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As Ohno says in The Birth of Lean: "If you're going to do kaizen continuously, you've got to assume that things are a mess." Brilliant.  If everything is OK, I have no need to improve.    Why is this hard for us to do??  Is it our culture of self-esteem, holding "feeling good about ourselves" as a supreme value? Do we simply compare ourselves to ourselves, so we always look OK?  Are we all from Lake Wobegon, the ficticious Minnesota town where all of the children are above average? A view of a zero-waste state will shake us out of this arrogant stupor.  With that perspective, things are indeed a mess.

Of all the skills I've learned in the past 7 years of changing my life, one skill stands out: Learning to be comfortable with discomfort.

Phenomenal article / idea! I love it.

Please go out and fail at something today. And then figure out how to do better and then do it again.

Great article on habits.

I really like these three tips: Complaining trumps self satisfaction. The people in an organization which is 10 years into a lean transformation should not be satisfied with their condition. A happy lean culture is a faltering lean culture. People should be happy, but there should be a distinct sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Frequent and brief complaining followed by 5 why root cause analysis and corrective action is a characteristic of a sustaining lean culture. Structured program trumps invisible behaviors. It's tempting to think that a formal, structured lean program is no longer necessary after 10 years of practicing lean because it is now "in the blood" and does not require special promotion or attention. However this is rarely the case. Nature abhors a vacuum, and corporations seem to abhor a vacuum in program-space. Best to keep the lean program and improve it also continuously as a support mechanism. Pedal to the metal trumps cruise control. Thomas Jefferson said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" and coincidentally this is also the price of a sustained lean culture. At no time is it safe to put the program on cruise control. Corners always want to be cut, people naturally want to do what is easy, and without strong leadership to remind people that sometimes the important things are not easy, a lean culture will not sustain. Developing people trumps driving results. After 10 years even people who may have only paid this lip service begin to see the cause and effect connection and begin to believe. It takes time to develop people. When you can point to people that have developed with the organization and are driving results, this is a sign that the elements of a sustainable lean culture are in place.

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