A recent George F. Will column referenced the sign re-created to the right. Although I don’t necessarily believe that the signage encompasses the complete definition of discipline, it certainly provides food for thought.

A lot of folks think of discipline, especially in the context of lean, as something extrinsic. It’s something that is applied and reinforced through the rigor of a standard work, daily accountability processes, the value-stream improvement plan, and strategy deployment checkpoints. Discipline is enforced—by leaders—on others.

Obviously, this is not even close to the full story, but we are not so naive as to believe that extrinsic discipline is not important or necessary.

What about the lean leaders? Sure, the leaders of the leaders can drive discipline. But purely extrinsic discipline is more like a dictatorship. Lean leaders must have intrinsic discipline. It’s got to come from within.

 …