If you can cast your mind back to the 80’s, it was a time when the automobile industries in many western economies were having a tough time. Their nemesis was a Japanese company whose culture was rooted in the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, an American thinker whose musings gained significantly more traction in Japan than they did in his homeland.
By the time Toyota started swallowing market share from the big Detroit car companies, those companies rapidly began casting around for reasons why, and quickly settled upon the fabled Toyota Production System that gave the company its unique edge.
What followed was an attempt by car companies throughout the world to mimic what they saw as the bedrock of Toyota’s success. Most of these early attempts centered on the various tools contained within the Toyota Way, and rather predictably these early attempts failed to alter the beating these companies were receiving.
Indeed, these early attempts to foister TPS onto the kind of make and sell systems that were common throughout the industry had calamitous consequences. Accounting and reward systems simply weren’t designed for things such as just-in-time or quality programs.
It is increasingly appreciated these days that the genius of Taiichi Ohno was to create a system and environment that enabled TPS to flourish. At the time however, all the imitators saw were a bunch of tools that they could deploy in their own companies and magically become lean. They didn’t appreciate that the only way they could begin to mirror Toyota was to overhaul their entire management model.
We’re seeing a similar situation in the social business world. There are probably hundreds of tools and applications to enable collaboration or open innovation, and the dominant point of view at the moment is that buying such a tool will be all it takes to become a social business. This is despite the reality that most organisations have designed their systems to be anything but collaborative.
Their rewards systems are seldom collaborative, their measurement systems seldom are, nor are their decision making processes or their people management structures. All manner of things are in place in the modern workplace that shout out to employees that collaboration isn’t really something we want you to do.
Buying a piece of software, no matter how feature rich, will not change that I’m afraid. Just as the auto industry eventually realised that if they want to achieve the success Toyota achieved that they will have to change their entire approach to business, so to will organisations that want to achieve success in a social world.
Very well said. The thing is, I'm not sure the right people are hearing this. I was reading the Twitter thread from the e2.0 conference in Paris and it's all the same old stuff. Are executives really listening or is this just people that get 'it' talking to other people that get 'it'?
That's the challenge I think Nick. There was obviously a big incentive for Detroit to start copying Toyota because they were having their lunch stolen. At the moment, there are few examples of companies achieving massive gains in the marketplace through being more social. So that realisation that a major cultural shift is required hasn't really happened yet.
True. I suspect even in the likes of IBM, who are cheerleaders for this whole thing, there is still a huge amount of 'make and sell' in their attitude and approaches.
Probably human nature to try and take the easy option first though isn't it?
"They didn’t appreciate that the only way they could begin to mirror Toyota was to overhaul their entire management model."
That's too sweeping. Many did, some did. I did a doctorate on this – how did manufacturers at the time create performance cultures and management / structures / information systems that facilitate problem-solving, continuous improvement and innovation as everyone's business? Because these are at the heart of the quality & lean philosophy of work.
I also wrote a book about it last year. I argue that insights from that time remain relevant. The opening sentence to the Introduction is "This overview condenses the book's main arguments. It was written out of frustration at Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business discussions online …"
By the way, I was in Paris recently for the Enterprise 2.0 Summit. There's a definite shift of focus away from tools to conversations about social business processes, cultures and enabling structures.
Thanks for the comment Anne Marie. It was very pleasing to see the change in tact shown at the e20s. Hopefully this focus on the more human elements to social business will facilitate a more successful adoption of its philosophy. Hopefully anyway, it's certainly been a long time coming given the false dawns surrounding KM and adaptive enterprises over the last few decades.