Who would have thought?

Why do you do this? Because you don’t want waste in your processes. Waste doesn’t decrease when you work longer—it tends to increase. We should ask ourselves whether the waste you encounter in your current workflows has already reached its minimum. Because you’ll certainly remember: There are types of waste that are inherent in the system, and yet they should be kept as small as possible.

You notice, my dear readers, we are still (!) facing the problems that were described to us back in the 1990s by the two bestselling authors J.P. Womack and D.T. Jones. In their book “Lean Thinking: Shedding Ballast, Increasing Corporate Profits,” they explain the value stream in which the “3Ms” should be reduced to a minimum: overproduction (Muda), asynchronous (work) processes (Mura), and overload (Muri).

So, increasing efficiency remains the focus. This is already complicated enough, as TPS has often been misunderstood and misinterpreted over the past few decades. I address this problem in my podcast “Moden im Management.” Perhaps you’ll give it a listen?

As long as you don’t have an overview of the level of waste in your processes, it’s pointless to fret about the threat of longer working hours. It’s legitimate to ask whether efficiency has suffered in recent years and what the causes are.

Finding out doesn’t require complex analysis technology. If it has, then this may be an indication that your process landscape has become too complicated, and a call to simplify it again is made. Data is simply not – as is often claimed – the “new oil.” This comparison is flawed. Oil was in the ground long before humans existed.

Data, on the other hand, we created ourselves and continue to do so. Perhaps this is one reason why we’ve lost track of things. Therefore, please note: Before you try to explain reality to yourself with complex algorithms, remember the law of “5G”: the true place (genba), the true object (gembutsu), the true facts (genjitsu), the theory (genri), and the standards (gensoku). You usually don’t find these (initially) with the help of IT, but rather where value creation takes place – in production.

Complexity is not destiny. We have simply allowed many processes to become complicated, and therefore require complex analysis methods. If the analysis becomes too complex, this can be a sign of “overprocessing,” i.e., an inappropriate method that misses the target. This includes organizational structures that create double reporting relationships, as well as material flows in which the value stream must be laboriously “managed” because it is regularly interrupted.

Therefore, I would like to encourage you: Don’t let discussions about working hours confuse you. One of the oldest methods in the field of ergonomics still holds its own today. Lean thinking is more relevant than ever. The TPS methodology, in particular, encourages you to organize work in a resource-efficient and simple manner – precisely to ensure that problem-solving remains possible. The mentee is the focus, and the mentor challenges and supports them.

If you start here, then your evenings will also be a success, and the anxiety about longer working hours will subside.