The Two Sides of Lean: False Rivals
(Part 2 of a 3-part Series)
by Gwendolyn Galsworth, PhD
The world of lean is grappling with sharp illogic that is creating rumblings among the ranks. And uneasiness in the board room. The chickens of the inconsistency and muddled thinking of the past three decades have come home to roost. On the one hand, some of us see lean as a known and knowable destination, closely defined and achievable through a tight formulaic sequence of application. Others of us hold that lean has become synonymous with continuous improvement--or as Jones and Womack stated it, "the pursuit of perfection." This is lean as a never-ending process, coterminous with continuous improvement, and without a hard edge.
This muddle-ness troubles me because I am a practitioner with allegiance to two worlds--but maybe not the two you think. One is the world of what works: What helps companies actually move forward, stay in business, succeed, forge ahead--a world of practical inputs and knowable outputs. The other is the world of words and meaning: What things mean; how terms are defined; how meaning adjusts and lends us strength; how meaning can erode and throw us off track; and how definitions can get us back again
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