Lean Thinker Paul Akers Enters U.S. Senate Race

The story of the 20th Century (and the first 10 of the 21st) is the struggle between Socialism (the government taking care of you) which is the LEFT and Freedom (Government limited to the protection of innocents from aggression) which is the RIGHT. Almost every political issue, today, hinges on that struggle. The Democrat Party has, for eighty years, been moving every facet of life, unconstitutionally, from private hands to public control (Socialism) which is, item by item, tyranny. The Republican Party, except for Reagan, has attempted to "me too" the goodies the Democrats offer as enticements to their Socialism, but do it with greater "efficiency." This has led us to bigger and bigger government, higher and higher taxes, less and less freedom. The Federal Government is, now, much worse than bankrupt. Every man woman and child is $175,000.00 in debt for their bills. We are on the threshold of real financial collapse, the failure of the currency. Anyone who believes that greater "efficiencey" in the grand, ongoing, unconstitutional process of re-distributing wealth already under weigh can solve our problems has no Clue what our problems entail. Nothing wrong with "efficiency" in and of itself, of course. Just a gaping inadequacy of vision in a national candidate. Might be good for a local school board, or Utilities district, though. Something for which "efficiency" is a major issue.

I think I understand the blogger's "God save us" phrase. If you are a true Conservative like Buckley, or a Libertarian like me, then an efficient government is a scary thing. I don't want outputs from my government; I want them to stop trying. No input and no output would make a perfect government; it would just stay out of the way of the people actually doing things.

OK, that's the ideology. In a practical sense, I would like my government to get out of everything that is not actually governing. Enforce laws, protect us from invaders. Those two things pretty much are what I want. If I only paid taxes for cops and soldiers, I could afford my own snowplow and garbage truck and toll road pass.

Fantastic! Thanks for highlighting this, Jon, and good luck Paul!

Jon, the first two posters took up your challenge about who would want government to not be efficient. After retiring from Ford I came to the Federal Government to teach Lean. Imagine how a company would work if the board of directors all argued constantly about what the company should make, and you have a pretty good idea what a difficult position everyone is in....

Jon, you say: "As for #4, Paul's senate campaign website now clearly articulates his positions." Clearly? Where? He rails against "crippling debt, extreme waste, a terrible economy, high unemployment"; no serious candidate would likely advocate these, but what are his clear positions re how to deal with them? How does he think we should reduce the debt, waste, and unemployment, and improve the economy? He complains about an alleged unwillingness to support small businesses. What will he do differently--how does he plan to better support small businesses? What are his specific positions on other key issues such as healthcare, the environment, national security, abortion, the two wars we are fighting, Iran, Israel-Palestine, dealing with banks, the government's involvement with General Motors, etc.?

I hope you are not succumbing to the "Halo Effect." Just because Paul is a lean thinker does not mean he is the best candidate for Senate. I wouldn't advise choosing a spouse based on whether or not she/he is a lean thinker, though it might be a nice extra. So while lean thinking is a great attribute, it's not enough.

As for efficiency: Doing the wrong things efficiently is worse than doing the right things not as efficiently. Try running an efficient business making slide rules.

A side comment: The United States Federal Government was not designed to be efficient; it was designed to be effective. The concept of checks and balances introduces redundancy (a good thing, I believe, in this case). Giving every state the same number of Senators regardless of population is not efficient either. Unfortunately, I can give you a hundred reasons why the Senate is not currently effective either...

I'm glad for all of your comments and to see that we all care deeply about our country and how it's governed. To Simon's point, Paul set out his positions on the "Issues" tab of his website. It's the "what" and not yet the "how. Perhaps "clearly" was a stretch. Only a day before there was nothing yet on Paul's campaign website, so it is becoming infinitely clear-er.

There's no halo. I think Paul is uniquely capable of having a positive impact in how government works. If I turn out to be wrong, I'll admit it. But I trust Paul to turn the PDCA cycle when he fails, to learn and improve, rather than what most other politicians do.

I can respect everyone's points of view on what government should or should not do. At the end of the day and right or wrong, the governments we elect will govern by spending the taxes they collect from us as they see fit as they are empowered to do. They might as well not waste our money on whatever it is they have the power and votes to spend it on. Whether or not you agree or disagree with spending tax money on war, renewable energy, the police, roads, early childhood education, health care, tax breaks for businesses, etc. would it not be better for everyone if those things cost less thanks to efficient processes and systems? A fundamental of business is to balance budgets and make a profit so we can invest in developing people and securing the future. This is not even a question of efficiency or lean. It's just what Paul calls "living within my means" and "common sense values". Add some TPS to that and it's pretty powerful combination in a leader.

The choice we have right now is not between "doing the wrong things efficiently" and "doing the right things not as efficiently". We are doing some right things and some wrong things, but all of this at a far higher cost and lower quality than we could. We are spending more and getting less.

Lean applied to government would require that we follow the SQDC - safety, quality, delivery, cost - sequence to improvement. Focusing on cutting costs and making us unsafe is a contradiction. Delivering more goods or services while harming quality is nonsense. This is lean thinking, and while more and more of the business, health care and private sector get it, government seems far from getting it.

