{"id":2497,"date":"2012-12-22T17:25:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-22T17:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=2497"},"modified":"2012-12-22T17:25:26","modified_gmt":"2012-12-22T17:25:26","slug":"the-7030-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=2497","title":{"rendered":"Shifting, Shaking and Shaping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stop Press<\/span>: For those who prefer cartoons to books please skip to the end to watch the Who Moved My Cheese<\/em> video first.<\/p>\n

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\"ThomasKuhn\"<\/a>In 1962 – that is half a century<\/em> ago – a controversial book was published. The title was “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions<\/em>” and the author was Thomas S Kuhn (1922-1996) a physicist and historian at Harvard University.\u00a0 The book ushered in the concept of a ‘paradigm shift’\u00a0and it upset a lot a people.<\/p>\n

In particular it upset a lot of scientists because it suggested that\u00a0the\u00a0growth of knowledge and understanding is not smooth – it is jerky. And Kuhn showed that the scientists were\u00a0causing the jerking.<\/p>\n

Kuhn described the process of scientific progress\u00a0as having three phases: pre-science, normal science\u00a0and revolutionary science.\u00a0 Most of the work scientists do is normal<\/em> science which means exploring, consolidating, and applying the current paradigm. The current\u00a0conceptual model of how things work. \u00a0Anyone who argues against\u00a0the paradigm\u00a0is regarded as ‘mistaken’ because the paradigm\u00a0represents the ‘truth’.\u00a0 Kuhn draws on the history of science for his evidence, quoting\u00a0\u00a0examples of how\u00a0innovators such as Galileo, Copernicus,\u00a0Newton, Einstein\u00a0and Hawking\u00a0radically changed the way that\u00a0we now view the Universe. But their\u00a0different models\u00a0were not accepted immediately and ethusiastically because they challenged the status quo.\u00a0Galileo was under house arrest for much of his life because his ‘heretical’ writings challenged the Church.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Each revolution in thinking\u00a0was both disruptive and at the same time constructive because it opened a door\u00a0to\u00a0allow rapid expansion of knowledge and understanding. And that foundation of knowledge that has been built over the centuries is one that\u00a0we all take for granted.\u00a0 It is a fragile foundation though. It could be\u00a0all lost and forgotten in one generation because none of us are born with this knowledge and understanding. It is not obvious. We all have to learn it.\u00a0 Even scientists.<\/p>\n

Kuhn’s\u00a0book was controversial because it suggested that scientists spend most of their time blocking<\/strong> change.\u00a0This is not necessarily a bad thing.\u00a0Stability for a while is\u00a0very useful and the\u00a0output of normal science is mostly positive. For example the revolution in thinking\u00a0introduced by Isaac Newton (1643-1727) led directly to the Industrial Revolution and to far-reaching advances in every sphere of human knowledge.\u00a0Most of modern engineering is built on Newtonian\u00a0mechanics and it is only at the scales of the very large, the very small and the very\u00a0quick that it falls over. Relativistic and quantum physics are more recent and very profound shifts in thinking and they\u00a0have given us the\u00a0digital computer\u00a0and\u00a0the information revolution. This blog is a manifestation of the quantum paradigm.<\/p>\n

Kuhn concluded that the progess of change is jerky because scientists create resistance to change to create stability while doing normal science experiments.\u00a0\u00a0But these same experiments produce evidence that\u00a0suggest that the current paradigm is flawed. Over time the pressure of conflicting evidence accumulates, disharmony builds, conflict is inevitable and intellectual battle lines are drawn.\u00a0 The deeper\u00a0and more fundamental the flaw the more bitter the battle.<\/p>\n

In contrast, newcomers seek harmony in the cacophony and propose\u00a0new\u00a0theories that explain both the old and the new. New paradigms. The stage is now set\u00a0for a drama and the public watch bemused as the\u00a0academic heavyweights slug it out. Eventually a tipping point is reached and one of the new paradigms becomes dominant. Often the\u00a0transition is triggered by one crucial experiment.<\/p>\n

There is a sudden release of the tension and\u00a0a painful and disruptive conceptual \u00a0lurch – a paradigm shift. Then the whole process starts over again. The creators of the new paradigm become the\u00a0consolidators and in time the defenders and eventually the dogmatics!\u00a0 And it can take decades and even generations for the transition to be completed.<\/p>\n

It is said that Albert Einstein (1879-1955) never fully accepted quantum physics even though his work\u00a0planted the seeds for it and\u00a0experience showed that it explained the experimental observations better.\u00a0[For more about Einstein click here<\/a>].\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The message that some take from Kuhn’s book is that\u00a0paradigm shifts\u00a0are the only<\/strong> way that\u00a0knowledge \u00a0can advance.\u00a0 With this\u00a0assumption getting change to happen requires creating a crisis – a burning platform.\u00a0Unfortunatelty this is an error of logic – it is a unverified generalisation from an observed\u00a0specific. The evidence is growing that this\u00a0we-always-need-a-burning-platform<\/em> assumption is incorrect.\u00a0 It appears that the\u00a0growth of\u00a0\u00a0knowledge and understanding can be smoother, less damaging and more effective without<\/strong> creating a crisis.<\/p>\n

