The Business Lessons That Are Difficult To Sustain

Thursday, 9.01pm

Sheffield, U.K.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain. – Epictetus

This is the final post in my book reading project on John Seddon’s book “Freedom from Command and Control”.

All the posts are listed here.

Seddon’s ideas are different from the ones you will find in the mainstream – and so it’s tempting to assume they’re not relevant.

After all, if something works then everyone will be doing it. Right?

Wrong.

Here’s a puzzle that my brother-in-law asked me. An elephant can pass through the eye of a needle. But its tail does not. Why is that?

If you want to improve your business you have to think differently.

This is the difference between a command-and-control approach and one based on thinking in systems.

Instead of separating measures and work you should integrate the two.

This means that accountants sitting far away from where the work is done crunching numbers and creating reports don’t add value.

Walking the floor and looking at what’s going on does.

Splitting your team into divisional silos and functions that don’t talk to each other creates conflict and pushes up costs.

Creating flow, with a clean output from one area being the input to the next reduces costs.

Instead of thinking that the only people with brains are the top leadership get all of your team to bring their brains to work. Reward them for doing so.

Finally, you don’t get better by codifying method – by creating forms or lecturing about processes.

You get better by doing the work, thinking about methodology, trying things out and learning. Writing things down helps – but it needs to done by those who do the doing rather than imposed by someone who wants a tick mark from an auditor.

When you create a business that does this you have happy customers and happy employees and you have something that creates social value.

This is not the kind of thing we’re taught to look for.

And that’s because it’s simple. It doesn’t require new systems, big technology, AI or anything else.

It’s just about people working well together.

So it doesn’t have a big marketing budget. Just like weight loss drugs are sold to you instead of beans and rice. They’ll both help you lose weight and reduce your risk from chronic diseases, but one costs a grand and a half a month for the rest of your life and the other is pennies a day.

Which one do you think people will market to you?

This is something to think about.

If it’s being sold to you, it’s probably bad for you.

Did you work out what the elephant story was trying to teach you?

It’s really hard to get an elephant through the eye of a needle. The elephant is big, the needle is small. It’s a big task – like changing your entire way of thinking to see what works and what doesn’t.

Some people succeed, they fit their elephants through the needle and figure out what change is needed – what they have to do.

And now that they’ve worked it out you’d think that everyone would follow?

It’s been shown to be possible – surely the elephant’s tail will pass through quickly. All these other people will take the opportunity and go after these better ideas and methods.

But they don’t. Sometimes they go backwards and reimplement command and control in an organisation that has managed to get rid of it.

Despite all the advances in technology the best way to build a business is with people who like doing what they do with customers who appreciate their work.

Focus on building a business that does that.

Cheers,

Karthik Suresh