Social Media Etiquette and Lean

I recently had an interesting experience on LinkedIn. On occasion, I answer discussion questions where I think I can add value. One such question mentioned that Dr. Liker recommends Toyota alumni to lead Lean transformations, and questioned why companies would be interested in advanced degrees and certifications.

The question was intriguing to me, as I am always curious about how little Lean measures its own performance. Sure, there are measures within a company about productivity or lead time, but there is little in the aggregate. It is extremely hard to find any real, believable data about the effectiveness of continuous improvement programs. There is nothing about the success rate, the time it takes to transform, or even how you would quantify that a company has, in fact, transformed. The LinkedIn question highlighted that issue. Any answer would be anecdotal without facts and data to support it.

So, I responded to the question with a few points.

1. This is an opinion question. Ironically, there are no facts and data to answer this question about who is better at driving a system that thrives on facts and data.
2. Certifications are an indicator of someone who is willing to set goals and act on them to improve. Regardless of the effectiveness of the certification, the people going down this path act in alignment with Lean principles. (Note: There was actually a response before mine that said something similar.)
3. Toyota is not necessarily the best at Lean. I did an article a while back that compared historical quality trends of automakers, and while Toyota was strong, there were at least three other comparable companies. (In fact, Toyota was not the best in 4 of the 5 years I looked at.) I also mentioned that I suspect that a large part of Toyota’s high profit margin comes from being able to charge more for cars based upon a reputation that is not necessarily supported by data. The point was that “Toyota DNA” may not actually be better than the DNA from other high-performing companies.
4. Finally, I mentioned that Dr. Liker is vested in Toyota’s dominance in Lean. Nearly all of his popular work focuses on it. It would be surprising to see him say anything other than recommending Toyota alumni. While his information is extremely helpful and I recommend his books, Toyota is not the only game in town.

The interesting part was not my response, or even the question. The issue that inspired me to write this article was that when I was pinged about a new response, I noticed that mine and the one before it were both missing. There was a new response, though, that supported the Toyota DNA claim, and the questioner had even added a few responses of his own. Apparently, unless there was a glitch, the person starting the discussion purged the contrary responses.