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Ride the Wave, Not the Board

by Pete Abilla on August 9, 2010

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I was on vacation recently and, on one of the days, we went to Lindamar Beach at Pedro Point in Pacifica.  That was the beach I went to, probably 3 out of 5 days, at 5 AM during my senior year – to surf.  Needless to say, I wasn’t at school much my senior year, but I thankfully graduated anyway.

It had been at least 10 years since I was back at Lindamar. It was so good to be back.

Being back at Lindamar reminded me of a famous saying in surfing which goes:

Ride the Wave, Not the Board

- Duke Kahanamoku

There are many applications of this saying to business.  Here are a few:

  1. principles over tools
  2. trends over any specific application
  3. themes over any “cool” thing of the moment

You can think of others, I’m sure.

From a Lean perspective, how might this saying apply?

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