Tom Peters on Systems

I've long been a fan of Tom Peters.  Second only to Peter Drucker in business writers who have influenced me, Peters' often brash views have jarred and stretched me repeatedly ever since I read "In Search of Excellence" for the first time in 1982. 

I'm also a fan of systems...thus this blog about Lean.

So, when Peters published a short paper on the role of systems last week, I read it with interest.  While systems have a place, he says, it is SECOND place.

What is more crucial than systems??  He suggests two things:

• Passionate local leadership
• Corporate culture that supports superior quality work

In that setting, systems work.  Apart from these prerequisites, systems are inadequate. 

The paper is worth your reading.  It squares with my experience. 

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Leadership and Same Page-ness

The National Basketball Association really doesn't interest me, I much more enjoy college hoops.  Yet, the story today of the sudden resignation of the coach of the New York Knicks NBA team caught my eye. 

The coach was caught in a bind.  The owner of the team meddled, selling and trading players with an eye to individual stars.  The former coach, in contrast, had a cohesive style of play which he was attempting to implement.  He needed players with the physical and mental skills to carry out that style of play.

When the Knick's highest paid superstar objected to this style, ostensibly because it deemphasized his own ability to show his individual skills, the atmosphere was simply too tough for the coach.  And he said "enough".

Having a common view of what success looks like and agreement on the core strategy to achieve it is essential.  Point speed vs system speed.  Do we agree?? 

Paying attention to that commonality is part of the role of a Lean leader. 


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Coherence

Here's an excellent quote from an unusual source for me--a   musician at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.  Describing his group's approach:

So a lot of themes are going to come back on the next record, I think, and they’ll always be there. On the one hand, maybe that might seem unoriginal, to keep recycling over and over again, but I also think novelty is overrated, and I think coherence is undervalued.

Coherence trumps novelty.  Even for a "creative" profession.  This band, anyway, wanted to have a recognizable theme, over time.  Some consistency.  A shape, a direction, something that hangs together, over time.

This is the same challenge for us as Lean leaders.  The principles really don't change.  Yet so many forces want the "new" thing...the new trick which will somehow make process excellence easier. 

The newness breeds the "flavor of the month" cynicism which tears apart excellence, however.  It's up to us to fight that trend, keep bringing the same theme back, over and over, yet in a fresh way, just like the band is trying to do. 

Coherence trumps novelty.

Also useful in raising children. 



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"Things are a mess"

John Shook recently wrote on the occasion of Taiichi Ohno's 100th birthday:

As Ohno says in The Birth of Lean: "If you're going to do kaizen continuously, you've got to assume that things are a mess."

Brilliant.  If everything is OK, I have no need to improve.   

Why is this hard for us to do??  Is it our culture of self-esteem, holding "feeling good about ourselves" as a supreme value? Do we simply compare ourselves to ourselves, so we always look OK?  Are we all from Lake Wobegon, the ficticious Minnesota town where all of the children are above average?

A view of a zero-waste state will shake us out of this arrogant stupor.  With that perspective, things are indeed a mess.


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Knowing

The following lucid sentences appeared in the paper yesterday, regarding a leader having a hard time corralling followers:

...his insides are unknown to them.  They don't know what's in there.  They fear he hasn't absorbed any philosophy along the way, that he'll be herky-jerky, unanchored, merely tactical...


The writer was Peggy Noonan in this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.  She writes of Mitt Romney.  But my point is not political.

These same words could be said of any of us offering leadership in our companies. Do those who work with us know our "insides"?  Do they know what overarching framework will shape our actions?  Do they fear us being "herky-jerky"?

This is why a deep understanding of Lean as a strategy is crucial.  Why having that framework is essential for the motivation and engagement of those with whom we work.  Why letting people see our "insides" is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.


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