All species, including humans, are inherently adaptive, yet the organisations humans inhabit are by their nature resistant to change.
The management challenge of the future is to figure out how to build an organisation that evolves sufficiently quickly to be ahead of the changes occurring in the environment around them so as to be in a position to exploit and leverage those changes rather than just reacting to them.
What a cliché this has become, and you hear it all the time, like most cliches, it has become so common, we need to go a step further. Outside the box, outside the room, outside the building? How far outside is far enough?.
Surely it is more a matter of thinking differently, looking at the facts through a different set of eyes, not just seeking a way out solution that is the point here. It doe not much matter how far outside the box we are, it is how we interpret the box, and what is in it that counts
It is a scary thought, but roughly 30% of our economy (Public sector expenditure) is subject to the disciplines of neither the market or democracy.
Bureaucracies are institutions that thrive on complexity, it is far easier to make an existing process more complex, than to take it apart and re-engineer it to make it more simple, and rarely is a process ditched, just leave it on the books in case it assists at some point, to frustrate somebody trying to do something useful that seeks to adjust the status quo.
This thought makes the addition of another bureaucratic process on to the management of the national health system, as agreed by our Federal and State pollies over the past week as a substitute for genuine reform of the system, even more scary.
None of the apparent root causes of the current mess have been addressed, they have just been moved around a bit, and political sweeteners (read, our tax dollars) have been added to provide the façade of improvement.
All that has happened is that a few more deckchairs have been added to the slippery sloping deck, and the colours have been mixed up a bit to make a better photograph.
Deep knowledge is pretty common these days, the facilities to accrue it are readily and freely available, and it is no longer a key differentiator.
However, what is still not common is what has always separated the run of the mill to the standout, organisations with engaging leadership, motivated people, and good judgment.
Judgment comes from a combination of deep knowledge, varied experience, qualitative or spatial skills, analytical skills, and a preparedness to learn from experience. It is primarily a personal quality, but increasingly it is becoming a pre-requisite for an organisation to take on these human qualities via its articulation of purpose, values, and emergent strategy.
A businesses I had some contact with a while ago had deep knowledge, there were PhD’s galore, but the lack of judgment and wide experience had hamstrung their efforts in the face of a changing competitive environment. The changes necessary will be challenging and painful to the people, and their view of their roles, probably not all will make it despite their undoubted knowledge, as the business model must change, and with it the way they create and sustain value.
Knowledge is a pre-requisite for success, but is not a guarantor of success.
Whilst we observe the rather sudden tarnishing of Toyota’s quality aura, it is easy to lose sight of the enormous value Toyota has given to our understanding of efficient and flexible manufacturing. The lessons are everywhere, there would not be a manufacturing operation anywhere in the dev eloped world that has not benefited from the expertise developed and shared by Toyota.
Our understanding of the TPS began when Toyota began manufacturing outside Japan, its first foray was a JV with General Motors in their Fremont California plant, in a JV called New United Motors Manufacturing Inc, or “NUMMI” as it is commonly called.
This JV is a milestone in our understanding of manufacturing, the link is to a Sloan Management Review article written by one of the modern gurus of lean manufacturing, john Shook, who was a key employee in the development of NUMMI, and its subsequent success.
Anybody unfamiliar with the story should take 10 minutes and come up to speed, and this article is the quickest way.
It seems that everywhere there is a drive to collaborate, without any real regard to the challenges of collaboration, the behavioral and cultural changes necessary for success. Collaboration has become an end in itself, rather than a strategy that has the potential to deliver value to both parties under the appropriate circumstances.
For a collaboration to be successful, there are two pre-conditions:
Without these two preconditions, there is little chance of the collaboration doing anything more than take some time, probably cover someone’s arse, and perhaps give the appearance of something useful happening.