The No Tool Zone

Many times when visiting a service organization, I run into what is called “wisdom.”   Sometimes I find it is real wisdom and a lot of the time I find it is superstitious learning.  CEOs, executives, managers and workers alike believe they have found wisdom from their past experiences.  W. Edwards Deming would say “experience by itself (without the aid of theory) teaches nothing.”

Knowledge has two opposites, ignorance and error.  If I can observe things from every angle, the restriction to one perspective at a time will not mean necessary ignorance.  But if perception were restricted to a single angle, that relativity would mean ignorance.  Ignorance of whatever sort increases the likelihood of error.  – C.I. Lewis (Mind and the World Order)

Too many service organizations have become of a single perspective.  A perspective of  banks is to closely control employees while the really bad decisions are made by managers approving loans (sound familiar?).  What these organizations need to improve is more perspectives.

Most organizations are run in command and control manner which is where we see decisions made top-down.  I have found that the outside-in perspective is better when decisions are made.  As no theory is wrong some are more useful tan others.  It doesn’t mean top-down is wrong, but I have found it is not as useful as outside-in.

The experiences we have guide our wisdom, but many times we wind up with a single perspective that is superstitious learning (a form of ignorance).  Superstitious learning is shown in the form of business assumptions.  These assumptions we hear everyday and sound like this:

It’s a manual or paper process and automation will make it better.

Sharing services and outsourcing will reduce costs.

One best way to do something (best practice).

Incentives and targets are needed to improve performance.

Functional separation of work into sales, marketing, operations, front/back office, etc. is an assumed good design.

Lean manufacturing tools are good for service.

Standardization makes service better.

Organizations need plans, budgets, milestones to achieve business improvement.

All of the above come from a single perspective and this is no means an exhaustive list. 

When top-down decisions are made we lose the perspective of the worker and customer.  We need all to improve the design and the management of the work.  The single-minded approach associated with superstitious learning is so sanctimonious it is dumb.

Executives and managers that have all this wisdom they have accumulated need to sort out their perspectives to see if it is from one (superstitious learning) or many perspectives (wisdom).  Otherwise, experience by itself teaches nothing.

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.