Cheapest Viagra Australia

Zero Sum, More or Less

Great Comment from Mike on the "built to last" Post.

Mike: "Why does it have to be a zero-sum game, Tom? Why can't a corporation (or other institution) be built to last AND impact? Why does it have to be about going out in a blaze of glory? Look at Japanese companies, for instance. The truly successful ones (Toyota, Honda, etc.) are planning decades ahead. DECADES. Kaizen (continuous incremental improvement) and kaikaku (revolutionary change) are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one often leads to another."

TP: Are we sure Honda et al are really planning decades ahead? I once heard Canon had a 500-year plan. Are Honda and Toyota really making Great Cars? Better than Detroit, to be sure. But in my view there has not been fundamental innovation in the auto industry in 50 years. I'm unimpressed by all of them.

Kaizen, in my opinion, is not enough. Japan taught us Kaizen—and promptly went into a decade-long recession; Japan's principal deficiency is "disruptive" innovation and "crazy" entrepreneurs in my opinion. (Where is their Gates, Ellison, Dell, Venter, Walton, etc.—hundreds of thousands of et ceteras!)

Kaizen? See the current issue of BusinessWeek. I am thrilled to have the Silicon Valley Bratpack inventing Web 2.0 at the speed of light. I want tomorrow's companies—an unfair share thereof. Just got off the phone with the former Mayor of Austin. He's running for the Texas Senate with a bumper sticker that reads: "Keep Austin Weird." (Won his mayoral re-election with 84 percent of the vote as a Democrat in Texas.) He's a Richard Florida fan—and fixated on developing tomorrow's talent and companies.

P.S.: It's a longer debate but I mostly think incremental change and revolutionary change are not possible in one kit. I am a Nicholas Negroponte (the MIT innovation guru) devotee: "Incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy."

Re "zero sum": I think zero-sum is more or less axiomatic. I/it/they may sustain, but that is a byproduct of Living Totally in the Moment. (Zen-like, yes.) I love this quote from Oscar-winning Director Bernardo Bertolucci: "My only goal is to have no goals. The goal, every time, is that film, that very moment." That's me! I only care—no kidding—about this Post. It is the Sum Total of my life. If things keep building, great; if not, great. GM? I want them to be Totally Focused on Great Cars. Fat chance!

Mike: "GM—I don't have any stake in GM, but why do the only choices for GM (or pick your favorite stumbling corporation) have to be extinction or mediocrity? Why can't there be a third alternative of re-achieving greatness?"

TP: We must agree to disagree. As a sometimes betting man, the odds of that doubtless superb "third alternative" at GM are effectively Zero.

Mike: "You truly have no interest in any legacy? You don't want your impact to remain after you are gone? If your impact lasts only a heartbeat, was it really worth it? Was the impact real? What if Ford, Edison, Eisenhower, Bacon, Newton, Marshall, Billy Durant, Eli Whitney, and a host of others had thought that way? If there is no LASTING IMPACT we have to keep reinventing the wheel all the time."

TP: You read me wrong. I desperately want to have Impact. In my Post I contrasted "built to last" vs "built to have impact." I want impact, but longevity beyond what I've already been granted is of minor interest. King had IMPACT; what he didn't have was LONGEVITY.

Sometime back I said I'd finally created a definition of Excellence I was happy with. Namely: Sets the Agenda. Ford and GM and DEC and others "set the agenda" for several years—gave fellow CEOs nightmares (the other half of my Excellence definition). And then the receded into history—though there will be a chapter devoted to them—and the world is a different place because they were here.

TP: Mike ... Great Post! (As you can see, it made a dent in my Universe. This is a point I dearly care about.) (I'm packing, in a rush—the above is sketchy, but the best I can do.

Tom Peters posted this on 08/09/06.

Comments

From a career point of view, when does it make more sense to switch from a small company to a large one?

I've run my consulting company for the last 3 years and I love it. But I tend to do too much sales and not enough projects. I'm thinking of moving to a large consulting firm where I can take part in larger projects and learn more.

Would this be a correct decision to take?