The current state of the non-lean United States government is characterized by:

Not managing by fact
Not turning the PDCA cycle
Not building consensus
Not practicing respect for people
Not practicing "go see"
Not improving continuously
Not becoming more financially safe
Not becoming more physically safe
Not learning from and preventing the repetition of the same mistakes

Right now we have nobody at the federal level talking about lean government and doing kaizen. They are just fighting about right versus left, and regardless of who wins, the policies they do implement they do so with extreme waste.

I believe that politicians are all well-intentioned, love their country and want to make it better. Unfortunately I don't believe that all of leaders in the government know how to apply continuous improvement and practical problem solving to a situation. I know Paul does.

Oops, you got me up on a soap box. This comment is almost as long as the post itself...

*steps off box*

Okay Jon, I found it; my fault for missing it initially. You make a legitimate point concerning how we currently have a non-lean government and to support this you list a set of "not" characteristics. Trouble is, it's not clear to me that Paul is any different. On some issues, he appears to want to manage by his personal pre-determined beliefs and not by facts; on some issues he takes contentious and absolute stands that do not seem to fit the building of consensus mode; and on some issues it is questionable as to whether his position really shows respect for people. Looking at some of his statements:

"Smaller government, less taxes and no more wasteful spending are the answers to our economic problems." This is opinion, not facts.

“We must look to educational systems throughout the world that are working and adopt these winning strategies. We need to embrace the ideas that work and throw out the ones that are not working.” That’s superficial copying. To paraphrase Russell Ackoff, it’s like building a car by looking at other cars throughout the world and taking the parts that work best. You can take the best current engine in the world, the best current transmission in the world, the best current brakes in the world, etc., and they will not work together.

"We can no longer turn a blind eye to the flood of illegal immigrates entering this country. It deteriorates our rule of law and makes us vulnerable to foreign terrorists. [sic]" This sounds like managing by fear, not facts, and building an argument to match what he already believes; there is no learning or PDCA here. Have we really turned a "blind eye" to illegal immigration? What facts support the vulnerability he attests? Just how many foreign terrorists were illegal immigrants? What’s a “flood”? Use factual data, not emotional terms. Go see. And how do you stop the “flood” without increasing costs? Doesn’t it require bigger government?

"I oppose amnesty." Is this fact driven? Does such an absolute position help build consensus? Does it show respect for people? Has he examined the root causes of illegal immigration?

"The less government is involved and the more the private sector is allowed to function, the cost of health care will be driven down, the choices will increase, and the affordability and accessibility will materialize." Again, this is opinion, not facts. A valid perspective is that the private sector has been allowed to function, but costs go up, affordability and accessibility have not materialized. His position may be more like: "Not learning from and preventing the repetition of the same mistakes."

"Guns are not the problem; criminals who use guns are the problem." Managing by facts or by ideology and word play? His deductive reasoning is questionable—criminals wouldn't be able to use guns if there were no guns. And it’s not just criminals—what about children who are injured/killed playing with guns; people who are shot when mistaken for being criminals? Are mentally ill people who kill with guns criminals? Not according to our system of law.

"We must remove criminals that threaten our citizens and our law enforcement officers from our streets." And do what? Throw them in prison for life? If not, what happens when they get back out? What about the system that enables criminals to get guns? At best, he is dealing with symptoms, not root causes.

"I believe marriage is between one man and one woman and that we should do nothing that would undermine this cornerstone of society." Hardly management by fact, respect for people, or an attempt to build consensus.

On abortion he states: "Instead, we should be focusing our energy into winning the hearts and minds of people by celebrating the gift of life." That's a countermeasure? It would help if he instead proposed that we do a root cause analysis on why women resort to abortion.

"The banking system should have reasonable regulations while allowing the institutions to operates in the free market system. [sic]" Why? Again, this is opinion and ideology, not facts. How does he know, for example, that a nationalized banking system (just like our nationalized military) is bad? Crying "socialism" without examining the benefits is not managing by facts. Sometimes the things you don’t believe in are nevertheless facts.

It’s one thing to say as he does that every government program needs to implement lean thinking; it’s another for him to do so as well. Although he may run his own business with a lean approach, he doesn't seem to me to be an advocate of a lean approach to government as well; just someone who supports conservative Republican values and retrofits them as lean.

Hi Simon.

Thank you for shining the light of lean thinking on Paul Akers' positions on various issues.

As I wrote in my comment above, I know Paul knows how to approach issues in a fact-based, lean way. Whether he chooses to do so once elected, or simply snaps to fit preset political party positions of his party, remains to be seen.

It is a concern I have raised with him, but you did a more thorough job of articulating it.

Just finally met Paul in person this week when he visited VIBCO's manufacturing plant in Wyoming, RI. He was as genuine, as enthusiastic, as sincere and as engaging as I had hoped. Paul is not a career politician and so he probably has some quick learning to do in order to navigate the swamp, but I have no doubt that each person he meets in person will vote for him and will tell their family and friends that he's the real deal. We need more people with his vision and energy in Washington... I'm a Rhode Island resident, but I am supporting Paul Akers campaign for US Senate with my wallet and any other way that I can help.