“It depends” is by far one of my favorite answers when someone asks if they should do something. The answer to the questions asked are dependent on what they are trying to achieve and what their current reality is, which they have a far better understanding of than I ever could possibly have. There is certainly a place to offer advice through dialogue that seeks to understand their objectives and reality, while sharing learning when framed within the context of one’s own objectives and reality. And there is a place for asking questions and providing support to help someone define their objectives and understand their current reality. But at the end of the day the point is that every situation is different and what you should do is dependent on your unique situation.

Contingency theory in a nutshell is that there is no best way to do things. The best way in every situation is dependent on the internal and external situation.  And hence my love of contingency theory and the use of it as the theoretical framework in my dissertation.

Unfortunately, “It depends” and “every situation is different so we need a different approach” is frequently interpreted and used to:

• Claim “That won’t work here, we are different”. This can be seen through not trying or to giving up on an experiment without understanding the obstacles that are preventing the desired result (working through the obstacles is frequently learning the differences in your unique context).
• Do whatever you want to meet an objective (that may or may not be aligned with lean) and noting it as a lean initiative (When this is done it is almost always with good intentions).
  • I can’t help but think the differing definitions of lean contribute to this. This isn’t saying we shouldn’t learn and advance our understanding or throw away old definitions, but understand the context in which definitions were created and what behavior they will drive.

I wonder how much of the misinterpretation of “It depends” would be mitigated with alignment around what we are trying to achieve. Should we be asking these questions?:

• What is the objective of lean?
• Is everyone in the organization aware?
• Is everyone involved with current lean efforts aware?
• Does everyone in the organization have the same definition of lean (or at least definitions that are in alignment with each other)?
  • What behavior do our definitions and approaches drive?
  • Is that the behavior we desire?

What other questions should we be asking?