…and failure.
In Gene Kim’s (the co-author of The Phoenix Project and the author of The Unicorn Project) podcast (Idealcast), Gene interviews Dr Steve Spear, one of the most accomplished system thinkers I know of. The episode is titled The Pursuit of Perfection: Dominant Architectures and Dynamics (Part 1).
Steve’s observation is the following…
Explanation for success:
The more feedback you can generate in a situation, and the better you are at reacting to that feedback as bonified signal of opportunity, the better off you are.
Explanation for failure:
Rather than taking a pause, a reflection on the expression of the problem, the cause of the problem and taking the time to construct a meaningful corrective action to prevent the problem from reoccurring, they worked around the problem. […] The motivation and the incentive to work around problems was so possitive […], but the consequences of this workaround on a cummulative fashion was so corrosive. If someone encountered something that was difficult and worked around it, the difficulty was still in the system, but still invisible to somebody else. […] It was this relentlessness of work-arounds in order to maintain an operational tempo that caught our attention as both an explanation of the underperformance and a very striking contrast with this idea of design of work with tests built-in to reveal error and when it’s revealed, deal with it.
— Dr Steve Spear
Listen to the episode on Spotify…
While at it, continue listening to Toyota’s four “P”…
- Philosophy (long-term thinking)
- Process/progress (create continuous flow, waste elimination)
- People and Partners (respect, partnership, challenge and growing trust, pull system)
- Problem Solving (continuous improvement and learning)