I have recently been introduced to the concept of Toyota lean thinking. I realize that to some of you who are reading this, Toyota lean is old news, so my apologies… but as I read and learn more about Toyota lean thinking, I realize that Toyota lean thinking is not new at all.
For example, if you want to see Toyota lean thinking in action, well, you can’t do it, but if you could, you should go and sit through a Boston Pops rehearsal. All that matters is the show. Every single minute of the rehearsal is planned. Pieces of music that require the most number of players are rehearsed first, so people like the second harpist and contra bassoon don’t have to hang around doing nothing. Wasting time wastes energy, and you need every ounce of energy to put on top rate show. The rehearsal is 2 ½ hours long, but if we’re done after an hour and 45 minutes, that’s it. Everyone goes home. See you tonight.
My favorite example of Toyota lean thinking in the artistic realm is Fritz Kreisler. I suppose many of you don’t know who that is, but in the first half of the 20th century, this guy was the (for my money anyway) the greatest violinist in the world. And there is a famous story of his wife being interviewed on the radio, where she said, “if Fritz had practiced, he could’ve been a great violinist.” It was a well known documented fact that Fritz Kreisler never practiced. I mean, he must’ve practiced at one time, but once his solo career was established, he did not get up every day and go through a regimen of practicing. Why bother? He was playing major concertos almost every night, and that’s all the was required to keep him “in shape.”
Without knowing it, I was very much an aficionado of Toyota lean thinking when I was a young bass player. I tell this story in Real Men Don’t Rehearse: since I have an extremely low tolerance for inefficiency in general (I am also lazy), as a double bass player, I set out to refine my technique and eliminate all wasted motion, and that included excess amounts of practicing. Instead of practicing two or three hours a day, I practiced eight hours a day, for the purpose of getting it all over and done with. I remember one night I spent three hours on one single note, examining every angle of every joint of my finger. It was amazing just how much extraneous motion I was able to eliminate, and just how much faster and more accurate my playing became as a result. My goal was to become like Fritz Kreisler, that is, to cut down on how much actual practicing I needed to do. After all, nobody pays you to practice.
Now there is an unexpected side affect all this: even though I had refined my technique to a very high degree, the fact that I no longer got up every morning and “wasted” a couple of hours playing scales or arpeggios like all the other freelance musicians led to most of my colleagues looking down on me. Their definition of “being a good musician” was someone who followed the accepted common practice of practicing every day. But I knew many musicians who practiced every day who could not play as well as I did. When push came to shove, when the notes had to get played in the concert, when I was delivering value to the customer, the greater efficiency of my system paid off every time.
At some point, those who espouse Toyota lean thinking should read (I wish I could remember which one it was) a book by Erich Fromm, in which he essentially says that people have a need to go and work eight hours a day. Whether or not the work is truly meaningful or delivering value is, at one level, irrelevant. When people get too efficient and have too much free time as a result, for many people this breeds unhappiness. Just something to watch out for. A lot of these freelance musicians could not cope with the amount of free time they had their schedule, so they filled it up with excess practicing. A lot of people have a need to be busy (I confess, I’m not one of these people) . . . And if they aren’t busy doing something of value to a customer, they will do something else, like practicing every day, that has a little snippet of value to themselves, in terms of creating an illusion of somehow contributing to the greater good, or at least avoiding boredom.
Anyway, I confess I am meandering a little bit here, so this is a long way around to my final big point here, which is: we talk a lot about Toyota lean thinking in terms of thinking about processes of production and manufacture and systems. But how about… how about… applying Toyota lean thinking… to thinking?
This is really the essence of my book, “Principles of Applied Stupidity.” Just as there is waste in manufacturing processes, there is also waste that can be identified and eliminated in thought processes. When viewed through the lens of customer value and elimination of waste, does it really makes sense to teach every single school kid the same batch of general knowledge? And does it really make sense for every single person to work an eight-hour day?
Instead of talking about eliminating inefficiencies in physical processes, what about eliminating inefficiencies in thought processes? What are you thinking about that you don’t need to think about? What information do you have memorized that is not of value to your customer?
One final note: Like the ongoing conflict I had with my erstwhile musical colleagues, if you start to eliminate extraneous thought processes, be prepared for the pushback from those who fervently believe these processes have intrinsic value.
© Justin Locke
PS I am pleased to report that I just sent the printer the down payment and pdf files for the next printing of "Principles of Applied Stupidity"! will be back in stock in about 3 weeks!
