How To Fail At Being A Lean Influencer

How to Fail at Being a Lean Influencer

If you’ve ever wondered what not to do as a Lean influencer, this blog is for you. I’ve enjoyed making “How to Fail” content, and today, I’m diving into the biggest mistakes you can make in the Lean space. If you appreciate a little sarcasm, and hopefully a few laughs, keep reading!

How to Fail: Writing Badly Written White Papers

One of my biggest pet peeves is the terrible quality of white papers in Lean. Kevin Rice and I read these papers all the time—whether from universities, institutes, or associations—and they’re often a nightmare. They’re overly referenced, incoherent, and filled with complex jargon that makes them nearly unreadable.

Some are so bad we have to run them through ChatGPT just to make sense of them! I once read a paper that contradicted itself multiple times by referencing other papers, making it impossible to follow any logical conclusion.

If you want to fail as a Lean influencer, write confusing, over-referenced white papers that no one can understand. But if you actually want to make an impact, focus on clarity, grammar, and logical flow in your writing.

How to Fail: Detaching from the Field

Another big mistake? Losing touch with real-world implementation. Some Lean influencers struggle to implement Lean in the field, so they give up and retreat into academia. Suddenly, they’re full-time theorists, pontificating about Lean without actually working on the ground.

There’s nothing wrong with pursuing academic knowledge, but detaching from the field can create an air of arrogance. If you’re no longer involved in real-world implementation, your ideas become theoretical rather than practical. Stay connected to fieldwork if you want to remain relevant and effective.

How to Fail: Putting Everything Behind a Paywall

This one drives me crazy. So many companies and influencers are hiding valuable information behind paywalls. We believe at Elevate and LeanTakt that information should be free—only services should cost money.

I’ve seen companies develop great tools, only to lock them behind expensive subscriptions that make them inaccessible. If everything is behind a paywall, people won’t learn, and Lean won’t spread. If you want to fail, make everything proprietary. If you want to succeed, share freely and help others grow.

How to Fail: Being Rude

Some Lean influencers focus more on being famous than being helpful. They attack others, criticize without reason, and stir up drama instead of building connections.

Real Lean influencers—like Marco and Yos, Felipe Engineer, Paul Lures, Keon Xandy, and Joe Donarumo—don’t waste time tearing others down. They focus on collaboration, learning, and improving the industry. If you’re more interested in being right than being helpful, you’re failing at being a Lean influencer.

How to Fail: Lacking Experience

Nothing is worse than someone teaching Lean who has never actually done it. I’ve seen people give advice on running projects when they’ve never led one.

Toyota’s philosophy is clear: if you want to improve a system, you must have experience in it. Lean is built on real-world application, and without hands-on experience, your advice lacks credibility.

How to Fail: Lack of Alignment

The Lean community should be working together, not against each other. Yet, I see people dismissing great tools simply because they weren’t the ones who created them.

At Elevate and LeanTakt, we integrate Scrum, Last Planner, Takt, and other methods to build a well-rounded Lean system. The only thing we actively criticize is CPM—because it simply doesn’t work. But when it comes to Lean tools, we should be refining and improving them, not rejecting them outright.

Encouraging Lean Influencers to Be Better:

If you see Lean influencers hiding everything behind paywalls, writing incoherent papers, or being unnecessarily negative, speak up! Ask for better content, more transparency, and a focus on real-world experience.

The best Lean influencers are the ones who share, collaborate, and contribute to the industry’s growth. If we all work together, we can build something truly impactful.