What Does Lean Mean?

— by Andrew Parris

What led to Toyota’s gradual ascension and world dominance in the automobile industry? The answer to that question is captured in the term Lean, first used to describe the Toyota Production System by the MIT research team that in 1990 wrote the groundbreaking book The Machine That Changed the World. A Lean organization maximizes customer value by continuously eliminating waste in its process with the goal of creating more value using fewer resources. In thirty years, Lean has gone on to transform not just the rest of the automobile industry, but nearly all manufacturing, most service industries (including software development), and many other sectors such as government, education and construction.

Every Faith Driven Entrepreneur can learn from Lean. Through trial and error and by learning from others, the men who developed the Toyota Production System in Japan in the middle of last century discovered some fundamental principles about how an organization can thrive. If you know Lean, you may have noticed that these same principles are also found in the Bible. This similarity between Lean principles and what the Bible teaches gives us confidence to learn from Lean and apply it in our own work – and even in our own lives – in order to bear more fruit. We can do this in the spirit of St. Augustine, who wrote, “…let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master.” (1)

In this article, based on “What Christian Leaders can Lean form Lean,” co-authored with Prof. Don Pope, we briefly describe seven Lean principles and show their Biblical parallels. These insights were gleaned in part from my PhD research on Lean at MIT, my application of Lean in aerospace at Lockheed Martin on the Atlas rocket, and my over twelve years in development and humanitarian work with World Vision and Medair, including living three years in Nairobi, Kenya.

Principle #1: We exist to provide value to our customers.

What Lean teaches: Organizations exist to provide valuable products and services to their customers. An organization asks and finds out from its customers what they need, what they want, and how they use the organization’s products and services. The organization then develops processes to design, produce and sell (or freely provide) products and services that customers want. Profits and growth are not reasons to exist, but are indications that an organization is providing superior customer value. 

What the Bible says: Similarly, the Apostle Paul several times exhorts believers find out and do what pleases God (e.g., “and find out what pleases the Lord.” Ephesians 5:10). The commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:39) requires us to learn and to do what is good for them. We do not live for ourselves, but to love God and neighbor – to be of value to them.

Principle #2: Waste is the greatest hindrance to achieving our goals 

What Lean teaches: Organizations operate mostly through processes – repeated sequences of steps that transform inputs into outputs and create a valuable result for a customer. Toyota found that the greatest the greatest performance improvements could be found not by creating new and better ways of adding value, but by identifying and eliminating waste in their processes. Spear (2) noted that Toyota and other Lean organizations are “ruthless and relentless” about eliminating waste from their processes. They don’t accept waste in their processes. Instead, they prevent or detect it and make it visible, so they can get rid of it.

What the Bible says: The author of Hebrews writes: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” (Hebrews 12:1a) In Matthew 13, Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed teaches the same message. And the Apostle Paul exhorts believers many times to stop sinning, as in Ephesians 4:31, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” Although Lean doesn’t include sin as a type of waste, consider the arrogant, hurtful and violent things that people do, the harm that these things cause, and the enormous amounts of time and resources spent trying to prevent, restrain or recover from evil. One quickly sees that sin is possibly the greatest waste that any individual or organization has to deal with!

Principle #3: A good root produces good fruit

What Lean teaches: Lean holds that a good process gets good results, and that a bad process gets bad results. A lean organization does not pursue excellence by using inspectors to find poor quality work, and then fixing or scrapping. Instead, it develops reliable processes that safely produce good products and services every time. Ideally, poor quality is prevented or automatically detected. And when problems arise, one does not blame people, but finds and addresses the root causes of poor quality.

What the Bible says: In Matthew 12:34-35, Jesus affirms this principle and applies it to what people say and do, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit…. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” Micah 6:6-8 tells us that God is not pleased with sin and sacrifice, but with justice, mercy and a humble walk with Him. These come from a repentant and pure heart.

Principle #4: The greatest long-term gains are achieved incrementally and continuously

What Lean teaches: Lean holds that, despite the need for major innovations, the greatest long-term improvements come from every employee making small, incremental improvements or innovations every day in how they do their work. Even major innovations need to be refined and optimized over time. To help motivate continuous improvements, one sets stretch performance goals.

What the Bible says: This aligns with the expectation that God has for his people (individually and as the body of Christ) to grow and to become more mature over time, with the result that we will bear increasing fruit. The Apostle Paul writes in various places about believers growing in faith and character. This principle of incremental growth and its fruit is most fully described in 2 Peter 1:5-8, which begins with: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control…”

Principle #5: Capable and empowered employees will achieve great things.

What Lean teaches: Employees are our greatest resource. You must have skilled, equipped and motivated employees who understand their work and how what they do adds value to their customers. Therefore, Lean organizations train their people, provide them with resources they need to succeed, coach them, and set ambitious goals with them. And they expect and empower their people to make decisions about and improvements to their work. This is a significant part Toyota’s “respect” for people.

What the Bible says: This Lean principle can be best seen in how Jesus took a rag-tag group of 12 followers and taught and discipled them to become the leaders of his church. Shortly before his death, Jesus confidently asserted his confidence in and empowerment of his disciples when he said: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

Principle #6: We achieve better results when we work together.

What Lean teaches: Organizations flourish from the synergy that comes from people creating, working and solving problems together, whether teams of people doing similar work or cross-functional teams that bring together people from very different backgrounds and perspectives. Therefore, Lean organizations promote teamwork and team problem solving.

What the Bible says: Jesus saw the importance and fruit of unity when in John 17:20-23 he prayed for the complete unity of all believers and explained the impact this will have: “Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Likewise, in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, Paul wrote extensively about the body of Christ, the unity of believers, and the necessity of each part of the body to cherish all others and to contribute their part.

Principle #7: Value is created, learning happens and relationships develop where the action is.

What Lean teaches: Gemba is the Japanese word for “where the action is” and refers to the workplace. Problems occur and are best solved in the Gemba. Because of the importance of the Gemba, leaders go to the factory, offices and other workplaces to see and understand the context of work and what is actually happening. Here, where people work, leaders get to know their people, and their people get to know them. This allows them to develop meaningful relationships of trust and gain valuable insights.

What the Bible says: In the Bible this can be seen both in the incarnation of Jesus – his coming to the Gemba of mankind – and in the incarnational presence of Christians in the world – our life in the world. Jesus left his glorious “office” in heaven, made himself nothing, was born, lived, suffered and humbly died in our world (Philippians 2:6-8). Jesus taught, discipled, healed, performed miracles and gave us an example of how to live (John 1:18, 1 John 1:1-2). And he calls us to be in the world and to bear witness to God (Matthew 5:13-14, John 17:15-18). 

Conclusion

Lean is a very effective management system because it discovered key principles about how organizations can thrive – principles found also in the Bible. Therefore, Faith Driven Entrepreneurs can confidently and fruitfully learn about Lean and apply it in their work, whether that be in business or ministry. Lean also reminds us of some important Biblical principles that we would do well to apply to our walk with God.

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Footnotes

(1) St. Augustine, “On Christian Doctrine” II.18.28.

(2) Steven Spear and Kent Bowen, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System.” Harvard Business Review, 77 (1999): 96-106.

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[ Photo by David van Dijk on Unsplash ]