Chapter 3
What Do I Need to Know about Lean Leadership?
After over 35 years of doing this, I have concluded that basic concepts and tools of lean can be reduced to just three words: applied common sense! No more. Anything anybody says to the contrary has missed the point. As with so many other disciplines, others have made a living trying to make it more complicated than it is.
Humble Beginnings
Toyota's earliest beginnings came from its rural, agricultural roots. The very name of the founding family Toyoda (yes, with a “D”) means “green field”. The founders in the beginning were what we in the United States might call country bumpkins.
They were simple farmers who grew up in an environment of resource scarcity, but who also possessed an ...
Get Lean Leadership on a Napkin now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
