Systems Thinking, Lean and You
- November 5th, 2009
- Posted in Most Read . Systems Thinking Concepts
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The debate at sixsigmaIQ.com was one that has been boiling for awhile. However, I believe it is an important one. I sense this will be the first of many as systems thinking begins to penetrate the minds of people in the improvement arena.
With a background that dates back to the W. Edwards Deming movement and the Deming User Groups I am sensitive to how people hijacked Dr. Deming’s thinking into something that could be packaged and sold. Dr. Deming did not reference a label for his thinking and did not promote TQM.
Instead, Dr. Deming gave us 14 Points and 7 Deadly Diseases and later his System of Profound Knowledge (Appreciation for a System, Theory of Variation, Theory of Knowledge and Psychology). These were guiding principles for those wanting to increase market and market share, improve service and decrease costs through better thinking. They were (and still are) management paradoxes and counter-intuitive truths that challenged the very fiber of US manufacturing, service and government.
Industrial tourists of all types have visited and written about what the Japanese and later Taiichi Ohno (Toyota) did and came away with new secrets to improvement. It started as Just-in-Time manufacturing, Quality Circles, etc. and later 5S, Standard Work, A3 and other tools. The US organizations always looking for a short-cut were hungry for what these folks learned as they became less competitive on an international scale.
The Japanese on the other hand were only too happy to invite the tourists into their plants because they understood it was the thinking not the copying that gave them the advantage. But copying seems to be a staple in US business . . . because it is a short-cut. The problem is that it doesn’t work or doesn’t work for long.
Whether Lean = Tools to me is an individual assessment of everyone that applies “lean.” If you find yourself starting with 5S, Kaizen events and such you may want to consider the long-term impact of such actions. Just as not changing the mindset of managers and executives will reverse all the work that is done . . . no matter how well-intentioned.
The bottom-line is if the thinking doesn’t change the system doesn’t change. This cannot be pushed away from a executive, manager or the front-line worker they all must play to improve the system. The reward is dramatic improvement.
I partnered with John Seddon because he has advanced the thinking, something we haven’t done very well in the US. His knowledge of applying systems thinking to service industry and government is something we all can learn from in the US. And it all begins with being curious about what he and his Vanguard firm has learned.
I have learned about the problems with tools, standardization, shared services, outsourcing, scientific management theory, and separating the decision-making from the work. I have also learned that manufacturing is different from service and that copying is not a good idea. Some I have learned from Deming, some Ohno and some Seddon.
There are many other things I have learned and much more to be learned. But we need to start with changing our thinking.
Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion! Click on comments below.
Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public). His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work. Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com. Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.
I agree, “shortcuts” are a problem, especially when they actually take longer or don’t last. Yet, the need for speed seems to be a requirement generated by the marketplace and the corporate role within it. So it seems we need more examples describing how a more holistic approach actually produced faster results. What do you think? If the more holistic approach to improvement was better recognized, officially sanctioned, reliable, and fast, would that be enough? Wouldn’t it also have to be easily transferrable, so organizations could teach their members to apply the more holistic approach in large enough numbers? Can this be done? If Deming was trying, and he did not fully succeed, was he just ahead of his time? Or was there some other problem?
My Father’s favorite phrase to me when I was young was “haste makes waste.” Also, I am always careful to communicate “results” as service organizations like to copy and that is a bad idea. Each system is different. I will send you here so you can see the benefits as defined by a customer of the Vanguard Method and systems thinking http://bit.ly/3rcDZE. Regardless, unless thinking is changing at all levels of the organization, efforts can be futile and take longer to get. If you understand systems thinking than you understand that one command and control thinking element that has to change is the separation of the decision-making from the work. Decisions about the work have to be made with it. Atypical effort to improve may take 4 – 10 weeks, but if the CEO or COO is standing with me changes can happen immediately with the right mindset (http://newsystemsthinking.com/about_command_v_systems.asp). In service we don’t have the barriers like manufacturing. Ultimately, a service organizations biggest barrier is the first step and it takes curiosity to overcome that . . . but the benefits are huge (not 2-3%, but 20, 40, 60% and more).This can and has been done by my Vanguard partners with both large and small service organizations, the change has been huge. The US fell behind in manufacturing by not listening to Deming’s message, do we have to relive it for service too? I hope not. The successes and failures of Dr. Deming are many. He shared with us how to run our companies and we ignored him on things like rewards, incentives, targets, performance appraisals, inspection and many more things. We have a thinking problem that is we are mired in scientific management theory, costs and productivity. Until command and control thinkers understand that this thinking adds to costs by sub-optimization and waste we change nothing. I just believe W. Edwards Deming was fighting the “I’m OK attitude” that things will get better, we are the biggest economy in the world. Deming had our attention briefly in the late 70s and early 80s, but things recovered. (I might add he believed the US decline started in 1968.) Today’s crisis has us all in the US looking and saying we have a problem, I think now is the time to take a different look at things. What do you think?