Mar 09 2010

As a consultant who does a shed load of training in Lean I find it amazing how many people say to me “that’s just common sense”. There is nothing special about the principles of lean – they are definitely not rocket science, they are common sense in general, but just because they are common sense, does not mean that they are abundant in the workplace.

People all over complain about how simple it is, and yet how difficult it is to implement. I find often the failure to follow these common sense approaches to doing business are a result of beauracracy limiting the creative nature of people to the point that they give up and just follow the crowd OR they are just too lazy to make any effort to make things better for themselves!

I suppose this is a bit contentious, but why else do people not do things that make their lives easier? Too much short-term effort to make things easier in the long-term? Are we that afraid that if we become more efficient that we will get more work loaded onto us? I know it happens, but if we truly want our businesses to be successful, what else are we to do? Make it harder for everyone else rather than make it easier? Continue to push people harder instead of taking away the barriers to success?

This is all common sense, if only it were more common place!