Lean - "People" element in 21st century
Lean Management or Lean Manufacturing is one of the latest philosophies of productivity improvement being experimented in organizations. I happen to be one of the implementation partners. My observation for organizations who are toying with this improvement philosophy is that many of them have missed the core elements to appreciate. The core of the philosophy lies in the "value systems" of people. The 20th century (which is less than a century into Industrial revolution) had multiple transitions due to the World Wars. The world war, in my opinion, did two things - first it choked the capital available for businesses and second - shifted the power of demand to new geographies. My focus below is on the first and its impact on people. The lack of capital available for expanding business ensured that organizations had to work very hard to improve productivity. This is in contrast to the 21st century. The advent of new mechanism to raise finance have put the organiza...