In the fall of 2009, at the time I started digging deeper into Enterprise 2.0 and the management principles this organization approach implied, I set up a list of 10 management principles and how it differentiates with management as we know it.
About 12 months later in November 2010, Jim Womack, co-author of The Machine that Changed the World or System Lean, wrote a piece called Lean Management Vs Modern Management where the author applies a similar approach and compare 10 key Lean Management principles with the corresponding approach in Modern Management.
This article has been written for Gemba Walks, an awesome collection of short essays #hypertextual will soon sing the praise for in a dedicated blog post.
While my original blog post may look a bit shallow and messy in retrospect, this piece spawned from the wisdom and lucidity of a master with 30 years of Gemba Walks is deeply inspiring.
I could elaborate on every single principle for about forever but I just want here to focus on number 2 : Process Vs Result. After a quarter of a century of work in the knowledge economy I tend to believe this might be the most important one : focussing more on the « How » than on the « What ».
So here they are :
- Responsibility Vs Authority
- Process Vs Results
- Ask Questions Vs Give Answers
- Experiments Vs Plans
- Gemba Learning Vs Formal Education
- Line manager and teams improve processes Vs Dedicated staff (Program Office or consultants)
- Fact based decisions on the Gemba Vs data based decisions in meeting rooms
- Line managers and staff standardize their work Vs dedicated staff (program office and line managers)
- Go slow to go fast Vs go fast to go slow
- Horizontal focus (value stream and processes) Vs vertical focus (functions)
#hypertextual 