Here’s a lesson I learned…again…about how to talk about process thinking and TPS with non-manufacturing people. Last week I visited an organization whose primary output is events (conferences, seminars, workshops) and publications (books, journals, articles – not the physical product, but the content – the intellectual capital and ideas).

They shared that their organization is over 50 years old, yet they have never formally reviewed their business processes. Like many companies, when there was a new product, service or regulation, the teams put together the process to deliver or comply. This was usually done at a department level, so several departments often created their piece of the process on their own. And there was no practice to review the effectiveness of this process over time.

Message I got loud and clear: They really need some help.

They then asked me how lean thinking could help. And although I thought I had a short, eloquent answer, I made a near fatal mistake: I mentioned that many of the roots of lean come from the Toyota Production System. That’s a fact, but I’ve leaned a lesson: I need to be more conscious about sharing this fact too soon.

Because mentioning lean’s manufacturing roots invariably brings up the question of how can a manufacturing business model possibly apply to their service company with mostly knowledge workers?

And because mentioning lean’s manufacturing roots usually hijacks the conversation from talking about their business (productive conversation) to a lot of time spent handling their concern about using a manufacturing based methodology (less productive conversation).

Lesson learned: For non-manufacturing organizations, talk less about the origins of the methodology and more about how you can help the business.