This article came about through conversation between the two authors, Adriana and Colleen. Commiserating over how both of us do work that is commonly misunderstood, we realized there is overlap between the incorrect ideas of Lean and Sustainability. This article is our soapbox and myth-busting explanation for our respective fields.
Myth #1: It can be done once, and then it is done.
Adriana: One of the great things about living in New Hampshire is the change of the seasons. In the Fall we start noticing the first yellowing of the leaves that were once a bright green at the first spell of colder weather.
Nature knows the signs of change. And we can also recognize the signs of the need for change.
I remember years ago when I was talking about Lean/ Continuous Improvement with a friend, who is also an entrepreneur. When I asked her how the implementation was happening in her business she responded: “Oh, yes! We already did Lean last year.”
I chuckled and said: “Lean is not a past tense practice.”
What does this mean? The efforts to make work and life easier for us is an ongoing one, hence the Continuous in Lean/Continuous Improvement. And the main reason for this is simple: Change is the constant, so Lean/ Continuous Improvement practices are also about aligning with the needs that emerge from Change. The change of our environment, the changing needs and wants of our customers, and so on.
Colleen: Similarly, Sustainability work is interdisciplinary and ever evolving. This can be a frustration for practitioners, as there is no point at which a business can simply declare itself a ‘green’ company and move on. The technology available to fight climate change, the regulatory environment, and the planet’s cycles are all shifting, and a business has to stay on top of those shifts to remain protected from risk and be aware of the opportunities. Furthermore, a sustainable business does not exist in a vacuum. Not only is a business impacted by its own operations, but it must be aware of the larger context it operates in. Ideally, a sustainable company has not only eliminated the harm of its operations, but it is also making up for the damage of others.
The quadrant below shows how a company’s impact, whether direct or indirect, can build value for the whole society and environment. This image was created by Future Fit Foundation, which provides resources for companies that want to build resiliency and contribute to a more stable world. The boxes of indirect impact show how a business ready for what is next, or ‘future fit’ is not only concerned with its own activity, but is impacting others. You can’t just worry about yourself because the issues we face are systemic.
An example of the challenging work of responsible businesses is the COVID-19 pandemic. Many leading sustainable businesses had to shift their operations and priorities as the world around them shifted. Having strong values and a supportive company culture can guide that response, but a company that only reached the minimum sustainability benchmarks and then stopped paying attention would not be able to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic as effectively while still remaining impact-focused.
Even as we take care of some inefficiencies and improve our processes once, we want to continue the practice in all aspects of the operations to reap the continuous benefits by enhancing the flow of value throughout.
Dwelling on the “tried and true” ways of doing what we do, without first questioning if they are still serving us well now, and if they will serve us well in the future, is stealing away our valuable resources: Our Time, Our Energy, Our Mind, and ultimately, Our Sense of Joy. And reclaiming more of these valuable resources is, well, to quote a popular ad, Priceless!
Myth 2: You Need a Factory to Do Lean or Sustainability
Colleen: Images of environmental degradation abound, and the physical impact of business is easily visualized for many. Images of smokestacks, waste production, and concrete buildings are treated as short-hands for the problems we need to solve for a sustainable future. However, many business owners don’t see themselves in those images – maybe they don’t have smokestacks, significant waste production, or a concrete building – and thus they feel that sustainability doesn’t apply to them. This is untrue.
Firstly, the problems we face of climate change, pollution, etc. have macroeconomic effects. Every business and every sector will be impacted, though each in different ways. Ignoring sustainability means ignoring the risks your business faces, as well as the opportunities.
Secondly, sustainability is more than measuring greenhouse gas emissions and reducing single-items. Every company that exists has an impact of some kind. Even if that impact is small, it is still the responsibility of a business to eliminate harm and do what it can to improve society and the environment.
With both Lean and sustainability, we are best served by keeping value in the system for as long as possible. Instead of take-make-waste pathways, a sustainable business would have borrow-use-return for its operations, and it would have ‘use’ get every last figurative or literal ounce of value out of a particular resource. This kind of thinking is called circularity. In a circular economy “waste is designed out, everything is used at its highest possible value for as long as possible, and natural systems are regenerated.” Whether or not you have a physical plant, you can increase your efficiency and regenerate natural systems in your operations. Take a moment to consider your areas of impact, even if they are small, even if they are primarily people oriented, like providing jobs or services. How can you design out waste, maximize value, and regenerate nature?
Adriana: Perhaps because the Lean/Continuous Improvement Methodology was developed at Toyota and it started to get disseminated as standard practice throughout the operations of manufacturing companies, it is a very common misconception to think that this methodology only applies to the Manufacturing Industry.
Alas, I was introduced to Lean/Continuous Improvement when I was working in Manufacturing and spent more than a decade practicing it in that environment.
But I soon realized something very pivotal:
This Methodology is about improving the process, and Life is full of many processes.
There are processes in product-based companies, and in service-based industries as well.
