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The purpose of this paper is to extend the People Value Stream concept further by developing a view of what the world would look like through the eyes of a positive psychology employee-centred lens. The authors hope to provide a frame for further discussion, research and practical application in this area.

In this conceptual paper, the authors draw on their collective 120 plus years of experience with Lean and Human Resource Management through leading, teaching, researching and consulting in the area.

The People Value Stream concept is extended here by ideating how the “Voice of the Employee” could be used to enhance the existing knowledge of Lean. Relying on a range of cognitive psychological theories, particularly Self-Determination Theory, the authors show how it might be possible to develop a highly engaged workforce primarily by unlocking their intrinsic motivation through a “Self-Development and Growth Cycle”. This cycle is the people-improvement version of the seminal Deming process-improvement PDCA cycle. It can be applied within a job crafting “Personal Cockpit”. The authors also highlight a range of outputs and wider implications that create a pull for team leaders and senior management wishing to move to a real Servant Leader model. It will also help those developing and supporting people-related policies and procedures both within organisations and in trade unions.

This paper turns the existing literature about people within Lean upside down. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time in an academic paper, it discusses what would be the implications for the Lean world if the authors truly started understanding and deploying the explicit “Voice of the Employee” rather than just the established Lean “Voice of the Owner”-led Hoshin Kanri approach. The authors show how a lack of knowledge in these areas by the Lean community is limiting Lean’s engagement of people and its sustainability.

As a set of tools and standards, Total Quality Management (TQM) tends to focus on individual processes to improve the productivity and efficiency of organizations. For the same objective, many organizations adapt the Lean production system in their strategies to eliminate waste and reduce the non-value-adding activities. Thus, organizations are looking for innovative ways to achieve more with fewer resources. Yet, innovations are restricted because the process of generating new ideas and making effective decisions is limited to just a few people, and no broad employee participation is achieved, resulting in the waste of intellectual talent. This paper aims to discuss the impact of both Lean production and TQM on innovation performance. In addition, it presents a conceptual model to understand this relationship, supported by literature review from recent studies. This discussion provides insights into more specific features related to Human Relations Management and Improvement Strategies that can be utilized to advance the intellectual capabilities at any organization, thereby providing chances of successful innovation performance.