"Everybody's tryin' to get into the act."

“That’s a famous quotation, Jaded Julie.  Who said it?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Curmudge.  But since you never turn on your TV, it must be someone from long, long ago.”

“It was Jimmy Durante, star of radio in the ‘40’s and TV in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.  Definitely before your time.”

“Okay, you’ve proven that your memory is not totally kaput, so why are we talking about a Jimmy Durante quotation?  Wait…I’ve got it!  It’s because ‘the act’ in the quotation can easily be replaced by ‘Lean.’  ‘Everybody’s tryin’ to get into Lean.’ “

“You are indeed correct, Julie.  There is a Lean consultant on almost every street corner, and they often give Lean another name to make it sound like their own invention.  Others take the name ‘Lean’ and give it to their ‘idiosyncratic collections of practices and procedures intended to cut costs, improve efficiency, and sometimes to improve effectiveness.’ (1) That’s okay if they are teaching real Lean and not L.A.M.E. (Lean As Misguidedly Executed).  In a recent posting, Graban has reiterated some of the principles of the Toyota Production System to help us distinguish true Lean from L.A.M.E.”

“I guess you are saying that it doesn’t matter what they call it as long as they do it correctly.  That’s the exact opposite of what Henry Higgins said in My Fair Lady, ‘The French don’t care what they do, really, as long as they pronounce it correctly.’ “

“I believe we’ve used that line before, but I don’t recall when.  Anyway, the reason for this discussion is a book I’ve been reading.  It’s The Power of LEO, The Revolutionary Process for Achieving Extraordinary Results by Subir Chowdhury.  As I read it, I couldn’t help thinking how it parallels Lean.”

“My anticipation, Curmudge, is that you are going to tell us what those parallels are.  I already know one difference; LEO is an acronym and Lean isn’t.”

“Right as usual.  L—Listen.  Observe and understand; seek input from all stakeholders.  E—Enrich.  Explore and discover; create new ideas for improvement and solutions for problems.  O—Optimize.  Improve and perfect; select and test the best improvement ideas and problem solutions.  LEO is ‘an encompassing strategy that can be embraced by everyone in an organization.’  The author also states that, ‘Quality methodologies like Six Sigma and Lean can be highly effective but are used narrowly and by limited personnel within an organization.’ “

“Hey, Curmudge!  What he says might be true about Six Sigma, but that’s not been my experience with Lean.”

“Here’s another subtle difference.  The author often refers to quality in the manufacturing sense, meaning products that meet customer needs and processes that are performed right the first time every time.  In health care, quality often refers to meeting defined quality measures; denoting quality in terms of patient outcomes is elusive.  In Lean, quality is implicit in implementing standard work and reducing waste and inefficiency.”

“From our earlier discussion, here is an important feature that Lean and LEO have in common.  As we know so well, Lean is a culture to be implemented throughout an organization.  In LEO, quality is the responsibility of all of the people all of the time.  The author quotes Aristotle, ‘Quality is not an act, it is a habit.’ “

“Julie, as I read about LEO I was impressed by its similarities with parts of an A3 form.  The Listen phase of LEO resembles the left side of an A3.  They seek an understanding of the current condition; they observe and understand by going to gemba just like in Lean.  ‘The quality that LEO can deliver is directly proportional to the quality of the information gathered in the Listen phase of deployment.’ “

“As I understand it, Listen concludes and the Enrich phase begins when the LEO team makes a map of the current operational situation (the familiar current state map).  ‘In the Enrich phase, the search is on for the best solution.’  They seek to develop alternate ways to solve the problem.  Their efforts under Enrich resemble root cause analysis and use of other Lean tools under Current Condition and Problem Analysis on an A3 form.”

“ ‘In the LEO Optimize phase, the solutions selected during the Enrich phase are torn down to their details.  That’s where their weaknesses can be found.’  This seems more appropriate in the development of an industrial process.  The counterparts of this section in an A3 would be the Target Condition and Countermeasures.”

“If you haven’t forgotten it, Curmudge, what’s the bottom line?”

“A major LEO deployment appears to start with a team of LEO consultants rather than a single sensei as in Lean.  From there on, much is familiar.  A certified LEO trainer trains a cadre of local people to take over after the initial deployment.  LEO overview classes are taught to the employees where they learn that LEO is focused on rooting out waste, not employees.  Active involvement of the CEO and top management is essential, and they are urged to integrate LEO into their everyday work lives.  Overall, LEO appears to be another way of describing and implementing the kinds of changes that are becoming essential in every business.”

“So I suppose that Jimmy Durante would approve of everybody’s tryin’ to get into the act, or Lean, or LEO, or whatever.”

“Of course, but only if it’s true Lean and not L.A.M.E.”

Kaizen Curmudgeon

(1) Chambers, David.  Efficient Healthcare (2009, Rice University Building Institute).