regards,

Pascal




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

To Learn Corporate Strategy, Study the Military Masters
Reflections on Deploying Improvement Strategies
Hubris and Ethics
TPS and Agile

The Work of Leaders

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

What’s the leader’s Job One?

To ensure that all people are working on the right things.

Rather bland, but true, no?

Respect for humanity means I won't waste my team's time asking them to do stupid or wasteful things.

Here's an extreme example to illustrate the point:

One of the most vicious punishments meted out in the awful Soviet gulags was this:

Spend all day digging out a large hole. Then spend the next day filling it back in.

Prisoners would go mad with the meaninglessness of it.

But consider how it parallels so much corporate work.

I've seen good, smart people doing much the same work -- at the whim of some executive, or to satisfy some absurd corporate rule.

"Dig out that hole – and then fill it back in!"

After a while people lose part of their humanity. To paraphrase Winston Smith at the end of George Orwell’s classic, 1984,

"Two plus two really does equal five..."

It’s one of the bleakest endings in all of literature. Winston loses his soul. Big Brother wins.

So leaders at all levels have a heavy responsibility.

“I must use my people's time and humanity wisely.”

Best regards,

Pascal




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Why is Lean So Hard? – Organizational Elements
The Trouble with Corporate Clichés
Economy I and II - Never the Twain Shall Meet?
Strategy is Not About Doing What’s “Important”

All Systems Must Support Humanity – Including Lean

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

The Toyota Production System (TPA, aka ‘Lean’) is perhaps the world’s most powerful management system.

Many people (including the Lean Pathways team & I) have dedicated themselves to learning & practicing its methods & mindsets, and to unlocking its mysteries.

Practiced diligently TPS provides a bountiful harvest. Like all great systems, TPS can be all-encompassing. It can absorb practitioners to such an extent that we can lose sight of the most important things.

Such as why are we practising TPS/Lean? What’s our Purpose?

Strong companies & people define Purpose clearly & simply. They understand that Purpose (often called True North) must be simple, visual and compelling. Something for the head & something for the heart.

And therein lies the challenge. It’s easy to forget about the heart. The Lean system, the methodologies & their interplay, is so engrossing that it absorb all our attention.

All systems, including Lean, must support our humanity – not vice versa!

Sadly, we all know organizations that lose sight of this fundamental idea. There’s a hollowness to them, an emptiness that ultimately limits their achievement.

The history of the 20th century teaches us that supposedly “idealistic” systems can even turn monstrous when disconnected from humanity.

So what’s this mean for the practicing manager and leader? Practice what I call the “Warm Heart Principle”: Easy on the people, hard on the process.

It’s not all about efficiency. It’s about effectiveness, achieving both our head & heart goals.

Don’t want to be misunderstood. I am not saying it’s okay to relax standards. Leaders have to be crispy at times, and being so is not necessarily inhumane. (Quite the opposite, in fact.)

I am saying, keep your heart goal close. Let it inform the management system you are building.

All systems must support humanity.

Best regards,

Pascal

The Work of Leaders

By Pascal Dennis

What’s the leader’s Job One?

To ensure that all people are working on the right things.

Rather bland, but true, no?

Respect for humanity means I won't waste my team's time asking them to do stupid or wasteful things.

Here's an extreme example to illustrate the point:

One of the most vicious punishments meted out in the awful Soviet gulags was this:

Spend all day digging out a large hole. Then spend the next day filling it back in.

Prisoners would go mad with the meaninglessness of it.

But consider how it parallels so much corporate work.

I've seen good, smart people doing much the same work -- at the whim of some executive, or to satisfy some absurd corporate rule.

"Dig out that hole – and then fill it back in!"

After a while people lose part of their humanity. To paraphrase Winston Smith at the end of George Orwell’s classic, 1984,

"Two plus two really does equal five..."

It’s one of the bleakest endings in all of literature. Winston loses his soul. Big Brother wins.

So leaders at all levels have a heavy responsibility.

“I must use my people's time and humanity wisely.”

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio