How can our organization deliver more effective results using drastically less resources?
To do better with less we’ll need to strive to create vigorous learning organizations.
The ideas for a vigorous learning organization are a composite of the best seen in a number of companies over a 25-year span, so it is possible for real people to do these things. Migration of an existing organization to this state would take years, so it is not easy, but it seems possible.
The operational objective of a vigorous learning organization is to create that elusive ability to be both highly disciplined and highly flexible – not an easy match. In an attempt to become highly efficient, most 20th century organizational successes became too rigid to adapt quickly. Henry Ford vs. GM in the 1920s is a classic case. GM did not try to beat Ford building Model Ts, from which everybody (including Ohno) learned a lot. Instead, GM flat out-innovated Henry, who could not adapt quickly enough to hold his market. But all that was from an earlier era, and we are entering a very different one.
The above figure shows five major aspects of a Vigorous Learning Organization (Meta-Vision, Common Mission & Goals, Rigorous Learning, Behavior for Learning, Servant Leadership). All parts interrelate, so development of such an organization is not by independent structured projects that stack up like bricks in a wall. Instead, begin initiatives to develop people, including leaders, and use systemic structure as a framework on which human capabilities can grow. (A concept of developing people in that way is why TPS senseis, if they tried to articulate development of TPS at all, used some verb like “create” and never one like “install” as if one were wedging in another software package.)