Has OpEx/Lean Gone Wrong?

Pascal Dennis, author of Getting the Right Things Done

This question comes up repeatedly, so I thought I’d try to address it in a fresh way. My OpEx/Lean adventure began in the early 1990’s. I was a young engineer and manager fully absorbed with the Toyota Production System (TPS). My colleagues and I believed strongly that if we could master this way of thinking & working, we’d have a superpower: we could create Value in any industry and role we found ourselves in. Peter Drucker, Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo, and our formidable Toyota senseis were our guides.

Fast forward to today, and OpEx/Lean has truly lived up to its promise. Companies like Toyota, Honeywell, Danaher, and P&G continue to set the bar for excellence, and the Toyota Production System remains the gold standard for industries like energy, healthcare, and manufacturing If you dedicate your career to mastering these methods, you’re in good shape.

However, there’s a catch. Has OpEx/Lean kept up with the world of innovation? Have we incorporated insights from innovation giants like Clayton Christensen, Steve Blank, and Alex Osterwalder? And most importantly, do we understand the different mindsets and skillsets needed to continually Innovate at high level? I’ve written about Aristotle’s two worlds: Necessity (OpEx/Lean) and Contingency (Innovation). The key challenge is to understand them both at a deep level and figuring out how to switch between them seamlessly.

About a decade ago, I became absorbed by Innovation hot spots like Silicon Valley and Singapore. I began to study the achievements of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and the teaching of Clayton Christenson, Steve Blank, and Alex Osterwalder. I found an innovation sensei, my friend & co-author, Laurent Simon. Laurent & I developed a practice and wrote a book about our Innovation adventures in east Asia (here’s the book). My Innovation journey has been as rich & challenging as my TPS journey.

Pascal & Laurent – Innovation Sprint in Thailand during the Kratong Festival
© 2025 Lean Pathways Inc.

My eureka moment when Laurent and I started working together on innovation projects in the Asian plant-based drink industry. Our goal was to develop & launch a new product from scratch. Our inspiration and model was a French product that should have been a commodity but instead commanded a premium price (20%+) - even in countries that did not like the French!

We too, wanted to find our ‘blue ocean’ – engaged customers who loved our offering & were happy to pay a premium for the value they received. And we wanted to launch in half the time, and at half the cost. The innovation team succeeded; we met our targets, learned a ton, and had great fun. Moreover, the methods & mindset we applied have become the New Product Launch process standard.

Post-launch, the COO, a friend & supporter, said, “Every year, we work like crazy to reduce waste, and thereby boost profit by a few percent. You’ve just shown us how to boost profit by twenty percent…”

And this is perhaps why senior leaders see OpEx/Lean as necessary, but not sufficient. OpEx/Lean lays a solid foundation and reliably delivers waste reduction year upon year. But that’s not enough. We also need to ignite new Growth using the methods & mindsets of Silicon Valley and Singapore. We want to find our blue ocean, and the dedicated, engaged customers who happily pay a premium in return for offerings that delight them. Experimenting your way up the ‘hockey stick’ curve in pursuit of an elusive blue ocean is as exhilarating as launching a major new car model. The challenge for 21st C leaders is being able to lead both.

In summary, OpEx/Lean has not gone wrong, but OpEx/Lean leaders must embrace the methods & mindsets of Innovation. We must look outside the relatively predictable world of Operations, and into the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world of the customer.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

PS To learn more about my Strategy Execution program, Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World, feel free to drop me a line.




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

If It’s Not Simple, It's…
Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds, Part 2
Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds
Innovation Does Not Begin with Technology

If It’s Not Simple, It's…

Pascal Dennis, author of Getting the Right Things Done

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, "any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he's doing is a charlatan." This principle is especially true in Strategy execution, where human leadership & charisma cannot be replaced. In fact, it is my strong belief that in the age of AI, these will comprise the essential, irreplaceable app.

AI agents will eventually be able to handle many jobs, but can they define, deploy & execute Strategy? Can AI agents define Purpose in a transcendent way, such that gifted team members embrace it, and put their differences aside for a great goal? Can AI agents motivate a team to sustain its heart & fighting spirit in the face of inevitable setbacks, to keep going in spite of everything? (To be sure, the teams of the future will comprise both human and AI agents.)

"What are we trying to achieve? “How will we win - what is the logic?" In Strategy sessions, I`m a proverbial broken record. We've been taught that complexity is profound. In fact, complexity is a crude state. Simplicity marks the end of a process of refining.

The late great physicist, Richard Feynman, looked and talked like a New York City cabbie. His Caltech freshmen lectures in Physics, and all his books are classics for their simplicity & humor. How did Feynman achieve that level of clarity? Through slow, patient reflection, by turning a problem over and over in his mind until a 'simple' explanation suggested itself. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and is a process of refinement.

© 2025 Lean Pathways Inc.

In our frantic, time-starved age, that's where the shoe pinches, no? These days, who has time to turn a problem over and over in their mind? Who has the time, as Einstein did, to imagine himself riding a light beam - so as to makes sense of time and gravity and light?

Which invokes the second great law of strategy: Less is more. Knowing we'll be time-starved, please let's not over-fill our strategy plates, like teenagers at a buffet. "First we'll do this, then this and this and that over there. Oh, and then we'll..."

Design Thinking & Lean Experimentation, core Innovation methodologies, force you to simplify and clarify your offering. Once we’ve answered a series of core questions around the customer, we work our way up the ‘hockey stick’ by defining & validating a series of ‘minimal’ offerings.

Similarly, in strategy, we want to define, deploy & validate our 'minimum viable plan', monitoring what happens, and adjusting as the inevitable 'known, and unknown, unknowns' arise.

