Clearly, lean is a holistic management system, an integrated approach on how to run a company. But for today, I would like to zoom in on how lean is holistic in the way it engages people. My deep rooted belief and daily experience is that lean management appeals to the minds, hands, and hearts of people.
First, lean's preference for the scientific and socratic method appeals to our brain. Many of the traditional lean tools help in addressing business challenges from an analytical perspective, such as Value stream maps, SMED, KPI's, level scheduling, designing the ideal state value stream based on lean prinicples. The predominant lean school of thought in the West has been very much the analytical en technical one.
Secondly, lean has a strong preference for experiments and for incremental improvement action, especially in comparison with other improvement methodologies such as TQM or LSS. Lean emphasises the gemba where the action takes place. It's at the gemba that we learn by doing. A famous quote in this context is: "Learn with you hands, and see with your feet."
Thirdly, lean addresses the heart: respect for people is a core value of lean management. Lean is about developing and engaging people, about giving them a meaningful purpose (e.g., serving the customer, serving society, personal mastery), and about belonging and contributing to a team. It is also about giving people a sense of dignity and ownership, and about creating a physically and mentally safe workplace where people can develop to their full potential and experience a mental state of flow.
I'd love to hear if you have had similar experiences with lean practices addressing mind, hands, and heart.
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