Explaining what Lean is and why it’s a great management system can sometimes be a challenge. While I could take the route of describing Lean as a methodology that focuses on eliminating waste and increasing efficiency in processes, or referencing its origins at Toyota, I would not add value. You can Google that.
To gain a deep understanding of what Lean truly is, I think it is more helpful to approach it from three levels of abstraction: values, principles, and methods. In this series of three articles, we’ll explore each of these levels following these steps:
- Exploring values, principles and methods in personal life
- Understanding the Lean values, principles and methods that apply in business
- What it means to have all three levels aligned, and what happens if they are not
My inspiration for these articles came from two insightful books: “Principles” by Ray Dalio and “This is Lean” by Niklas Modig and Pär Åhlström. Both books offer valuable perspectives on effective decision-making, continuous improvement, and building a strong organizational culture.
First – Values, Principles and Methods in Personal Life
Discussing values, principles and methods within the context of a business sometimes feels impersonal to me. Exploring them in my personal life gave me valuable insights on how these three levels operate. This exploration helped me to better reflect on their relevance and application in business context. I hope it will work the same way for you.
As a side-benefit, it helped me to align my personal and professional values. This led to making more informed decision that where of benefit to myself and the organizations I worked for. Ultimatly it is about understanding why some things work, and keep working longer term. Without this connection between the three levels, a lot of things can become one-offs. And Lean often suffers that fate: easy to implement, hard to sustain, as also explained in this article. Let us give it a try.
Value Example: my health
Everyone has values that they live by, whether they know it or not. Put yourself outside of your day to day context, and amongst people who live life differently if you want to discover yours fast. Another (and maybe less complex) way to identify your values is by completing the sentence: ‘In my life, I value…’ Let us assume in this example that you complete the sentence as followed: In my life, I value my health. Values can be easily detected this way, you could potentially have many.
To gain a deeper understanding of which ones matter most to you, reflecting on meaningful moments in your life can be a helpful guide. Ask yourself: ‘what made those moments meaningful? Once you have estbalished your values, you can break them down into principles.
Principle Example: I will make time for self-care
After identifying your value, it’s important to determine the underlying principles that guide that value. Rather than focusing solely on the conditions necessary to support your values, it’s crucial to establish a strong foundation of principles to support them.
To discover these principles, reflect on moments when you felt proud of how you took care of your health, such as when you were practicing yoga or going for morning walks. Similarly, consider moments when you weren’t proud of your health, such as when you were too busy to take time for yourself. By examining the reasoning behind both instances, you may identify a common principle, such as “making time for self-care.”
This could be one of several principles that support your value of taking care of your health. Take time to explore other principles that may underpin this value, and consider how you can integrate these principles into your daily life.
Method and condition example: Yoga and dividing the work at home
Now that you uncovered the principle of self-care, it’s important to consider the methods and conditions required to put it into practice. Ask yourself, what do you need to make more time for self-care, and what actions will you take to care for yourself?
One condition that may support your self-care is dividing household tasks with your housemate, which can free up time for activities that promote your well-being. As for methods, you might consider practicing yoga or taking walks, but it’s important to find what works best for your unique situation. Ultimately, the methods and conditions that work best for you will depend on your individual needs and preferences.
ok, and how does this help to understand lean?
Well, it is already pretty neat that we now have a practical exercise for discovering values and principles. This is essential if you want to avoid randomly applying new methods in your life without considering their deeper motivation. Without this connection, any changes you make are likely to be temporary fixes. I can sometimes apply the method of going for regular runs in my life. But I lack the deeper principles and values to sustain it. I might have a connected value somewhere, but I am not prioritizing it. It would be much better to go and look for something that really connects with me. Like kickboxing or swimming, sport activities which both also help me to unwind. Unwinding is more important to me than doing sports. This is just a clever way of combining.
If you are going to setup your way of working at your company based on Lean, you will need the same connection. Lean is more than a bunch of methods and practices. If you have worked through the exercise, you now know that methods are the lowest level of abstraction. Without a connection to the principles and values with the way of working, they will also become one-offs at best.
You are probably curious to learn what values and principles are relevant when it comes to Lean. In the next article, we’ll zoom in on these connections and explore how they can drive success in your organization.