Dec 26 2013
What’s eating John Seddon?
Back in 1992, Seddon published “I want you to cheat,” as a distillation of then seven years of consulting experience with service organizations in Britain. It contains some general principles, supported by examples. It is quite readable, and contains no personal attacks on anyone. While “I want you to cheat” does not reference any giant on whose shoulder the author sits, more recent publications from Seddon repeatedly acknowledge Deming and Ohno.
It was his comment that “This respect for people stuff is horseshit” at a conference in Iceland in 2012 that drew my attention to his work. While certainly aggressive, it was not a personal attack. The latest kerfuffle is about the following statements in his 11/2013 newsletter:
“Every time I have been to the jamboree they have had an American lean guru spouting nonsense and this is no exception. This time it’s the guru who claims lean fails because it is what he calls ‘fake lean’ and his lean is the way to go! His ‘real lean’ starts with ‘respect for people’. I can imagine ‘respect for people’ events and tee-shirts (he sells tee shirts) while there is no change to the system conditions that drive misery and other forms of sub-optimisation. Only in America; the home of the terrible diseases.
What would you call a profound idea in this guru’s head? A tourist!”
The target of this attack, although unnamed, recognized himself. It’s Bob Emiliani, and he posted a response on his blog, entitled Kudos to John Seddon. Bill Waddell then chimed in with John Seddon – Where Ignorance and Arrogance Collide. To Bob, Seddon is like a student who did not understand the concept of “respect for people,” while Bill dismisses Seddon as a blowhard from a backward little country who has failed to understand the depth and the subtlety of the US version of Lean.
There is a good reason while the etiquette of on-line discussion groups forbids personal attacks: they cause discussions to degenerate into trash talk and name calling. It may be briefly entertaining, but quickly turns off readers who don’t have a dog in these fights and just want to information. Besides insulting Bob Emiliani, Seddon has steamed up patriot Bill Waddell with derogatory comments about America. You reap what you sow.
I have, however, heard comments that were as strident as Seddon’s from other consultants, from Japan. They were equally dismissive of US Lean, of American management in general, and even the country as a whole. This was usually, but not always, in private communications rather than in publications. These “insultants,” however, often got away with it, with audiences looking past the invective for useful ideas, and I think it is the appropriate response. Ignore the rant and engage on substance. If some is offered, you will be better off for it.
It is also worth pondering why people feel compelled to act this way. For John Seddon, I don’t know; I am not privy to his thoughts, but I can guess. We should remember that, in the market of ideas, we in the US have a worldwide home court advantage. Ideas command more attention and are more credible simply because of the “Made in America” label.
Lean is the most ironic example. The Toyota Production System did not come out of the US, yet the worldwide internet chatter and consulting business about it is dominated by a US version known as “Lean,” which is as faithful to the original as Disney’s Aladdin and The Hunchback of Notre Dame are to Arabian Nights and Victor Hugo’s novel. Borrowing, metabolizing and even distorting ideas from other cultures is done everywhere, and is to be expected; what is special about the US is that the American version radiates back to the world and overwhelms the original.
Last year, the Olympics opening ceremony in London reminded the world where the industrial revolution began. For more than a century, the world looked to Britain as a model for politics, economics, and manufacturing, but these days are gone, and for an idea to come from Britain is now a handicap rather than a credibility enhancer.
John Seddon happens to be British. For 28 years, he has been making a living as a consultant to service organizations in the public and private sector and, as anyone with this kind of experience would, he has developed an approach to doing it. We may or may not agree with it, but it deserves a respectful hearing. What I read into Seddon’s current stridency is that he has not been getting it. I think he is turning up the volume to prevent his voice being drowned out in the Lean tsunami coming out of the US.
Seddon dismisses Lean consultants as “tool heads.” I like tools. I use tools all the time, both in private and professional life. But I don’t use them indiscriminately. Following are three questions about a tool, that I would not ask about a hammer or a phone, but would about, say, Kanban or SMED:
1. Who invented this tool?
2. What problem was he/she trying to solve?
3. Do I have that problem?
Dec 28 2013
Manufacturing is Making Things — Service isn’t
With services being the dominant source of employment in advanced economies, more and more consultants are turning to this area as the next frontier for Lean, and engaging in debates as to which of Manufacturing or Service has the greatest variability. The level of variability, however, does not strike me as the fundamental difference between the two.
It is more obvious: Manufacturing is about making things, while Service is not. In manufacturing, a physical object is the output. In service, if there is a physical output, it is only an information support, a licence, a boarding pass, a stamped form, a prescription, or a report.
High volume/Low mix and Low volume/High mix activities exist on both sides. In manufacturing, you have plants making 1 million identical electricity meters per year while others make 200 custom-designed machines and fixtures. In service, you have organizations that issue drivers’ licences all day, every day, and others that provide advice on interior design that is custom for each home and occupant.
Manufacturing needs the appropriate technology and management to make things, including expensive facilities, often with large, noisy, dirty, and even dangerous machines, and a support structure for logistics, maintenance, quality, etc. It attracts some people and not others, and the experience of working together in production creates a level of camaraderie that is rarely found in service… I could go on and on.
The consequence is that improving Service is a different challenge from improving Manufacturing. I never bought the notion that a system like TPS, developed to make cars, could be a panacea for all business activities, and this is why I remained focused on Manufacturing.
Whether Lean is an expanded or watered down version of TPS, I consider that it has to prove itself in every new domain, even in Manufacturing. In Service, it seems to help in hospital operations, and the crossover value of industrial engineering in this field has been established since Frank Gilbreth redesigned operating room procedures 100 years ago.
Would it help in the organization of distribution centers for eCommerce? Perhaps, but it is not a foregone conclusion. Does Amazon use Lean? The closest I could find to a positive answer is one sentence by Jeff Bezos in an Harvard Business Review interview quoted by Pete Abilla on Shmula:
Unlike other Shmula readers, I can’t jump from this to the conclusion that Amazon are based on Six Sigma or Lean. Instead, what I hear Bezos saying is “We studied what’s out there, and went our own way.” And that way is a game changer in retail worldwide, worthy of study in its own right.
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By Michel Baudin • Management 6 • Tags: Lean, Manufacturing, Service