In other words, it is not so much about What we do. It is about How we do it.
- How we get to the result.
- How we use our valuable resources, (wasteful vs. Effective), (inefficient vs. streamlined).
- How we empower our workforce and ourselves and being more adaptable to changes.
Processes exist in almost every aspect of what we do. They happen in our personal lives, in businesses, at work, in our human interactions.
- Interactions with families and friends, as well as ourselves.
- Organization and set up of our personal environments.
- Communication processes, and many more.
A few years ago, I presented a workshop to entrepreneurs about using Lean/Continuous Improvement in their operations. To drive this point, I used 5S, one of the powerful organizing tools of the Lean Methodology to organize my pantry!
I showed before and after pics and went through the organization process by using “a manufacturing environment” tool to make my life easier at home.
Now I organize my pantry using the 5S organization method that emerged from Lean because I want to reap the benefits offered by this tool at home, too.
That is why the powerful tools of Lean/Continuous Improvement are applicable and transferable to any industry, any size and type of organization, and to many parts of our life.
Our most valuable resources: Time, Energy, Use of our Mind, Money, can be put to better use when we streamline our processes. We create the ability to do more with less, and to eliminate waste of valuable resources.
Part of my mission with The Process Reinvention, LLC is to make these powerful Lean/Continuous Improvement tools more accessible to the entrepreneurial world, so they can reduce operational cost and empower their workforce to become Problem Solvers in a more sustainable way.
Waste is not a good thing; not good for businesses, not good for individuals, not good for the planet. Tackling waste with Lean/Continuous Improvement and Sustainability tools will not only provide us with a more sensible way to live, work, and play, but will also improve our collective experience.
Myth 3: You Can Get Away With Only Treating the Symptoms of a Problem
Adriana: As with any disease, treating only the symptoms of the problem will not remove the problem. The pain, frustration, and suffering that comes from living with a solvable problem will affect our sense of wellbeing and Joy.
The reality is that companies that embrace and integrate Lean/Continuous Improvement in their operations will have a competitive advantage now, and in the future.
The difference is palpable. Lean provides a clear landscape of the operations to determine where Value is being enhanced, and where Waste is being produced in the flow of production.
Organizations where Lean Thinking is integrated into how people deal with problems caused by inefficiencies, (solvable problems I call them), will save many of their resources over time, because their people are empowered to build processes that work for them, not the other way around. They are using tools to get to the root cause of those problems, and they are encouraged to solve them instead of treating the symptoms or using their valuable resources to continue dealing with those problems.
Because change is embraced as the driver of improvement, and change management is standard practice to support navigating through change, a Lean organization spends less time, effort and pain during the learning curves, and flexibility is built in.
Colleen: Similar to Lean Myth 3, many professionals are confident that they know their impact and are knowledgeable about the risks and opportunities facing them. However, if you are not taking sustainability seriously, you are not going to be prepared for the future. Even now, there may be struggles for your business that are related to sustainability issues, such as workforce housing, supply chain resiliency, and extreme weather events. Sustainability work uses a systems approach to connect and solve problems for the economy, society, and the environment.
Much of sustainability is about preparing your company for the future, one that may be volatile and resource scarce. If you do not look at sustainability issues seriously and consider how your business is going to function in five, ten, twenty years, you are not going to be ready. A crisis will reveal underlying problems, but at that point you will be resource strapped and in damage control mode. You will not have the time, money, or energy to solve those problems properly.
Don’t wait for a crisis and don’t just treat the symptoms of an issue. Be proactive and find what your challenges are. With stakeholder engagement, impact reporting, industry research and engagement, and an open, supportive company culture, you will be more aware of what issues exist and have the resources to address them.
Across society, sustainability practitioners and their stakeholders are building resilience and flexibility. Resilience is the capacity to recover from shocks to the system. Similarly, flexibility is the ability to adapt quickly to a new constraint, environment, or event. A company that is built sustainably will be better able to respond to and recover from macroeconomic changes like climate change.
We are all connected in this global world, and we all will feel the impact of inaction when we let wasteful practices misuse our most valuable resources. On the other hand, we have the choice of reaping the benefits of using effective Lean/Continuous Improvement and Sustainability tools to create processes and operations that will improve many aspects of our life, and that of the future generations.
Waste elimination is still an important part of the Lean/Continuous Improvement Methodology, but it has also evolved to support the needs for Safety and Sustainability that have emerged. What misconceptions around Lean or Sustainability did you hold and how did your perspective change?
This is the second of three Lean/Sustainability articles written by Adriana Torres of Process Reinventions and Colleen Spear of Spearpoint Strategies. The first can be viewed here and the third here.
One response to “Do You Really Understand Lean and Sustainability? – Mythbusting Misconceptions”
[…] This is the first of three Lean/Sustainability articles written by Adriana Torres of Process Reinventions and Colleen Spear of Spearpoint Strategies. The second can be viewed here. […]