Meet-up: 5 Questions from Within the Lean Community With Jamie Flinchbaugh

In May 2024 A Lean Journey Blog turned 15 and as I look back on how I got started and who influenced my journey I wanted to revisit a previous series I started in 2012 called the Meet-up. One of the things I am so fond of in the Lean community is the general wiliness to share with each other.  I have learned so much from my very experienced colleagues since I have been an active contributor.  Every month I roundup the best Lean related posts and articles I found particularly valuable from these fellow bloggers and contributors. Each one has their own story and opinions to share.

The goal of Meet-up is provide you an opportunity to meet some influential voices in the Lean community.  I will ask these authors a series of questions to learn about them, their lessons, and get their perspective on trends in industry.

Today, we Meet-up with Jamie Flinchbaugh who I met through online blogging community when I started 15 years ago. I read Jamie’s fist book “The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road” which gave great insights into my journey. We’ve met a number of times over the years at various conferences and have kept is touch on various thought projects over the years as he is always trying to learn and engage others. I think you’ll find his insight valuable.

Here are his answers so you can learn more: 

1. Who are you, what organization are you with, and what are your current lean-oriented activities?

I am Jamie Flinchbaugh. I act as an advisor to executives across a wide-range of roles and industries through my company JFlinch. My engagements are called ACT with Purpose, where ACT is an integration of Advising, Coaching, and Thought-Partner. The majority of time lean is not the topic, but the how, where I help people think through the biggest decisions and problems leveraging lean thinking. A significant portion of my clients are change agents, often responsible for driving lean across the organization, in which case lean is very much the topic. For many years I’ve produced practical video courses specifically for the needs of my clients, ranging from problem solving to culture change to management systems, and I’ve recently made those available to any company via the Learning Lab product. And along that journey I also wrote a book and started a podcast, both called People Solve Problems.

2. How, when, and why did you get introduced to lean and what fueled and fuels the passion?

The seed that got me going was a project I did where I (a) saw tremendous waste that I was essentially solving for and (b) experienced how many unchecked assumptions still exist in work. I described that experience in this video, but it helped make me more curious very early on about how we can improve. As far as a true introduction to lean, that happened not much later at Harley-Davidson where I helped install and improve one of the first large-scale pull systems in the US. I learned a lot about how much behaviors matter when designing and executing a system, and that shaped my thinking for the rest of my lean journey. I described that experience in a chapter I contributed to the book Practicing Lean. 

My passion is all about people, but perhaps in two different but specific ways. First, giving leaders who truly want to build a powerful and resilient organization a direction and a means to get there. Second, in building those organizations, unleashing the power of every person, every day being to make improvements and solve problems. There is so much untapped knowledge, creativity, and just plain energy out there. 

3. In your opinion what is the most powerful aspect of lean?

First, I think it’s the very idea of not being a victim. You don’t just wait for the tide to turn, you solve the problem in front of you, no matter how hard or how new. Tsunami wipes out your supply chain? Go solve that problem. Economy tanks? Go solve that problem. 

Second, I think that it’s not just asking people to be more engaged but creating space to do that. By that I mean that 80% of lean methods and tools are meant to simplify decision making, reduce drama, reduce friction, etc. Why that has it’s own benefits, one of the primary reasons is that now we have more capacity of energy and mindshare to use the rest of lean thinking to go do hard stuff. 

4. In your opinion what is the most misunderstood or unrecognized aspect of lean?

Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect is that there is one and only one way to do it. You must instead walk the tightrope by maintaining the true intent and first principles of lean, with experimenting and adopting new approaches and thinking. Just adding new tools is wrong, if they aren’t consistent with the central ideas of lean. But maintaining those ideas but not letting anything touch them or never considering new approaches is also wrong. There’s a balance, and we’re meant to stay uncomfortable as we explore that tension. That’s where the learning and growth is found. 

5. In your opinion what is the biggest opportunity for lean in today's world? How can that be accomplished?

It’s the same opportunity that existed when I started over 30 years ago: how do we make it more accessible for people to get engaged and start their journey, without oversimplying it and throwing out the messy nuance and complexity where some of the magic is found. I remember a conversation with someone who believe, way back when, that the book The Machine That Changed the World was just Japanese propaganda designed to help American companies destroy themselves. Today, while there are fewer people that resist engagement, some of the barriers to engagement are just as baffling and massive. 

Through their answers to these questions hopefully you will get a sense of the thinking behind those who are shaping the Lean landscape.  I continue to keep learning and thankfully with the willingness of these practitioners to share I am positive you will, too.