In 2007, I sat down virtually with James P. (Jim) Womack, founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute, for Episode #24 of the Lean Blog Podcast. At the time, Toyota was continuing its march toward becoming the world's largest automaker, General Motors was still struggling with legacy costs, and Ford was reeling from a culture that often prized appearances over reality.
The conversation touched on all of those issues, but one segment stands out almost 20 years later: Jim's reflections on the word “Lean.”
The Naming Moment at MIT
Back in 1987, Womack and his colleagues at MIT were working on what became The Machine That Changed the World. They had painstakingly gathered and verified data from assembly plants around the world, and it was clear: Toyota and Honda were playing a different game. They designed faster, produced with less effort, used less space, made fewer mistakes, and invested less capital while delivering higher value.
The team knew they needed a name to capture this system.
It couldn't be “Japanese manufacturing,” because that missed the point.
It couldn't be “Toyota Production System,” because Honda and others were succeeding with similar approaches.
They wanted a label that described what the system actually did.
As Jim told me in 2007, the discussion kept circling back to “less”: less time, less effort, less capital, less space, fewer errors, fewer suppliers. That's when John Krafcik, a young researcher on the team (and later CEO of Waymo), had his moment of inspiration:
“Let's call it Lean.”
Jim Looks Back at the Book:
The Strengths and the Weaknesses of “Lean”
The word stuck. But Jim admitted in our conversation that it has always been a double-edged sword. On one hand, it succeeded in shifting the discussion away from ethnicity and nationalism. Lean wasn't about Japan; it was about a fundamentally different management system. That clarity was critical for leaders who might otherwise dismiss Toyota's success as “cultural.”
On the other hand, “Lean” rhymes with “mean.” And all too often, managers interpreted it through the narrowest possible lens: less people. Jim lamented that far too many executives twisted Lean into a short-term cost-cutting exercise rather than embracing it as a way to create more value for customers while respecting employees.
“We chose the word Lean in 1987 because it described performance, not nationality or culture.”
As he put it, the real definition was always about “more value with less of everything.” The focus was never on reducing headcount–it was on designing systems that eliminated waste, improved flow, and engaged people in problem-solving.
“The problem is that Lean rhymes with mean, and too many managers have twisted it in that direction.”
Lean in 2025: Still Debated, Still Relevant
Looking back at that 2007 interview, I'm struck by how current Jim's reflections still sound. The debate about the word continues today. Some practitioners embrace it proudly, others distance themselves from it, and many still wrestle with misconceptions that Lean is just about efficiency or cost.
But Womack's reminder remains powerful: labels matter less than the purpose behind them. Lean at its best is not a toolkit, not a project, and not a headcount reduction program. It's a management system designed to create better outcomes for customers and better experiences for employees.
As Jim joked, once the rocket leaves the launch pad, you can't control its trajectory. The term Lean took off in 1987, and it has traveled in many directions since. But the underlying principles–the pursuit of value, respect for people, and continuous problem solving–are as relevant today as they were when Toyota first demonstrated them on the global stage.
Nearly 20 years later, I still come back to that conversation with Jim. Words matter, but actions matter more. If leaders focus on creating more value with less waste, the label takes care of itself.
You can revisit the original conversation here:
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“Coining the term ‘lean' gave us a language for a system we were only beginning to understand.” – Dan Jones
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