True North

"True North" - a concept that plays a key role in the journey of lean management and the road of improvements.

The principle of the true north goes back to the beginnings of the Toyota journey and means nothing less than the direction go for in order to reach real operational excellence.

True North defines the scope of your journey and the boundaries where you want to take your organization to the next level or where you want to have it. Some see it comparable as a mission statement or a reflection of purpose of your organization but for sure the foundation of your strategic planing.

You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there.
Yogi Berra

Make sure that you understand that depending on your perspective the True North can be for everyone different based on their point of view. But in Lean Management or Operational Excellence with True North you define a specific set of ideals that are providing a compass for your organizational change. No matter if you talk about strategy, processes, culture or geographical challenges.

With the help of the True North principle it is clear to what you should do and not what you can do. In the Lean World you might have heard about the term of the Ideal State the Ideal State defines a state of perfection in your complete organization. Thinking about processes - a process is then as simple as possible when you can’t take anything more off it. This is state you are aiming for.

The continuous improvement process has no end, and you will constantly drive the PDCA cycle over and over again - only the starting point shifts to the next level.

But no matter what, it is like sailing on the ocean, without navigation you won’t reach the shore. The ironic part of it: you will never reach the shore - speaking of being done improving. True North is a way of running your organization not some final defined target state. It describes your daily practice of beating yesterday.