The lean community continues to face a problem that hurts efforts to advance progressive lean management: It is the great difficulty in clearly separating and effectively communicating the difference between real lean and fake lean, i.e., lean management done right vs. lean management done wrong.

On the surface, this distinction is rather simple. Real lean is the application of two principles, continuous improvement and respect for people, while fake lean is the application of only the continuous improvement principle. Although the words are simple, their meaning is much broader and deeper than normally realized. As with all things lean, it is the details that matter.

There is so much fake lean out there, and so little real lean, that one can ask, “How do we fix the big mistake that so many leaders have made?”

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