Are we wasting lessons learned?

Can you help us think through our next steps in our Lean transformation? A large government department whom we have helped for several years within projects and training programs.  The leading guy within their Lean department explains how they are shifting from delivering capacity to a project to delivering a product to a project. This will help focus on the process and build in quality expectations. I was, at that moment, still wondering why I was in the meeting as I am only involved in coordination and planning for one of the training programs.

The next day  I find myself sitting in on a meeting with a company evaluating their Lean journey and possible next steps. This because I assisted a colleague with a broken leg during the last two days of a Kaizen week. After we talked about the results of the Kaizen week she asked a question: how do you keep focus on the process while we shift to a matrix organization? Ok, so this company is just about to walk the same steps that the previously mentioned government department already walked. No guarantee that they will end up with the same result if they copy this. I couldn't help myself sharing what the governmental department was doing.  Very insightful she said. But the governmental department will experiment on this approach, and pivot maybe. Maybe it is already been done by someone else, what did they learn?

So who is writing this stuff down? Or do we need to walk this path to learn it ourselves, with all of the delays, resistance and political wrestling matches within our companies. I am sure our gurus have seen it all so my question is….are we wasting lessons learned?