Respect for People is a fundamental Lean principle, yet easily misunderstood. While the following experience only scratches the surface of the principle it helps illustrate the direction the principle is taking us.

While staying outside of Cleveland last week I had a few meals in the hotel restaurant. Each time I had the same server, Jerome.

It’s very typical to be treated respectfully in restaurants. It’s about the only time I am called “sir,” and the courteous exchanges can form a pleasant and mindless sort of ritual.

Jerome was on the higher quality end of the scale in terms of servers. Our exchanges were very friendly and he had a way of being attentive without being too attentive (don’t you hate it when someone asks you how the food is when your mouth is full?). He had remembered what I had to eat and drink the meal before, and his timing in bringing both to the table was perfect.

But one thing Jerome did really stood out. Learning Thursday evening was my last night at the hotel, after dinner he came around the table and shook my hand to wish me well. Jerome understood that we were not server and patron. We were co-owners of the experience of a restaurant meal, working together to make the experience as rich as possible for both of us.

So if you are a labor on a construction site and the owner of the construction management firm that hired you walks by, stop and shake their hand. If you are dumping garbage into the back of a truck and the homeowner walks by, stop and shake their hand. We’re not employees and bosses, but partners working together to make life as rewarding as possible. That’s Respect for People. Or at least a start.