I try my best to deliver a wow experience every time in every engagement, and it's working these days. That's probably the most seminal things I ever learnt from you/your blog.

Posted by Arun Sadhashivan at August 9, 2006 4:37 PM

One reason I post without my surname is that I work in the UK in the European HQ of a very large Japanese company that already "had words" with me over a letter I had published in HBR. In a small HQ of mainly (90%+) Japanese ex-pats, I'm the token kaikaku advocate. (It's also interesting to note the pretty high turnover rate of non-Japanese people recruited into relatively senior roles in Japanese companies, but that's another story...)

Do we plan decades ahead? No. Well, there is a provisional number for 10 years hence, and 20, but we don't seriously plan that far ahead. Do we plan 3 years ahead? You bet! However, the majority of that planning time is spent in reviewing current year progress and then amending the 3-year plan.

The good things we do are to go for revenue (and then chase down cost) and sweat the detail. Where we're lagging is in innovation. We're not very good at generating practical ideas. We're not very good at anticipating requirements. We're not very good at introducing new technologies. We're not very good at quickly bringing in technologies other companies have already introduced. Truth be told, we don't really like change and only do it reluctantly. But, boy, are we good at copying other people's good ideas and when we do it, do we do it seriously well. Show us your great new product and we'll reverse engineer it, we'll copy it, we'll make it cheaper, we'll maybe tweak a few small details and market them as revolutionary, we'll work harder than most of you and we'll be utterly relentless in this.

So, for us, kaizen is great. We can make small, manageable, predictable changes that really suit the Japanese mentality. Because it's relentless and never-ending. Of course, they want a few kaikaku fans like me to push them along from time to time, although they know (replaceable) people like me will be there for a few years and then move on. But don't forget that Charles Darwin saying: â€œIt is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.â€

Posted by MarkJF at August 9, 2006 4:58 PM

I have been impressed with Honda's work on zero emmission engines not because of their car work (all the big firms have doen no where near enough on this) but because they have taken an holistic approach to the car and the house looking at hydrogen and fuel cell technology and how your car and house work together

Posted by PaulH at August 10, 2006 2:18 AM

MarkJF--I fully understand. I'm in the same position, but not in Europe. I have encountered the exact same things you have, but I have also encountered true innovation among Japanese companies as an insider and as a consumer. Keep being the kaikaku revolutionary, it's worked for me for a long time. It's a good game if you can stand the frustration until you see the revolution take hold.

Posted by Mike at August 10, 2006 4:25 PM

A key point here....while "kaizen" is indeed continuous improvement, an incremental approach, "kaikaku" is radical change, best translated as "strategic initiative." The Prius came out of "kaikaku," not "kaizen."

Few people understand the difference and it is this deep understanding of how Toyota, for example, workds that allows some to suceed (and have both longevity and impact) while others only have impact.

Posted by Joe Ely at August 10, 2006 9:21 PM

I'll have to take issue with Mr. Peters' opinions on kaizen.

The Web 2.0 people aren't really inventing anything new. They might be doing great work, but all they are doing is arbitraging between a false economy of scale (e.g. the way news or advertising is created and distributed) because peer to peer networks and ubiquitous cheap and powerful information technology allows them to. They could do it in half of the time with better quality if they used kaizen.

Japan did not teach the US kaizen. Most of Japan has no idea about kaizen and is only now learning from Toyota.

Kaizen is not enough. Neither is innovation. Software development may be innovation but the deivery time, cost and quality are abominable. Kaizen is innovation, simply process innovation and not product innovation.

Kaizen is not incrementalism, though improvements may be incremental in that they are continuous and in small steps. Kaizen is more often a breakthrough for organizations that are new to it and have processes full of waste and variability.

Having the kaizen mindset and kaizen philosophy as Toyota does means perpetual dissatisfaction with the status quo and striving for kaikaku - radical improvement or reform by tearing down and rebuilding the current condition, over a long period of time.

To the Nicholas Negropontes and others who chafe at process and equate kaizen with stifled innovation, I say exit the innovation ivory tower and live in a kaizen culture for a while.

Posted by Jon Miller at August 11, 2006 11:09 PM