Change Context - choose your frame.

Is this a waste? I have been talking a lot about lean lately, and as the name implies, lean is focused on reducing waste.

I asked the students to spot waste in their daily life. More than one mentioned something like busy work or required classes. Waste might be in the eye of the beholder, context matters. Spotting waste is a choice. Choose how you frame the context.

An example is my transportation choice to school. I could drive, ride my bike, walk or take the bus. The quickest choice is driving. It takes about 12 min to drive, 15 min to ride my bike, 40 min to walk, and about 45 to ride bus.

You might be quick to say driving is the best choice for lean. Maybe for you? For me, I pick how I frame the choice. I frame riding the bus as time to read, relax, and enjoy a bit of walking between stops. I frame walking as a time to relax and enjoy the weather. I view driving as a waste since it has the lowest quality of life for me.

What is the frame switch required for classes? If I'm the student, I would reframe to find the value in the learning. Realize mental strength is like a muscle, requires stress to get stronger. Add to mental strength tenacity and fortitude to do well what wasn't always fun or entertaining. See it as an opportunity to practice. Practice getting things done on time. Practice connections to other disciplines. Widen my foundation and develop a more subtle world view to solve problems outside my familiar territory.

Most important realize eliminating waste starts with me and ends with me. It is easy to spot waste in others and complain. Lean teaches pull instead of push. Pull production through to the customer. Don't push production to the shelf. Pull also applies to improvement. I am tempted, like everyone else, to push improvements upon those that didn't ask. Pull people into the benefits of lean through example.

Students are in a special situation where they are the product. The customer is the one who pays the bill. With rare exceptions, students aren't paying. Parents, banks, and government loans are paying for school. The school is accepting incoming freshmen as raw material and transforming students into useful graduates. The school will require action and focus from students as part of this transformation, and the student, the product will not always agree. Frequently the school hears back from graduates how a class that wasn't enjoyed at the time, and now the graduate is grateful for having been forced to take the class.