Breakthrough entails walking up the stairs in the fog, continually making & easy quick experiments, most of them yielding a negative result. If it’s not simple, it’s BS.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

PS To learn more about my Strategy Execution program, Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World, feel free to drop me a line.




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds, Part 2
Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds
Innovation Does Not Begin with Technology
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World

Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds, Part 2

Pascal Dennis, co-author of (Harnessing Digital Disruption)

The future belongs to the ambidextrous, those who can both protect the core business with OpEx/Lean & ignite new Growth with Digital methods. It has taken me years of Innovation sprints to understand what new Growth is all about.

In my previous piece I described Aristotle’s famous ‘two worlds’ framework:

The World of things that cannot be other than they are – (‘Necessity’): This realm includes the:

• Fundamental laws that govern the universe, like the laws of Physics, Chemistry & math, and
• Laws of logic e.g. the law non-contradiction

These truths are considered to be eternal & unchanging.

The World of things that can be other than they are – (‘Contingency’): This realm encompasses things that change unpredictably. These include:

• Consumer taste, fashion, style
• Public opinion, politics, the weather

Some people call this a VUCA world – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.

What does this have to do with business?

OpEx/Lean belong in the world of things that cannot be otherwise, the world of necessity. A production line designed in accord with the principles of the Toyota Production System & run by a well-trained team will perform in a predictable way.

Innovation, by contrast, belongs to the world of things that can be otherwise, the world of contingency. Igniting new Growth entails answering questions like:

• Who is the customer?
• What does the customer value?
• Why does the customer by, or not buy, from us?

But often, the customer does not know they are a customer, does not know what they value, and does not know why they buy from you or not. People routinely say they love your offering and will happily buy – and then don’t! When you ask, ‘Why did you say you’d buy it?’, they’ll often answer, ‘I don’t know.’ And if you ask again a few days later, you’ll get a different answer! Classic world of contingency move.

I’m sympathetic to the plight of senior leaders. They usually come from the world of Necessity – but are asked to ignite new Growth – in the world of Contingency! As a result,

• New product failure rates remain very high (90% or more), and
• Customer needs remain unsatisfied

I’m a Toyota-trained engineer; I thought I understood the Growth questions I posed earlier. But it has taken me years of Innovation sprints with my sensei & co-author, Laurent Simon, to understand what new Growth is all about. My personal mission is to help senior leaders understand it too.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

Note: To learn more about my executive mentoring programs: Exec 101 - Protecting the Core Business, and Exec 201 – Infighting New Growth, feel free to drop me an e-mail.




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds
Innovation Does Not Begin with Technology
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
Igniting New Growth - My Improbable Journey, Part 2

Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds

Pascal Dennis, co-author of (Harnessing Digital Disruption)

The future belongs to the ambidextrous, those who can both protect the core business with OpEx/Lean and ignite new Growth with Digital methods.

In his metaphysics, Aristotle distinguished between two realms of existence:¹

The World of things that cannot be other than they are – (‘Necessity’): This realm includes the:

• Fundamental principles that govern the universe, such as the laws of Physics, Chemistry and mathematics, and
• Laws of logic e.g. the law non-contradiction

These truths are considered eternal and unchanging.

The World of things that can be other than they are – (‘Contingency’): This realm encompasses things that change unpredictably. These include:

• Public opinion, politics
• Consumer taste, fashion, style
• Changes we experience in the physical world, such as the weather

Key Points:

• Essence and Accident: The world of necessity deals with essences – the defining characteristics of a thing that make it what it is. The world of contingency deals with accidents – the non-essential properties of a thing that could be different without changing its essence.
• Change and Becoming: The world of contingency is the realm of change and becoming. Things in this world are constantly in flux, coming into being and passing away.
• Knowledge and Understanding: Aristotle believed that true knowledge comes from understanding the necessary truths that underlie the contingent world. By grasping the essential nature of things, we can better understand their behavior and predict their actions.

In summary: Aristotle's two worlds represent a fundamental distinction between the realm of unchanging, universal truths and the realm of particular, changing experiences. This framework has had a profound and lasting impact on Western thought, influencing fields such as metaphysics, logic, and science.

So what?

Innovation Sprint – Experiment Design Card

OpEx/Lean and Continuous Improvement belong in the world of things that cannot be otherwise, the world of necessity. A production line designed in accord with the principles of the Toyota Production System and run by a skilled team trained by seasoned Toyotas senseis will perform in a predictable way. We can level up or level down the capacity in accordance with universal laws. We can improve the quality of our output with tried & true methods. If abnormalities arise, we can address them with robust methods of root cause problem solving.

Innovation, by contrast, belongs to the world of things that can be otherwise, the world of contingency. Igniting new Growth entails discovering and validating core questions like:

• Who is the customer?
• What does the customer value?
• Why does the customer by, or not buy, from us?

Innovation sprints teach you that the customer often does not know they are a customer, does not know what they value, and does not know why they buy from you or not. People routinely say they love your offering and will happily buy it at a given price – and then don’t buy it! In fact, it’s almost a given.

When you ask, ‘Why did you say you’d buy it?’, they’ll often answer, ‘I don’t know.’, or ‘I didn’t want to disappoint you.’ If you ask again a few days later, you’ll get a different answer. That’s the world of contingency, and the challenge of igniting new Growth. Some people call it a VUCA world – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Navigating here requires different methods and a different way of thinking, which I’ll explore in articles to come.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

Note: If you’d like to hear more about my program Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World, please drop me an email.


^{1. A deep bow to the great Dr. Roger Martin who taught me these things.↩}



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Innovation Does Not Begin with Technology
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
Igniting New Growth - My Improbable Journey, Part 2
Igniting New Growth - My Improbable Journey, Part 1