Belief 1 - Kong Zi 孔子

"Lun Yu" is a ancient book of China which wrote by "Kong Zi". He was the great teacher of all Chinese and his thinking influence all of us till now.
Here is a story in Lun Yu recorded a conversation between Kong Zi and his student,

Student asked, "Master, what are the core factors to establish a country?"

Kong Zi replied, "Army, food and belief!"
Student asked, "If we needed to ignore one factor, which is your choose?"

Kong Zi replied, "Army!"

Student asked, "If we needed to ignore one more factor, which is you choose?"

Kong Zi replied, "Food!", he explained. "Everybody will die from of old, nothing can be done without belief."

Yes, if everybody believe and trust their country, even no food and they are starving, even no amry and they are attacked by other civilization, the country still can be stable. Without their belief, even they have food and weapon, the people in that country attack each other for more fortune and power. The country is mess and all the citizen are unhappy.

Belief, also is a core factor of culture. It is existing in every company, even in lean manufacturing transformation. During implementation of lean manufacturing, even the result of improvement is not significant enough to shown all the members, if the people still trust the methodology can help them to improve, the implementation is continuously going on. In some companies, the belief of lean is not enough, even they have a little bit improvement in any kind of field, once they faced the problem or block, they will step backward and are going to give up. Culture change is so important of success in lean transformation. On the way for improving efficency, we should do something to improve the culture and enhance their belief of lean as well. Otherwise, the lean can not be sustained and it is the most common of failure of lean transformation.