ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses words, particularly the policy words used to guide and steer organizational practices. Policy words are meant to do things in the world; they are formulated and fashioned to steer and govern. I understand policy words as objects. Compared to other words, policy words have a thing-ified quality – in Jacqueline Urla’s terms, in the writing of policies and organizational guidance. Policy words often come in what Cris Shore and Sue Wright refer to as semantic clusters, making management models such as Lean an empirical fact. This chapter explores how Lean policy words fit into the everyday organization of preschools and what they signal and mobilize. Ethnographically, the chapter is placed in the ‘unplanned’ activities and management group meetings in the preschools. The unplanned activities illustrate how preschool teachers interpret the everyday activities of learning and caring in relation to the Preschool Curriculum and Reggio Emilia. Lean management meetings illustrate the policy words that comprise the Lean management model in relation to the organization of preschools. The chapter also shows the ‘language work’ involved, not only when attempting to implement Lean words and its values in preschools, but also in the organization of preschools in general.
