Let’s Make a Mistake!

Why would anyone want to make a mistake?

A.????To screw up the organisation?

B.????To learn by trying something new?

Russell Ackoff wrote[1]?(I have changed his words but not the thought), “From kindergarten through university, we learn mistakes are bad things. The system penalises us for them. Schools and companies do not determine whether we have learned from our mistakes. The grade or performance rating we get is not based on what we learned from our mistakes.?

Upon the completing our schooling, we enter the job market. Companies are clear that mistakes are a bad thing and that they will hold them against us.?

Managers laugh when I (Ackoff) tell them of an organization that offers an annual prize for the best mistake. That mistake is the one from which they have learned the most. The CEO of Anheuser-Busch said, "You are not doing your job if you do not try anything new. I know you did not try something new if you made no serious mistake last year. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake. But if you ever make the same mistake twice you won't be here the next year." He had it right: forgive the mistakes we learn from.”

Here is another Ackoff quote, “We cannot learn from doing anything right. We already know how to do it”.

Ackoff goes on to discuss two types of errors:

A.????Errors of commission. You do something you should not have done.

B.?????Errors of omission. You do not do something that you should do.

I do my best to promote the Theory of Constraints (TOC). I do this because I am convinced the World needs TOC. I know that TOC can help almost any organization achieve a much better result. Organisations can achieve much more of their goal if they apply TOC. This is what I know and what I claim. I and others can give plenty of examples that my claim is true.

Despite my claims and references TOC is still a very long way away from being the main way organisations are managed.

If you choose to implement TOC, you may be making an error of commission. Management will see what you have done and what the consequences (positive or negative) are.

If you choose to?NOT?implement TOC, you may be making an error of omission. This decision is invisible nobody needs to know you have decided against TOC.

The challenge:

Implement TOC or some selected part of it (production management, inventory management, project management …). The claims of TOC successes exist and can help you define the OKR.?

A key claim is results are achievable within a very short space of time. I have stories of using TOC and achieving 30 – 40% more factory output within less than 2 months. If you get little or nothing you can abort after a very short time. Better still, make your own success story and report it here, on Linkedin and elsewhere. Please!

Make sure you analyse and understand why you do not achieve something like the promised results. After all, when you learn the theory and methods the changes to be made must, logically, lead to the expected result.

LEARN FROM MISTAKES - yours and other's

[1]?https://thesystemsthinker.com/why-few-organizations-adopt-systems-thinking/Let’s Make a Mistake!