I have what feels like hundreds of favorite quotes, but this week, I heard another one that stopped me dead in my tracks. This quote comes from a fellow lean maniac and personal friend, Ryan Tierney of Seating Matters:

“The biggest gap in the world is the gap between knowledge and action.”

Read that 10 times and reflect on how much knowledge you have that you have not taken action on. Then, the more I think about this gap between knowledge and action, the more I start asking questions like how can I reduce this gap? Or worse, am I inadvertently widening this gap with education? Sounds crazy, right? But hear me out.

If you’re any kind of lean maniac, you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. You can’t join a conversation that doesn’t include the latest amazing book someone has read.

But, in the wise words of Dr. Goldratt, author of “The Goal” and the Theory of Constraints, he says you’re not measuring until you’re using numbers. So, let’s apply some general numbers and see how the math unfolds.

Let’s assume every book we read is worth 50 knowledge points. I think it’s safe to say you can pull 50 ideas from every good book. Thus, if you read one book, the minute you set the book down your gap between knowledge and action is 50 units. Then you excitedly go to work and over the next month you implement 10 of those good ideas. That makes the gap between knowledge and action only 40 units. Congratulations you’re closing the gap!

Now you just returned from a wonderful dinner with some business associates. They were raving about this new book they were reading. So naturally, you immediately get a copy and read it for yourself and quickly implement two principles you just learned. 

Sounds great, but did you just inadvertently increase the gap between knowledge and action? You’re two books in and the knowledge gap has grown to 88 units.

Multiply this by only four books, and the gap between knowledge and action becomes 170 units. Imagine what this will look like at 20 books!

I can already hear people up in arms that I’m suggesting that reading more books is bad. I don’t think there is a person on earth who would promote that idea, including myself. 

But I consider my three key principles of lean learning: 

1. Reading without action, is simply entertainment. No better or worse than sitting on the sofa doing the proverbial Netflix and chill. 

2. Reading a book once is just about useless. Every time I mention a book to someone and they say “Yes, I’ve read that,” trying to give me the impression they understand it, or have gotten every bit of knowledge there could possibly be out of it. I usually just quiz them (if I have read it as well). That’s usually followed by a blank stare. My point is this, you have an expert who has condensed their life’s work into a book, and you think you read it once, and you got it? No way! One of my favorite go-to books is: “The Toyota Way.” I could almost recite it word for word, and I bet I have read it (and by read, I mean audio book) more than 300 times. And without exaggeration, every time I hear it, I learn something new. 

3. Share the knowledge! Particularly if you are on a team, or leading it. When you read a book you know will be a game changer for your organization, get your key people involved in reading it with you.  If you grow faster than all the people around you then you just become the crazy zealot. If there is one sane person in the insane asylum among 1,000 nut jobs, who do you think they would all vote as the crazy one? Don’t let that be you. Bring your team along for the journey.

Let’s assume it takes 10 hours to get through a book. This may be something to consider before you pick up the the next one. Would you be better off spending that 10 hours implementing, planning or practicing what you have learned from the last book before moving on?

If you squeezed every drop out of a book before you moved on, would you be farther ahead than sporadically implementing from several volumes? I’m not saying it’s right or wrong whichever you choose. But in true lean fashion, I like to question everything. 
You can add 3 points to your knowledge gap if you read this article and don’t take action.