Years ago, there was a memorable TV commercial of a toaster waffle that had this very memorable tag line: “Leggo my Eggo.” Today, this product still exists, as does the tag line, but the tag line is much more obscure than it once was.

Today, CEOs and top executives everywhere are quaking in their boots (yeah, right) as many of them are being asked, in the spirit of lean, to “leggo their ego”.

After all we have learned about lean transformations, I would hope that by now CEOs and other top managers understand the need to leggo their egos and learn from others, learn from the experts within their company, and learn from frontline employees about how to run a company and what’s important to meet all customer requirements. It’s all about making the process easier, not cheaper, as Shigeo Shingo, a key Toyota Production System architect, taught us.

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