A Leanfulness Way of Thinking

Introduction to Leanfulness

As I journeyed through my various roles over 26 years as a project team leader, and during my doctoral studies in Organizational Psychology, I typically was drawn to concepts that were on the positive spectrum of psychology. I quickly fell in love with the field of positive psychology and began to implement many of the principles I was learning. These newly adopted principles empowered me to remain composured while working full time and full-time studies toward a PhD.

Additional schools of thought, such as mindfulness and lean thinking both aligned well with positive psychology. All of which became a holistic source of values, principles, and techniques that I directly applied in my personal and professional life. Each of these three schools of thought, positive psychology, mindfulness, and lean thinking came into my life at different times. Once I recognized the synergy that could result by blending them together and applying them consistently, I experienced profound growth and positive change in my personal and professional development. I discovered that instead of continuing to view them as three distinct concepts that I cycle through, instead I combined them in my mind, blending them together as a singular set of values, principles, and techniques which I call Leanfulness. Leanfulness has become a neatly packaged but very powerful concept that simplified the mental process of choosing which approach is applicable, depending on the context or situation. Consequently, my creativity is enhanced as I seamlessly apply leanful thinking to any personal, professional, or organizational issue. Leanfulness empowers an acute awareness to one’s state of ethereal mind, body, and spurt connection, while equipping the person with a well-rounded set of values, principles and techniques to draw from. As leanful leaders we can see the big picture better and become transformational and visionaries who inspire those who follow us.

Lean Thinking

Lean thinking was a byproduct of American thought leaders such as Frederick Taylor, 1913 and his seminal book Scientific Management, and Henry Ford, 1920 with the engineering controls he pioneered for mass production. Also, the Japanese collectivist culture was likely another major component that empowered leaders such as a Toyota executive, Ohno, (1980) to develop the Toyota production system (TPS) that became known globally as the Lean production system (LPS). The techniques and principles that birthed TPS or Lean were first developed and applied in 1945. At that time Japanese manufacturers needed a miracle due to the destruction that occurred during WWII. The Japanese economy was at the mercy of manufacturers becoming the savior of the national financial health. Aided by American Scholars such as Edward Deming (1945) the Japanese manufacturing reversed a trend of being 9 times slower on average than American manufacturers to becoming global leaders in manufacturing. Within a few years the Japanese economy was restored, and life was improving for Japanese citizens. It seems to me that the resulting tenets of Lean such as respect for people were more a result of the Japanese culture, which is starkly different than most of the Western world, especially America’s individualism. This new Japanese management paradigm developed continuous improvement initiatives that enlist the voice of all members at all levels to provide their own ideas. This notion was designed to provide a sense of ownership to all involved as well as to gain a wider variety of ideas.

The new-found success that Japan showed the world would last for several decades as American manufacturers were too stuck in their own ways due to structural limitations, such as trade union regulations, and the ever-powerful individualistic culture that is by its very nature in conflict with the tenets of lean principles. For example, Toyota implemented life time employment. Trade unions weren’t even able to come close to that type of job security in America. Toyota employees were trained to work across disciplines and roles. That was prohibited in most American Automaker Factories. Union rules restricted roles and allowed only specialized roles to be created in the auto making process. In Japan a member of one part of the assembly process was also trained to work on the machines that automated the process in case a component failed the ability to repair was quicker. Conversely, if a machine failed in an American plant an operating engineer or a machine specialist was required to do the repairs. The regulations that were designed to protect jobs actually lost jobs as a result of more customers buying Japanese products than American products. They were better quality, and less expensive than buying American. Buying American became less desirable for most consumers since products wouldn’t last and people felt they were wasting their money. At some point the pain that the American manufacturers were feeling was too great to remain status quo. Urgency finally seeped into the minds of American innovators and business minded individuals that would attempt to break through the sturdy regulations that limited innovation and competitive advantage. The return of the American auto industry, as well as other types of manufacturing was restored to a competitive level. As Lean thinking crossed the ocean into the hearts and minds of business visionaries. American and Japanese products as well as the many other nations that adopted lean thinking closed the quality, and cost to produce gap.

