The current recession is the fifth in my working career. And it is beginning to feel like the worst. I can't imagine that any manager or improvement team member in any industry in any country isn't feeling a bit queasy at this point, as the world economy keeps recessing toward an unknown bottom. Where should we go to calibrate our North Star in times like these, to reassure ourselves that we’re on the most promising path? Recently, I've found one answer.

In carefully reviewing a new publication from Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the “fathers of lean.” By this, I mean the small band of Japanese line managers who made the original breakthrough to create a lean enterprise and who were interviewed at length much later about what they did and why. The relevant point for this moment is that a small group of managers achieved a lean leap in a time of severe stress, making some of their boldest moves during the financial crisis of 1950.

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