In the same vein as the recent posts, another fact about humans is that it helps to have regular patterns, habits, ruts that we're in. The same trade off applies, that sometimes the rut needs to change, but most of the time it doesn't and those times it is a big help to be in a good rut. Then, we call it a "groove."
Toyota's "lean process" design involves methodically establishing these ruts, and methods for changing to better ruts as time goes on.
The ruts are called "standardized work" and the methods involve becoming a little scientific experimeter, and learning from each day with eyes open what works and what doesn't given the current rut that we are abiding with and trying to follow as best we can.
Then, at the end of each day, having learned something new, we alter the rut a little bit, then lock it back down again.
This alternation of freedom and constraint is necessary. It doesn't seem to work to be "free" all the time, or to be "stuck in a rut" all the time.
So, when we are coming up with our budget or flight-plan or schedule for the day, we should be "free" to rearrange things and do mental experiments and try new things. Then, the best thing to do is to lock that down, end the "freedom" phase, and go into the "locked into that" phase and spend our energy trying to live within the constraints THAT WE JUST SET FOR OURSELVES.
We have two responsibilities here. We have to wear the hat of planner, and plan realistically and with compassion for what we are actually, realistically, going to be be able to do. Then, we have to wear the hat of a faithful servant, and spend some time trying to live within that plan.
As they say: "Plan the flight, fly the plan."
It's easier said than done.
Again, it helps to have a group support in order to "be all we can be". A public plan may have more power over us in the servant phase than a private plan.
Freedom from the "discipline" and "hardship" of following the budget or plan is one of those flashes in the pan that adults learn quickly is a bad thing.
What we end up longing for is the "freedom" to be able to follow our own damn plan despite our internal temptations to give in to some cop out. We need to be able to say "No!" to ourselves, whatever paradoxical reality is behind that.
And, that works best if we recruit our friends to help us do that, and make public commitments about our plan and what we're hoping to do, and why we think it may run into our weakness as human beings and need a little help in the middle there.
We are as strong, seen by the outside world after it is all over, as our ability to admit realistic weaknesses and recruit helpful friends to help us out in those spots.
This is a different kind of "strong" than we usually think of.
Curiously, it is precisely the kind of strong that works. It is the kind of strong in "Army strong", and the kind of paradox where "An army of one" or "Be all you can be" are slogans of a group that specializes in having ruts, drills, authority, and obedience that people sign up for on purpose in order to make their own "self" stronger - in context of this external supportive group.
We don't need the army to do that, we can set up our own groups.
What is a mistake in any book is to try to make it without a group.
Humans are not designed to be solo-performers. We are never at our best when alone, never as good as we could be in the right context, with the right people leaning on us with the full power of habit and expectations and counting on us to do the right thing exceptionally well.
When I read in recent studies that 20% of the USA's males have not even a single friend they can confide in, I am very concerned that something terrible is happening.
We're going the wrong way, if we're abandoning friendship in our quest for becoming perfect Rambo super-humans.
The inevitable result, sooner or later, is the mortgage fiasco all over again. There is no level of "bright" so great that it breaks the rule that "smart people can still do really stupid things."
Our "smartness" has to be in using every opportunity to invest our wisdom and best days outside our bodies, no inside. We need to invest it in the people around us, and also invest in listening to them, and also invest in the factors that will make that process work. It can work.
Toyota showed it can work in a corporate setting. We can be each other's context.
We can't make it as little islands, cut off from everyone around us.
No amount of high-tech goodies, or math and science education, or wealth makes us exempt from this basic principle of life.
Life will drive us to multi-cellular shapes, whether we want to or not. Period. Live with it.
Accept it. Face it. And figure out how to make it work.
There is one comforting fact you can be sure of -- absolutely everyone else has exactly the same problem.
We are all in the same boat on this one.
So, that's good. We can be a little more open and honest about it, and trade notes, and use break time to talk about strategies.
As in Gary Larson's cartoon, we cavemen can look at Oog, holding the raw meat in the fire on a stick instead of burning his hands like we are and say "Look what Oog do!"
This isn't rocket science. It just needs to be done.
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