Positive Psychology

As the tide turned in the 1980s and 1990s for American manufacturing, Martin Seligman (1992) a clinical psychologist became very cynical about his ability to really help those that were mentally ill. As a result of his frustration or the sense of being incapable of helping his patients to the degree he desired, Seligman became interested in exploring the effects of psychological initiatives designed for those individuals already doing well. These individuals he described as being on the plus side of the mental health scale, whereas mental illness would put a person on the negative side of the scale. Seligman, believed that he never helped a patient to transition from the negative side to the positive side. He was limited to helping patients simply become less negative on the scale. Seligman (1992) was a forerunner of positive psychology. He felt it imperative to maintain the scientific rigor of clinical psychology as he explored through research these new concepts and models. Fast forward 30 years, abundant research supporting the many health benefits, such as mental, physiological, and neurological are experienced when positive psychology techniques are implemented. A few examples are cognitive function is enhanced, focus increases, ability to cope with many expected and unexpected challenges increases to name just a few. The list of health benefits will be discussed in depth in chapter 3, Positive Psychology.

Mindfulness

Another byproduct of positive psychology is the global or western sensation with mindfulness. The origin of mindfulness dates back centuries and from the Eastern Spiritual traditions such as Buddhism. Unrelated to positive psychology mindfulness spread from the Eastern regions to the West via the spread of the Eastern spiritual traditions. However, as Positive Psychology became such a popular solution for the many people that are doing rather well but don’t feel like they are thriving. Mindfulness added another layer of self-development and growth. Especially for those who are more inclined to have a universal spirituality. Mindfulness for many is a spiritual exercise as well as a non-spiritual method of making a connection between mind, body, and the environment. Mindfulness is the practice of taking a pause from the pressures, and the all too familiar routine of a hectic schedule. Most of us that are caught up in this hectic schedule can relate to the fact that we spend much of our time thinking of our next moves and making sure that we are prepared, or we spend too much time worrying or reflecting about the past. Due to this automatic response to worry or prepare we lose the ability to be present and experience right now. Mindfulness helps us detach from the rat race and offers us the ability to regain that child like sense of curiosity and exploration of our senses, and emotions. As children we began life with, essentially a blank canvas to add meaning to all of these human gifts of sensations and emotions. Many of us have muddied up that blank canvas with very negative meaning to these very human sensations and emotions. Mindfulness helps us restore ourselves and transform the negativity into positive meanings. For this reason, mindfulness and positive psychology are a perfect fit.

Leanfulness Described

​The concept that I have been working on for many years now comes from my years of being a project leader in the construction industry where lean thinking became very useful for managing projects and building teams. Those of us so called Lean practitioners typically see additional benefits of becoming lean minded. Lean thinking is a mindset that is applied personally and professionally. Lean promotes soft skills such as respect for people, team building, and empathy for your coworkers. Whereas, the engineering processes, such as eliminating waste and continuous improvement are enterprise wide initiatives that all members of the organization participate in. In this model everyone has a voice. Alternatively, on a personal level, lean thinkers develop a habit to see waste in their own lives and become motivated to eliminate the waste. This makes life easier on so many levels from the process that you use when making coffee to taking out the trash. Additionally, relationship skills are improved, conflict resolution, and a positive mindset in general is the result. During my doctoral studies where I was getting my PhD in Organizational Psychology, I began to think about how well Lean thinking fit with positive psychology, and mindfulness. It just seemed logical that Lean thinking would add value and the three schools of thought should be applied together. Leanfulness was born. Each of these three schools of thought have unique attributes by themselves, however these attributes lend well with one another creating a powerful methodology that transforms personal development, professional development, and organizational development when applied as this combined approach is designed to do.