So what is the evidence that this is possible?<\/p>\n

Well, what pattern would you look for to illustrate that it is possible to improve\u00a0smoothly and continually? A smooth growth\u00a0curve\u00a0of some sort? Yes – but it is more than that.\u00a0 It is a smooth curve that is steeper than anyone else’s and one that is growing steeper over time.\u00a0 Evidence that someone is learning to improve faster than their peers – and learning painlessly and continuously without crises; not painfully and intermittently using crises.<\/p>\n

Two examples are Toyota and Apple.<\/p>\n

\"ToyotaLogo\"<\/a>Toyota\u00a0is a Japanese car manufacturer\u00a0that has out-performed other car manufacturers consistently for 40 years – despite the global economic boom-bust cycles. What is their secret formula for their success?<\/p>\n

\"WorldOilPriceChart\"<\/a>We need a bit of history. In the 1980’s a crisis-of-confidence hit the US\u00a0economy. It\u00a0was\u00a0suddenly threatened by higher-quality and lower-cost imported\u00a0Japanese products – for example cars.<\/p>\n

The switch to buying\u00a0Japanese cars had been triggered by the\u00a0Oil Crisis\u00a0of 1973 when the cost of crude oil quadrupled almost overnight – triggering a rush for smaller, less fuel hungry vehicles.\u00a0 This is exactly what Toyota was offering.<\/p>\n

This crisis was also a rude awakening for the US to the existence of a\u00a0significant economic threat from their former adversary.\u00a0 It was even more shocking to learn that W Edwards Deming, an American statistician, had sown the seed of\u00a0Japan’s success thirty years earlier and that Toyota had taken much of its inspiration from Henry Ford.\u00a0\u00a0The knee-jerk\u00a0reaction of the\u00a0automotive industry academics\u00a0was to copy how Toyota was doing it, the Toyota Production System (TPS)\u00a0and from that the school of Lean Tinkering was born.<\/p>\n

This knowledge transplant has been both slow and painful and\u00a0although learning to use the\u00a0Lean Toolbox has improved\u00a0Western manufacturing productivity and given us all more reliable, cheaper-to-run cars – no other company has been able to match the continued success of Japan.\u00a0 And the reason is that the automotive industry academics\u00a0did not copy the paradigm – the intangible, subjective, unspoken\u00a0mental model that created the context for\u00a0success.\u00a0\u00a0They just copied the tangible manifestation of that paradigm.\u00a0 The tools.\u00a0That is just cynically copying information and knowledge to\u00a0gain a competitive advantage – it is not\u00a0respecfully growing understanding and wisdom to reach a collaborative vision.<\/p>\n

\"AppleLogo\"<\/a>Apple is now one of the largest companies in the world and it has become so because Steve Jobs (1955-2011), its Californian, technophilic, Zen Bhuddist, entrepreneurial co-founder, had a very clear vision: To design products for people.\u00a0\u00a0And to do that they continually challenged their own and their customers paradigms. Design is a logical-rational exercise. It is the deliberate use of explicit knowledge to create something that delivers what is needed but in a different way. Higher quality and lower cost.\u00a0It is normal science.<\/p>\n

Continually challenging our current\u00a0paradigm is not<\/strong> normal science. It is revolutionary science. It is deliberately disruptive innovation. But continually challenging the current paradigm is uncomfortable for many and, by all accounts,\u00a0Steve Jobs was\u00a0not an easy person to work for because he was future-looking and\u00a0demanded perfection in the present. But the success of this paradigm\u00a0is a matter of fact:\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. hit new heights financially with $108 billion in revenues (increased significantly from $65 billion in 2010) and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. Apple achieved these results while losing market share in certain product categories. On August 20, 2012 Apple closed at a record share price of $665.15 with 936,596,000 outstanding shares it had a market capitalization of $622.98 billion. This is the highest nominal market capitalization ever reached by a publicly traded company and surpasses a record set by Microsoft in 1999.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And remember – Apple almost went bust.\u00a0Steve Jobs had been ousted from the company he co-founded in a boardroom coup in 1985.\u00a0\u00a0After he left Apple floundered and Steve Jobs proved it was his paradigm that was the essential ingredient by setting up NeXT computers and then\u00a0Pixar. Apple’s fortunes only recovered after 1998 when Steve Jobs was invited back. The rest is history so click to\u00a0see and hear\u00a0Steve Jobs<\/a> describing the Apple paradigm.<\/p>\n

So the evidence states that\u00a0Toyota and Apple are doing something very different from the rest of the pack and it is not just very good product design. They are continually updating their knowledge and understanding – and they are doing this using a very different paradigm.\u00a0 They are continually challenging themselves to\u00a0learn.\u00a0To illustrate how they do it\u00a0– here is\u00a0a list of the five principles that underpin Toyota’s approach:<\/p>\n