Friends,

It looks like I cannot stay in lurk mode on this fascinating thread. Chris's point is very much to the point -- again, the point of cultures and systems. We're not just back to W. Edwards Deming again, and the genius of the Toyota system. But the Toyota system explains a great deal about why they can make cars and GM cannot do so. 

In a sense, that explains why Steve Jobs might not be able to make a car. Jobs has a passion for computers  -- he is immersed in computing and digital interfaces, and he brings to his work the depth of knowledge and passionate expertise that Toyota engineers and designers take with them moving upward from the factory floor to the executive suite. Again -- set back in time -- read David Halberstam's The Reckoning.

The Macedonian phalanx was a social technology shaped and perfected by the kings who preceded Alexander, particularly his father Philip. Alexander possessed a level of unprecedented strategic and tactical genius, and a capacity for leadership that enabled him to do more with this technology than others might have done. Nevertheless, Chris is right that an appropriate general would have won battles just as Alexander did. And the fact that Alexander succeeded as a conquering general did not enable him to create a durable empire. It's hard to say what might have happened had he lived longer, but he failed to shape the durable culture he wanted to leave as his legacy.

An earlier example of social technology was the martial skill and discipline of the Spartan hoplite army. Skilled fighters with years of disciplined training and a greater fear of dishonor than of death, the heavy weaponry with massive shields designed for fighting in mobile ranks made the Spartiate a more effective fighter man for man than any army that might move against Sparta. The Spartans won against overwhelmingly greater odds at Thermopylae not merely because of the battlefield -- an effective tactical and strategic choice -- but because they outfought the thousands who massed against them before sheer numbers finally overwhelmed them.

As Chris and Dori say, "a large community of skilled, imaginative and knowledgeable people who work well together" may indeed make a difference. This is the virtue of robust cultures.

Putting a Jobs in charge of GM may or may not make a difference. We'll never know.

Building the Toyota culture does make a difference. What we don't always know is the degree to which factors outside Toyota influence what happens in the company. The success of Japanese plants outside Japan that are staffed with workers and executives from many nations suggest that Toyota culture has as much to do with Toyota as with Japan. This, too, is the lesson of W. Edwards Deming.

Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean

Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia


Chris Rust wrote:

[quoting Rob Curedale]

Rob Curedale wrote:

> Steve jobs couldn't possibly do a worse job managing GM than the
> current management. 

[replying]

Sorry to disagree Rob but you could take the example of Clive Sinclair, for around 15 years he was an obvious choice because he kept pulling rabbits out of the hat of the emerging electronics and personal computer industries. He managed to hit just the right combination of price, usefulness, technology and audience appeal to make a huge amount of money and sell an enormous amount of product that turned a whole generation (in Britain anyway) on to computers.

Then he thought he could do the same trick in the transport industry and it turns out it that his way of thinking just didn't translate. The maturity of the industry and marketplace and complexity of the technology defeated him no matter how much he tried. It's not that his ideas were not valid in general (the Smart cars and great variety of folding and electric bikes on the market bear witness to that) but he couldn't get the winning balance and everybody could see that but him.

Like I said, past performance is no indication of future profits.

And a successful economy or a healthy society depend on lots of people doing good work. (Barack Obama said that in his inaugural speech as Dori reminded us). I don't believe that a few geniuses can make that much difference overall but a large community of skilled, imaginative and knowledgeable people who work well together might.

I recommend Paul Colinvaux's book "The Fates of Nations: A Biological Theory of History." He starts with the case of Alexander the Great the original overachiever and a prime candidate for the one in a million team. Colinvaux explains very well that Alexander was just the beneficiary of the emergence of a particular technology. The Macedonians had perfected the weapons and arts of war, particularly the use of the long spear by highly trained infantry, that made them pretty well invincible because the other armies had no offensive or defensive technique that would work against them.

If Alexander had not been there somebody else could have done the same. Fast forward to 1945 and the atomic bomb was not the product of some brilliant entrepreneur, president or general, the atomic bomb had been forseen for years and the victory went to the large and very skilful team that perfected it first. The main difference today is that, since the advent of widespread (not universal) literacy in the enlightenment, new techniques have spread much faster and the success of the Roman  Armies in dominating the world for centuries cannot be replicated by any army or business today.