DailyKaizen

Taking a slight detour into the philosophical realm (part of my training in LEAN, to understand the “why”? of what I am doing), I was fascinated by this weekly podcast by Jack and Suzy Welch on the topic of this post.

The most important reflection for me was the way the question was interpreted. It was broken down into the possible options:

• It belongs to the shareholders?
• It belongs to the employees?
• It belongs to the customers?

It missed one option for me:

• It belongs to society?

Jack does refer later on in the podcast to companies supporting healthy societies. I think this is important, and an underpinning of LEAN - respect for, and interest in helping society. I believe that’s a general characteristic of most health care organizations which is one reason there is a fertile ground for LEAN here. Lee and others know that one of my most favorite quotes is the following. I use it to illustrate that there are parallels between the calling that medicine is, and car building:

Everyone should tackle some great project at least once in life. I devoted most of my life to inventing looms. Now it is your turn. You should make an effort to complete something that will benefit society. — Sakichi Toyoda to his son Kiichiro, founder of Toyota Motor Company