Choosing to be Lean Or Agile?

Are you building your company to be Lean or are you building it to be Agile?

Cause building your company to be BOTH Lean and Agile, will only mean that you are NEITHER!

Ask yourself the below 4 questions.
If you really want to be good in answering Questions 1 & 2, you cannot be world class in answering questions 3 & 4. 
And vice versa. 

So choose what do you want your company to focus on (either 1/2 OR 3/4)

Questions:

1. Do you focus on cost reduction and incremental improvements for existing products?
2. Do you focus on elimination of waste and non-value added activities across the supply chain?
3. Do you track and understand customer requirements by interfacing closely with the market?
4. Do you Focus on responsiveness? Do you Aim to produce in any volume (and not just the optimal capacity utilization volume) and deliver simultaneously to a wide variety of markets? Can you provide customized products at short lead times?

If you chose Questions 1 and 2, then build yourself for a Lean culture.
If you believe that your company will be much suited to handle future by answering questions 3 and 4, then actively build your company for an Agile culture.

The main point is that once you recognise what suits your company, then double down on ensuring that all the support system (people, policies, IT support systems and even your questions to others in your company) should be focused on ensuring that the culture fosters truly Lean / Agile behaviour.

Trying to be good in everything will lead to Great in nothing.