It speaks more to the issue of what a profession means:

-Doctors use Greek
-Lawyers use Latin and Mediaeval French
-Chefs use French (and the word itself is)
-Couturiers and Sommeliers and Vignerons also do their craft in French
-Religions use dead languages like Sanskrit, Latin, Ancient Greek and classical Arabic, and revive languages like Hebrew.

All of these would class themselves as professions. Strong professional codes and cultures.

If Lean becomes a profession then it will use its language. What is probably more the point is do we want to be a profession, or merely an assistance to people to think.

Arguably, that’s what doctors and lawyers once were. Assistants to ordinary folk to manage their own health and their own affairs. But over time they took over the management of these matters and ordinary people delegated/abrogated their own responsibility for them. You no longer went to a hospital bed to recuperate and consult a doctor. You went there for them to do things to you. And the things they did attracted labels that were very precise.

In process improvement we can’t afford to do this – Lean should never become an ‘overhead’ like paying your legal bills or healthcare bulls. That’s a reason I object to “Quality” departments when I see them.

That said, the quickest way to explain to another lean practitioner that you had a kaizen event or went to the gemba is to use those words.

I once heard Toyota had an objective to survive 1000 years. If it does, I’d like to imagine in 1000 years all those Japanese terms enshrined the way all the mediaeval French and Latin has become embedded in our Legal language. English is so much richer, and arguably one of the richest languages, because of 2000 years of borrowing from the languages of the world, which is why words like liberty and freedom aren’t perfectly interchangeable.

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I think the Leanest language is the simplest language that communicates the most effectively (based on the eyes of the listener or receiver of the communication).

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I think organizations can do just fine with Lean without kamishibai boards and yokoten.

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They can use terms like nosocomial or iatrogenic or whatever that have perfectly plain, English equivalents but they would rather use Greek. So I wouldn’t worry about using Japanese terms, within the craft.

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The definition of the word Sensei is a simple minded one.
A teacher, instructor.
They are respectful, humble and disciplined.
Disciplined in many forms.
Exceptional Instructors Challenge their students constantly.
They do not give away the answer.

During my youth I practiced martial arts, my Sensei was a great instructor. He brought to life new ideas and thoughts of my person, my confidence, self esteem, all positives.

Personally, I don’t see the word Sensei being overused but mis-used.
The teaching I received was difficult, challenging and enduring over time. In addition I was taught to take my new knowledge and share unconditionally for the beneift of others. Plain and simple.
Call it a code.

Respectfully,
Todd McCann

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I found Doc Hall refreshing when he spoke here last year. Hat and accent but otherwise not your average Texan!

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I like Drucker’s phrasing better, and have been quoting him lately when talking about the importance of employee involvement and education. A simple phrase, like “People don’t hate change; they just don’t like being changed”, is easy to communicate and explain, and can have a big impact. Just ask the Vice President how she would react when she enters her office on Monday after the lean experts came in over the weekend and redesigned her space to make her safer, more productive and cost effective. Would simply showing her the kaizen results (while wearing your kaizen t-shirt) convince her that she and the company are better off by eliminating her chair, raising her desk and putting her stapler and pens on a shadow board? Would a kaizen coffee mug and a few words of support form the President make her feel better? What’s the likelihood her office will remain “improved” for very long?

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I have plenty of respect for Peter Senge. I taught systems theory for four years in Seattle University’s MA Organization Systems Renewal program, assigning Senge, Wheatly, Maturana, and others for readings. We also brought Peter Senge, Fritjof Capra, Linda Booth Sweeney, and other systems theorists to Seattle as guest lecturers, so I know these people as friends and colleagues.

Now, I had already been a lean consultant for fourteen years before being a systems professor. What I did not see in all the wonderful work of the systems folks was actual corporate or organizational transformation from systems thinking or systems dynamics. I’ve seen it with lean methods and philosophy — at Boeing, Toyota, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle Children’s, Boldt Construction, and Herrero Construction, and lots of Japanese manufacturers and suppliers (visited Boldt and Herrero again last week).

You assert that “Systems thinking has been applied by many of the Fortune companies to create breakthrough thinking to get un-stuck.” That’s not the same accomplishment as Lean being the method and approach for changing the way an organization makes their product and serves their customers. That’s what lean has done both with and without a lot of systems theory.

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