Immunity in Business

I heard a quote a while back that really hit home for me…

“Many people subscribe to the vaccination theory of education. After they get their degree or diploma, they think they are done learning and can leave that part of their lives behind them!”

This is a spin on the original statement by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner of 1969, but it holds true today.

Most people believe that once they learn something, they need not learn it again or revisit the training. Instead, having gone through a course once or sat through a seminar, they now possess all the knowledge on the subject they need, and hence stop learning.

This, unfortunately, is the way many people look at business as well. Once they have begun working in a certain way, they rarely change even if they have been shown time and again that even the slightest change would result in great improvement.

This is actually a death threat to businesses today and must be addressed. Most people have “confirmation bias” which leads them to believe the way they’ve always done things is still the best way to do them, regardless of the external changes occurring around them.

On the other hand, there is an old Japanese master who had a very different take on business. His approach has been adopted by companies like Toyota, Ford, GM, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, and popularized more recently by Eric Ries in his book, Lean Startup.

The man I’m talking about is Taiichi Ohno, the originator of the Toyota Production System (TPS) and just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing. More specifically, Ohno had what was known as the “Ten Precepts” which helps people understand how to implement his process in their business.

I’m particularly attracted to Precept #9, which states:

"Re-improve what was improved for further improvement."

This philosophy is also found in W. Edward Deming’s work (which is cited as the foundation for Japan’s massive turnaround in the 1950’s and 60’s), and Masaaki Imai, the “father” of Kaizen.

Essentially, what all three of these men state is that to be better tomorrow than you were yesterday, you must never stop improving, or changing for the better.

I believe that if you ever look at anyone with a certain degree of success, they will have adopted this same belief as an individual and will continue to get better at whatever they choose.

You will also see the most innovative companies adopt this mindset, and to them the response of "well that's the way we've always done things..." is like hearing nails on a chalkboard. That's because we know this mentality is what puts companies out of business.

There is no immunity in business...you must continue to change, adapt, and improve.

You can see that this theory is in stark contrast to the way most people think about their work, their lives, their education, and even their businesses. Most people are okay with the status quo and are not apt to improve regularly.

That is okay…

They will soon be out of business and you and I will continue to improve and make the world a better place, profiting handsomely along the way.

To Your Freedom!