I bring a fairly large proportion of my time these days ashamed to be British. Trying to get home for Christmas to find that the largest airport in the country was “closed”, which stranded tens of thousands of people probably do not help my mood. Watching the news over the Christmas period did not help much. It seems like everywhere I look our systems fail.

Or rather, not as something extraordinary happens. If a large amount of snow falls in a short time, or the ambient temperature remains below the ambient temperature over a long period of time.But wait, we did not used to deal with such things? 30 inches of snow would have closed Heathrow for a few hours in the past, but suddenly people are expected to endure five days’ flight canceled?People have found themselves with no water for a few hours after a freezing spell, but (as in Northern Ireland now) certainly not more than one week?

I think all of these cases are not symptomatic of a bit of extreme weather (Helsinki airport is closed due to weather for about 3 hours in the last twenty years), but of something more sinister. My hypothesis? Lean.

Lean not as it was originally intended, however, but the crude corruption of the original idea that has occurred in a sizeable part of the organizations.

Like a lot of things, some very smart initial thinking is often diluted to the point where the smart stop to think more cleverly. The big idea underpinning Lean is’ waste is bad and should be abolished.A statement that few would argue. It is indeed a declaration that has gone through ‘common sense’ has become accepted dogma.It would be a very brave person in every organization these days to protest against the adoption of Lean principles.

But let’s look at what we actually mean when we say ‘waste’.Depending on which author you read this, there are a variety of ways and means of classifying different types of waste. Figure 2 shows 15 types of waste can be collected to find all of the different classification methods.

* Waste – process, business (employees, managers, suppliers, etc.), pure
* Waste of overproduction
* Waste of waiting
* Waste transport
* Inappropriate disposal of wastes (using a hammer to crack a nut)
* Waste of unnecessary inventory
* Waste from unnecessary movements
* Waste of defects
* Waste of untapped human resources (empowerment)
* Waste of inappropriate systems (on unspecified computers, machinery, etc)
* Waste of energy and water
* Wasted Materials
* Service and office waste (excess meetings, food, photocopying, etc.)
* Waste of time the customer
* Waste of defecting customers

(Figure 2: Different types of ‘waste’)

Now, an important question. Take a few minutes. Which is the odd one out in Figure 2: Different types of ‘Waste’?

Found?

Probably not.

Before revealing the answer, let’s take a moment to work out why the question is a tough: Like a lot of initiatives ‘improvement’ within organizations, the first big idea to be communicated from the Board of the food chain, so that everyone understands what is trying reach. At the moment we are below the CEO level, however, and people are immediately forced to scroll through the list looking at those things they are able to do something. Inevitably, someone working in the HR department, or at work on a production line, or cleaning of the office at night is able to do something on a relatively small proportion of the available menu. Anyone under CEO may in fact only about one part of the total list.

And that’s the one nobody has any direct control over (probably including the CEO)?

Answer: The last in the list – “waste of defecting customers.”

All others are quite specific, measurable waste. Wastes that people have the power to do anything within their silos of the company. But “overflow customers’ has nothing to do with what is happening in both your silo or even within the organization. A customer is a waste overflows that are outside the system. It is therefore a difficult year for someone to do something about …

… And as a consequence, it is usually left off the list (in fact, in many organizations, but it is never listed in the first place). And when that happens, the original philosophy is damaged and the organization is well on its way to the kind of failure in Figure 1.

It is very easy to get rid of “waste” only if you’re looking at your piece of the system. So, an example of a figure to take Northern Ireland Water to cut 500 jobs in 2007 to “strip of waste ‘. Part of that turned out to be a substantial part of their emergency response engineering team. An easy target if everything works fine (look at those guys do nothing in that office there). Not so great when something unexpected happens … and suddenly the desire to become anorexic thin. A ‘waste’ was stripped of the system without realizing it until it was too late, that it was not waste at all from the big picture perspective.

When the National Health Service, BP, Rolls-Royce, Heathrow airport and Northern Ireland Water have already found to their cost, and no doubt a thousand others have experienced their ‘big picture’ perspective difficulty will be in the coming months andyears, Lean requires a holistic vision. Lean in a silo leads to a lean and a dysfunctional silo – anorexia – system. Lean in a silo is folly.

So What?

You might well ask. Is this just a post-Christmas rant, or is there a point to this discussion? Hopefully the last.

And it is this. Everyone recognizes that when a system is approaching maturity, begins a number of fundamental limits hit.The borders remain fixed, but the pressure to “do better” (“waste”) as something even greater …

… And a contradiction arises …

… We know the animal dictates that we resolve or accept that we are bound to an inevitable failure to make.

It is an expensive airport like Heathrow to perform. Especially following a recession, which has seen a decline in passenger numbers and income. The trade-off to resolve this conflict is not investing in snow-clearing equipment and pray for good weather.The conflict resolution method says we have to change the system.Which in turn implies that the identification of a number of resources that can help. Preferably free ones, who want to help as a win-win solution is produced.

On the fifth toe curlingly shameful days of the inability of BAA to the second runway at Heathrow to get to open the company COO appeared on national news to the Government for their offer due to any of the military to 30cm help clear snow off the runways, but to say that the help was not needed. Fair enough that he would not (or could not) invest in more snow-clearing equipment before the snow fell, but bordering on the criminal that he is not on the phone had been to the local army base for their help five minutes after(correctly predicted by the forecasters) snow began to fall and the impending disaster started, let alone five days later.

The army would have won – public goodwill, the opportunity to train on a real mission, etc. – BAA would have won and as certainly damn poor stranded passengers would have won. Only problem: it was a solution needed someone to step outside their comfortable silos.

Be warned, this is not a one-off incidents caused by a slightly worse than normal weather, they are the first signs of a pandemic corporate anorexia. The only remedy for that to start resolving conflicts and overcoming a number of artificially created and usually misunderstood silos.