Exceptional People and Exceptional Processes Must Go Hand in Hand - Jeffrey K. Liker

The Toyota Production System can be realized only when all the workers become tortoises. (Ohno, 1988)

management has no more critical role than to motivate and engage large numbers of people to work together toward a common goal. Defining and explaining what the goal is, sharing a path to achieving it, motivating people to take the journey with you, and assisting them by removing obstacles — those are management's reasons for being.

It is comforting to believe that if we could only implement the right cells and other lean tools to eliminate waste in the process, we could let it rip and get great results forever . . . or at least for a long time. But processes do not work that way.