Lean Olympics

Let me begin by saying that, as the father of a child who competes at the world level in their chosen discipline, I have some idea of what it takes to get there and stay there.  I don't know who said it first but I believe it holds true that to compete and succeed at the world level in any discipline one needs an extraordinary amount of each of the following:

1. Natural ability
2. Hard work
3. Support

The first two are self-explanatory, at least for my purposes.  And I make the assumption that when it comes to world-class athletes each and every one of them has these two elements in ample supply.  As a Lean Lean management consultant I am interested in the third requirement.

Those not familiar with Lean Manufacturing will undoubtedly have heard of Toyota.  The concepts of Lean Manufacturing were first developed by Toyota and are largely responsible for allowing the company to grow to the world leader that it is today.  In extremely simplistic terms Lean involves the following:

Ask your customer what they value.  Then spend more time adding value, and less time generating waste.

This is very easy to say, extremely difficult to do.

As a passionate practitioner of Lean I am constantly looking for creative ways where Lean methodologies can be applied to maximize value and minimize waste.  In fact I even conducted a Lean initiative on my own management consulting company.  This soul-crushing journey of self-discovery resulted in the development of a suite of products that allow us to deliver more value than our previous products at about a tenth of the cost to our customers.

So what does Lean have to do with our Canadian Olympic athletes? Well it occurred to me that there might be an opportunity to apply Lean thinking to elite sports.  In particular what excites me is the opportunity to work with people who are very likely more motivated to improve than anyone else on the planet.  Lean can shorten software development life cycles from months to weeks, manufacturing processes from weeks to days, and emergency room wait time from hours to minutes.  Why then can't these same methodologies be used to shave precious minutes, seconds, centimeters, meters, and even point deductions off of personal bests? 

The answer is "I don't know why not."  But I'm willing to try.  Which is why I am making the following offer to any Canadian Olympic athlete from the 2010 or 2012 games:

I will provide, free of charge, my LeanOnMe services for as long as the athlete sees value.

This includes 2 days per month working directly with the athlete and their coaching team to apply Lean techniques.  Plus unlimited emails, texts and phone calls to provide support and guidance when it is needed.  I welcome all inquiries.