environment is changing almost continuously, which means the moment we’ve worked out a way to solve a particular problem, the problem itself changes and our solution gradually works less and less well. But dammit, our brains don’t want to keep reinventing the wheel; they want to mass-produce wheels! Our whole existence seems to be built on the idea that the path to wealth, happiness, and the American Dream lies in replicating the same thing over and over.
Sure, we talk about innovation, creativity, collaborative involvement, continuous improvement, and all those other things we’re supposed to embrace. But when it comes right down to it, those things are a big pain in the ass. Who wants to spend all their time trying to come up with the next iPhone? Very few people do, and even fewer of those have the capability to do it. You’re talking about a group of people that numbers in the thousands. With seven billion people and counting on the planet, statistically this is equivalent to zero people. Of that tiny group of highly innovative, creative people, some work at Apple, and the rest at companies you’ve never heard of. So what happens? Our systems, our processes, our people, and our products all get disconnected from the world. You’re a Detroit car company making millions of cars that no one wants. It’s been pretty clear for ages that you’ve been left behind. But you keep pumping out those crappy cars because . . . why? Because it’s too hard to change what you’re doing? Too hard to think about things differently?
A long time ago, Martha spelled out a few things for me that really struck home. What she said boiled down to a fairly simple set of ideas about change and improvement that apply in any context.
1 There can be no improvement without change.
2 You can’t do it better unless you do it differently.
3 You can’t do it differently unless you can think about it differently. This involves a bit of a leap of faith, but there’s some thinking involved in trying to figure out a new way to do things. Which leads to:
4 You can’t think about it differently without adopting a new mental framework, a new perspective, or, to use a word that can sometimes make people throw up a little in the back of their throats, a new paradigm.
Martha’s point was that a mental framework is really just an organized collection of thoughts about how to deal with a certain situation. A framework is useful, because you get to figure something out once and then store those ideas in your brain for next time. We call the ideas a perspective or a paradigm. It’s like having a little procedure manual in our heads that we follow every time the situation arises.
Of course, the problem with mental frameworks is that soon after we establish them, the world changes and our perspective needs to be revised. Having expended so much effort to get that new perspective, though, the last thing we want to do is revise it. Instead, we want to take it out into the world and use it to solve every problem we encounter. It’s as if the natural industrial engineer in us wants to extract maximum value from every mental framework we develop.
The related challenge we face is thinking that once we have a solution, it will work on every problem. I fell into that trap for a while with project management. Once I understood the basic perspective on projects and familiarized myself with some of the tools that could be used, I tried to treat everything like a project. Turns out not everything is a project, though, and applying the project management process to anything that moved was not the best approach.
All of this was what I found myself coming back to with Hyler. I was searching for a perspective, a paradigm, that would help me deal with . . . what, exactly? When it came down to it, I was having trouble putting my arms around the problem. “I don’t want to close the plant” wasn’t a terribly helpful way to state the issue. Neither was “We’re not as efficient as we need to be” or “Demand for our products is down,” though all three of those statements were true.
When I took the opportunity to pull Martha aside at her birthday party and broach the subject of my struggles, she put on her regular sarcastic, crusty exterior, but I think it really made her day. I wasn’t sure I should be pinning my hopes for a solution to the problems at Hyler on a woman who was turning 102 years old. But beggars can’t be choosers, and Martha had once been a great source of ideas for me. In fact, as we got talking, I wondered why it had taken me so long to have another serious chat with her. After her regular number of digs and jabs, she had summed things up, as she always did, in a way that made me feel a little stupid.
“So, Willie,” she said, “you’ve described a bunch of different issues, and you’re telling me that things aren’t good at Hyler. Would you say that’s fair?” I nodded emphatically. “OK, well, that’s fine, but I can’t really help you with a bunch of random problems.” She chuckled. “Actually, I probably could. But that doesn’t seem to be why you’re here. So what is it you want help with?”
I stammered, stuttered, and then went silent. Martha had a gift for making me feel like an idiot, and she was in full-on giving mode at that moment. To be fair, I probably deserved it. I had laid out a variety of complaints about everything from the union to the performance management system to how we paid our salespeople, but what was I really asking her?
I came up with a ploy to give myself time to think. I said, “Your beer is looking a little low, Martha. Can I get you another one?”
She snorted. “Take your time, Willie. And yes, I’ll have another one, thank you, while you try to think this through.” I got up and headed for the kitchen.
What was the problem I was trying to solve? What was wrong with the existing situation?
By the time I returned with two more bottles of beer in hand, I had made exactly zero progress on answering that question. When I admitted as much, Martha laughed and said, “It’s not an easy question, my boy. But think on it a bit, and come back and see me when you’re ready to talk some more.” Then she smiled in a rather ghoulish way. “But don’t wait too long, Willie. I might not be here.”
THE FOLLOWING Monday I was in the Hyler main boardroom, staring at an empty whiteboard, trying to figure out how to answer Martha’s question. I’d been sitting there since 6:15 a.m., hoping that an early start would lead to early insight and that by 8:00 a.m. I’d be heading to Starbucks to celebrate with a latte. It was now 9:10 a.m. and progress was negligible.
Misery being what it is, I decided I needed to share my struggle. Ten minutes later I had my senior team sitting around the table. Stu, Amanda, Leslie, Alice, Sheila, Mark, and Luigi stared at me in silence until Luigi ventured, “So this is it?”
“This is what?” I asked.
“The big announcement,” Luigi said.
“Announcement?” I asked.
Stu sighed. “C’mon, Will, don’t play games. The announcement about the plant closing. You called all of us in here with no notice on a Monday morning. What else could it be?”
Alice, as VP of accounting and finance, had the usual stack of papers in front of her. “Funny thing is, things have improved a little in the eight weeks since you’ve been back. But obviously not enough.”
Amanda looked like she was going to cry. Mark Goldman actually had tears in his eyes. “It was a good run, Will,” said Sheila.
I felt like yelling at all of them. Instead, I kept my voice as calm as I could. “Have you guys given up? You think things are that far gone? That I’d be back for only two months and then shut things down?”
Everyone looked at me blankly. Amanda said, “Is that a trick question?”
I
