Many people feel the self-disciplined quest for increased productivity a bit of a slog when compared to the rough and tumble of just taking life as it comes but for those of us who want to work more productively in 2017 and rather not look to all the new tech gismos for a solution, perhaps a glance back at the methods of one of history’s great achievers could provide some motivation.
Benjamin Franklin one of the Founding Fathers of the United States was a renowned politician and a leading author, printer, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and ambassador. As a scientist, he developed theories regarding electricity and as an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and even the Franklin stove. Quite a feat by any standards but to achieve this greatness he was also a highly disciplined individual who earned the title “The First American” by defining the American ethos as a marriage of practical values and he devised a system for measuring progress in leading a productive life.
In fact he produced a simple matrix which he used from the age of 20 to tick off whether he had managed to live each day to the high standards he had set himself. Like most successful people he kept a journal and in the evenings would mark his own progress according to his list of the 13 most important virtues. They range from the moral (temperance and chastity) to those we would recognise in today’s Lean business world: Order, Resolution and Industry.
His Order policy; Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time, is the basis for any Lean 5S programme whilst under Industry; lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions are basic tenets of the Lean VSM the process of improving value by reducing waste. The Resolution virtue showed his project management prowess; Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve, as he was determined to accomplish what he set out to do! So as we move forward in 2017 reflecting on improving our own performance the methodologies we use are likely to have their roots in Benjamin Franklin’s system of self-discipline, possibly the western world’s original Lean improvement expert.
