Executive Leadership

Top misconceptions of the Lean movement, according to founder Jim Womack

The fall of 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the movement, noted managaement expert Jim Womack during the annual AME conference. The movement still is gaining ground but lean has proven a difficult process to master — not a quick fix, but a long, complex business-culture-changing journey. The Lean movement has also suffered from a number of “misconceptions,” Womack said in the Financial Post (Canada). “I’m surprised we’ve made as much progress as we have, with so much misunderstanding of what we [the leading Lean gurus] have been saying.”  Womack also looks back and ahead at the lean management movement in new essays published in the second edition of his book Gemba Walks.