Next Steps in Hiring

For this to work, we have to have a better name than "Lean HR"

Friday, May 29, 2009 by Exact Hire

It all comes back to marketing. We are stuck with bad processes, and we are comfortable with that. Millions are spent on the choice of a name for a product or a company, but one of the most important concepts for our economy - Lean Theory - is saddled with a name that had little thought applied and is now causing problems. Lots of negative implications, and little upside.

What should the new name be? If we had a clean sheet of paper and wanted to rename the process of waste reduction and simplification, what would we call it? I'm spending time today on this little problem - I need 3 people to respond to this with one idea each of a better name.

If we rename it, and it is more effective, it will be worth it. Time to quote Shakespeare...

Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Comments for For this to work, we have to have a better name than "Lean HR"

Friday, June 5, 2009 by Jim Scully:: Forget about naming it and just do it. Taiichi Ohno, the rightful father of "lean" at Toyota refused to give a name to it, which is probably why the foremost book on the subject is simply called The Toyota Way (Womack). Perhaps it is in respect of Ohno's wish that Jeffrey Liker, who has made a career on the lean soapbox, calls his site theytoyotaway.com. The fact is, the whole HR Transformation wave that has swept the industrialized world has simply got it wrong, because it's based mostly on mass-production thinking -- cost/service balance, SLAs (service contracts), specialization of labor, labor arbitrage, etc. I view "lean HR" as really just doing HR right. Call it whatever you want...or better yet, nothing at all. www.hrssn.com