The No Tool Zone

So few companies have the environment of a systems thinking organization.  They compete with other companies on the same command and control playing field . . . so why break the epitome of best practices? 

As I wrote in my last post, perspective is needed or we wind up not challenging existing thinking.  It is pretty safe to say the design and management of work hasn’t changed in a 100 years (except for the Japanese industrial miracle).   Since then, we have done everything to copy what the Japanese did with things like lean, JIT, TQM, etc.  The result has been less than spectacular (seen any new Toyota companies lately).

The perspective we need is quite different than the command and control sort.  let’s review what command and control management gives us.

• A top-down hierarchy
• Decisions made from financials, reports and anecdotal evidence (separated from the work)
• Compliance to contracts
• Measures from outputs, activity, targets and (of course) budgets
• Executives controlling budgets and managing the people
• Extrinsic motivation (rewards, bonuses, incentives) to make work tolerable, interesting and/or to control the actions of workers
• Work separated by function

For as fast as we have moved with new technology, we sure love command and control.  Huge leaps in flying to the moon, cell phones, automobiles . . . just don’t change the way work is designed and managed.  Change is for the front-line, not managers.

Few people understand that when they give up command and control thinking they don’t lose control, but gain it instead.  This is a management paradox to the way managers think.  They believe that unless they monitor, inspect, incentivize, cajole, badger, etc. the worker that we can’t get work done.

Instead if we do things differently, we may find better ways of managing.  In systems thinking using the Vanguard Method we have found this is not only true, but leads to profound improvement in culture, sales and reducing costs.  The irony is none of these things are the focus.

If we focus our efforts outside-in rather than top-down we can find a whole new set of measures that relate to customer purpose.  Decision-making with the work the work creates both better decisions and and improved culture.  Taking action on the system rather than plans and milestones leads to experimentation with method and innovation follows.

All these things and more await those that seek a different path.  The first step is always the hardest . . . so let’s begin.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Make the new decade a profitable and rewarding one, start a new path here.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about how to get started at tripp@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.