Lean Culture in the World of Building Design and Construction

Because I work with many people from the building industry, I often get asked this question:

I’m really curious about lean culture and how to adopt it to design and construction. Are there books I can read?

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is there isn’t, yet a book dedicated to addressing lean culture in design and construction. But Bryan Wahl from Bostwick Design Partnership and I are working on one. Until then, the closest you can get — if you can find it because it’s out of print — is “The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth: A Struggle Between Two World Systems” by Christopher Alexander. In the 1980s, Alexander designed and built an academic campus in Japan, and here he details how he faced severe opposition, political pressure, and intimidation for using a collaborative, integrated approach. Though he did his work before the term “Lean” was coined, we still might consider the way he integrated design and construction into his work. In fact, target costing, integrating design with construction, relying on craft workers to inform design, and using small experiments to test ideas appear herein. This book demonstrates that lean culture is not exclusively Japanese in origin, and it shows how collaboration, creativity and experimentation are natural products in human relationships. If you can find the book at an acceptable price, it is fascinating reading.

The good news is there are a host of available books which apply to every industry that deal with Lean practices, concepts and the history of the people that created them.

A place to start is “The Toyota Way to Service Excellence: Lean Transformation in Service Organizations,” by Jeffrey Liker and Karyn Ross. Jeff wrote the seminal book “The Toyota Way” that introduced the world to the 4P model and the 14 key principles that made Toyota the model for lean culture around the world. Here, he and Karyn build on his 4P model, changing “base decisions on long-term philosophy” to “passionately pursue purpose based on guiding values.” Karyn does a wonderful job demonstrating how Lean principles support service work.

Another good overview is “Workplace Management” by Taiichi Ohno (translated by Jon Miller). Ohno worked in the Toyoda family textile plant, where he learned many of the principles that he later implemented at Toyota Motor in the 1950s. Miller’s translation capably captures Ohno’s words on approaching work and the importance of learning where work takes place.

In “This is Lean: Resolving the Efficiency Paradox” by Niklas Modig and Par Ahlstrom focus on the central quality of operational excellence and how to establish and maintain flow efficiency. They also destroy the myth of resource efficiency as a worthwhile management objective. To understand the difference between flow and resource efficiency and the implications of that difference, read the book.

Meanwhile, “Lean with Respect: A Novel of Lean Practice” by Michael and Freddy Ballé tells of a seven-practice model of lean management based on cultivating a culture of respect. Several project teams have found the chapters in this book a catalyst for productive conversations about how they see their own work.

If you want an understanding of the human conditions that fostered lean practices, then check out “The Soil: A Portrait of Rural Life in Meiji Japan” by Nagatsuka Takashi (translated by Ann Waswo). The novel’s plot isn’t great, but the book paints a deeply informative picture of living conditions and relationships in Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Also consider “Naomi” by Junichiro Tanizaki (translated by Anthony H. Chambers). Where lean is concerned, the book helps one understand the tug of war Japanese businesses had over accepting Western leadership practices as models for their own companies. Toyota took a different approach, willing to learn from the West and adopt technology but maintaining agrarian Japanese qualities of community.

You also might want to try Paul Akers’ “2 Second Lean: How to Grow People and Build a Lean Culture.” Chapter 8, entitled “Let’s Build a Lean Culture,” it deals with how the time invested in culture returns higher levels of creativity and productivity.

I trust these titles help. Meanwhile, Bryan and I continue to work on that definitive lean culture book for the design and construction industry.