"Lean and Mean?" Sir, No, Sir!

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TIME.com: Lean and Mean — Jul 10, 2006 — Page 1

I haven't had time to read this yet, but I'll invite your comments. I'll add comments when I have a chance to read and digest this.

My first instinct is that I'm really frustrated when I see the perpetuation of this rhyming “lean and mean” thing. Lean is not mean. I have a talk that I give at healthcare workshops and my central theme is that “lean is not mean”. I'll have to blog about that more here.

I had a chance to ask one of the guys who was real close to MIT and the Lean Enterprise Institute what they thought about coining the term “lean” and it rhyming so well with “mean.” The measured MIT-ish response was, “That was unfortunate.”

Here's my comments on the article, you can comment there.

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Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker, and podcaster with experience in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. Mark's new book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. He is also the author of Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, and the anthology Practicing Lean. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.

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