by Lee Fried, on 02 May 2006 07:14 am
The Journey
Four years from now…
Popularity: 5%
I attended a seminar this evening at the University of Washington on Contracting. I go once a month to see what is new. At the beginning of the event each person in the room introduced themselves and I was surprised to find that an older gentlemen in the room was also in healthcare, which was a first in the typical IT crowd. During a break I introduced myself and we began to talk about our respective organizations and our roles. As it turns out he a Director of Finance at a local Hospital that has been applying LEAN for four years. He had been working in the organization for twenty-two years.
He told me about his initial resistance and his eventual conversion to LEAN principles. He said that many of his peers had gotten frustrated and left the organization or had been asked to leave. He told me how difficult it was to accept a new way to do work that was so different then his training. It amazed me that he had personally led six Kaizen and was gearing up for a seventh! He told me that it was hard at first, but that he was completely engaged to continue the journey.
This encounter energized me, because it showed the power LEAN has in transforming the culture of an organization. I hope as we continue our journey we see similar success.
on 02 May 2006 at 4:25 pm 1.Ted Eytan said …
Great story, and shows how we can share experiences across organizations.