People often ask how I learned what I know about Lean. They are usually confused and disappointed when I tell them I learned a great deal of it from racing sailboats.

To the uninitiated, sailing is often seen as either idyllically romantic or as conferring great prestige on a person. These non-sailors don’t see the extreme physical and psychological demands, the analytical thinking, or the ability to gather, integrate, and act on information about a host of complex systems, that are a part of performing well at the highest level of competition — the Olympics, the America’s Cup, and the world championships for a handful of the most demanding classes.

Lean is less physically and psychologically demanding than racing small boats, but it requires many of the same skills to do it well — the persistence, the ability to find and fix small problems that others ignore, the ability to integrate many complex components into a whole with as little wasted effort, material, and time as possible, the ability to react quickly to a changing environment, having an overriding purpose (in sailing it is to win regattas; in Lean it is to please customers) and, above all, to improve, improve, improve — and improve again — every essential process and to eliminate those activities and ways of thinking that don’t add value. Continue reading →