Here's to Continuous Improvement

I post the You Tube clip above for three reasons. One is that it's darkly funny if you've witnessed a bad lean implementation up close.  Two, if you have no idea what lean is, this should serve as a good, albeit bad, first impression. Three, and most importantly, is that the clip was created and posted on You Tube by Mark Graban, who is an award-winning author, blogger, and noted practitioner in the lean universe. Graban is also an unwitting contributor to Look Before You Lean: How a Lean Transformation Goes Bad--A Cautionary Tale in that the book's author, Employee X., prominently cites Graban's work in his own. In posting this You Tube, Graban shows himself to possess two rare but highly-prized qualities--a critical self-awareness and a sense of humor. While enduring the bad lean implementation that led to the writing of his book, Employee X. found considerable moral support in the willingness of Graban and others at The Lean Enterprise Institute to critically and continuously examine the process they had dedicated their professional lives to advancing. Unfortunately, the courage to subject lean itself to continuous improvement is not universal among lean advocates. There are some, like those featured in Employee X.'s book, who think continuous improvement is a one way street--you have to improve and we'll tell you exactly how. As lean continues to gain traction in non-factory work environments, the non-standardization of lean applications--what Graban calls LAME lean will begin to take a serious toll across a broad spectrum. It will make corporate heads who buy into bad lean look bad. It will make workers who have to suffer through a bad lean transformation feel bad. And it will allow lean advocates of bad faith to be bad at will. 

Look Before You Lean: How a Lean Transformation Goes Bad--A Cautionary Tale is now available in print here. It is available as a Kindle instant download here. Within the week, it will be available at Barnes & Noble (print and Nook), Google Play, Kobo, and Amazon (WORLDWIDE!). As the proud publisher of Employee X.'s book, The Nobby Works joins him in hoping that his book saves other companies from going through what his company went through and that it contributes to helping lean advocates of good faith in putting their house in order.