The Need for Lean Leadership--Entropy

“Curmudge, did I understand you to say that many organizations are stymied in their Lean journey because they haven’t developed a Lean management system to go along with Lean implemented in their workplace?”

“That’s what the literature says, Jaded Julie. People in gemba have learned to use Lean tools, like standard work; but without ongoing reinforcement by Lean leadership, they tend to slip back into their old, nonstandard ways of doing things. Then the Lean journey sputters to a halt.”

“That’s a sad commentary on human nature. But you have said that this tendency toward disorganization is quite natural, applies to everything—not just people—and that it is described by a thermodynamic term called entropy. Without an external input of energy, disorganization—entropy—tends to increase.”

“You’ve got it, Julie, and I can assure you that the objects in my example never studied thermodynamics. When I was a child back in the early 1940’s I used to visit my grandfather’s farm in the hills of southwestern Virginia. Granddad’s sons, my uncles, were away in the war, so he was running the farm with the help of my step-grandmother and their dog, Shep. When it was time to milk the cows, Granddad would send Shep up the ‘holler’ (hollow, a narrow valley) to collect the widely scattered cows and herd them back to the barn. Because Shep was part Border Collie, this was a very natural task.”

“I’m listening, Curmudge. This will undoubtedly turn out to be one of your homespun tales ending with a lesson.”

“So we’ll continue, Jaded Julie. The cows went into the barn and into their familiar stalls (in those days we didn’t have stanchions). Grandfather milked each cow by hand. I tried to help but got little milk; I did get a solid whack on the head by the cow’s tail. Upon finishing, we opened the barn door and the gate to the pasture, and the cows filed out and up into the hills.”

“I suspect that we are just about to learn something about entropy, the topic of today’s conversation.”

“The cows might have stood shoulder-to-shoulder and marched in rank up the holler like a cavalry charge consuming the grass in a wide swath. They didn’t, of course. Each cow went its own way—some on one hill and some on another—so they were scattered all over the place for Shep to find them when milking time came around again.”

“I’ve got it, Curmudge. The cows’ random distribution demonstrated entropy, the natural tendency toward increased randomness. That’s similar to the story you told once before about your grandson. Although his toys were put away neatly in the toy box each evening, they were scattered all over the house by the end of the next day.”

“When winter came to Granddad’s farm, he kept the cows in the barn. It was a lot of work carrying in feed and hauling out manure, but he didn’t want a cow breaking a leg slipping on an icy rock on a steep hill. However, if the barn door and the pasture gate had been left open and if Shep had been busy trying futilely to herd the chickens, the cows would have wandered out of the barn, up the holler, and again become scattered randomly up in the hills.”

“I’ve got it again, Curmudge. When the cows were not being carefully managed, they backslid into their old habit of wandering randomly. Their actions again demonstrate the tendency of entropy—randomness—to increase.”

“Here’s another example of increasing randomness. If one puts a cube of ice—a well-ordered structure—into a glass of Scotch, the ice will spontaneously melt into less-ordered liquid water. Of course, the full explanation is rather complicated.”

“Good example, Curmudge, but not if you like to drink your Scotch neat. So are we going to carry this lesson over to Lean, where we’ll discuss workers and managers instead of cows and Border Collies?”

“Nurse Julie, you can bet your white cap (if you have one) on that.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon