READING NOTE · UPDATED 2026
Read the Lean 2008 reflections with a current problem
These reflections retain the author’s account of Lean 2008. Their present value comes from examining the ideas against work you can observe now. Conferences can surface a useful explanation, but the explanation needs a local test. Select a claim, state what would challenge it and make the result part of the next team conversation.
A practical next step
- Choose one claim from the original reflections.
- Compare it with a current work observation.
- Arrange a small trial with a clear review date.
This 2026 reading note is written by the Durnall editorial team. Richard Durnall’s original text follows below.
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The original words below retain their period and attribution. The reading note above is the current editorial addition.
Source capture · 2009-01-30 ↗I spent Tuesday and Wednesday of last week hanging out at Lean 2008 at the Park Hyatt in Melbourne, Australia. The event was organised by Lean Enterprise Australia and they flew in some great speakers from all around the world to talk on all things Lean alongside some locals who are doing some really interesting things. I’ve had a shot at summarising the things I’ve taken away and the key points from the sessions that I attended below. I’m sure some of the numbers are incorrect but my handwriting is slow and I was under pressure!…
Lean 2008 Summary
- Lean is a leadership philosophy and not just a set of tools. (For some reason people still seem to have a hard time understanding this).
- The best place to start introducing Lean is anywhere that you interact with the customer.
- Focus on improving quality, not reducing cost.
- Jidoka is still not fully understood outside of Toyota.
- Standardised work is the key starting point for continuous improvement (Kaizen).
- You don’t have to be the CEO to introduce change. (In fact it’s hard to drive change from the CEO role).
- The Socratic Method is key to leadership in Lean organisations (although, from experience, initially frustrating to be on the other end of!).
- A Sloan style siloed organisational structure will kill Lean further down the organisation.
- Other industry sectors and business units have over 20 years knowledge and experience in introducing Lean processes. We can learn a lot from them.
and the most interesting piece of information I came across was this, courtesy of Gary Stewart at Aisin…
- Toyota are no longer an automotive company. They operate in 45 of the 50 identified industry classifications and as of 2008 have changed their name from Toyota Motor Corporation to Toyota Corporation. Whatever industry you are in watch out!
The most interesting story I heard (and there were lots) was this one from John Shook when responding to a question on suggestion schemes. I think it says a lot about how we can encourage the right behaviours in people by creating the right system. (It’s paraphrased from Johns original response).
To encourage employees to make suggestions and implement change, an organisation introduced a $20 reward for every suggestion that was made and accepted. One employee made a suggestion that was successful and given his $20. After a few weeks it was clear to the management team that the change wasn’t working and things needed to be reverted back. So, what did they do? They changed things back and took the $20 away from the employee right? Wrong. They spoke to the employee, got him to assess the change, understand that it wasn’t working and submit another suggestion to fix it, which was to change it back in this case, collecting another $20 for his new suggestion.
It’s all about people and creating systems for them that encourage and re-enforce the right behaviours.
The Keys to Successful Lean Management - John Shook
John Shook is one of a handful of the most prominent experts on Lean outside of Toyota in the World. I believe John was the first westerner to work for Toyota in Japan and John was the only US guy on the NUMMI transplant initiative, a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. John is the author of a number of books, including the definitive book on value-stream mapping ‘Learning to See’.
John spoke about his time on the NUMMI initiative and the lessons he learned. When the NUMMI project started the GM facility in the US that was used had the worst quality and productivity of all GM plants, which is saying something! Toyota took over the management from GM but Read the rest of this entry ?