I’ve always thought that successfull change can only come, and must be preceeded by, successfull leadership.

I’ve been to many kaizen and “lean” seminars/workshops, even spoke at a few, and I’m always amazed at the ammount of emphasis placed on tools. You just know that those in the audience are going to rush off after and begin applying 5S, JIT, Poke Yoke etc.

It doesn’t matter what tools you use, if there is no leadership and no effort put into the creation of a kaizen mindset it will fail and any benefits will be short-term.

Kaizen is all about thinking for yourselves, creating your own methods and your own solutions to problems - not blindly following.