Now look at the gold standard of management education, the MBA. How many of these very lucrative degrees have, as their foundation, a good coaching course so that the newly minted MBA emerges as a great coach with good practical experience? Does the MBA at Utah State (the home of the Shingo Institute) including coaching? Nada, I suspect.

Sadly, MBAs (poor babies) are great at analysis and can spot a problem in a speadsheet from outer space, but ask them how they would grow the capabilities of their people and you might as well be speaking academic Zogg. The pall of F W Taylor still hangs over the thinking of that vast majority of those who are responsible for the work and well-being of others: they think, their teams only do.

Now add Milton Friedman’s edict of “maximising shareholder value” to the mix and training and education is usually the first budget to get cut when rpofits look a tad shaky. Just look at the state of Detroit today which was riddled with Friedmanites.

Another thing that annoys me is that, by now, the basics of Lean should be taught to young people aged 16-18: it is not rocket science. It should not be the monopoly of consultants. Now imagine if these young people were taught how to use and A3 to plan a project, AND how to coach someone who was doing so. Wouldn’t this give them better knowledge of which organisations to choose when entering the world of work?

The Lean education process needs a radical overhaul.