The Hollow American Economy

by BILL WADDELL

You have overwhelmed me.

Since asking for your help in making the article the best we can collectively write, I have received - as of this writing - 294 emails, comments and "Contact Me" forms from my web site.  The interest in this issue, the passion with which so many people have written, and the knowledge  embedded in those messages is nothing short of awe inspiring.

The consensus seems to be that:

1 - I need to prepare a one page executive summary version, with the full article following it, as well as to format it in 1 column - at least for the on line version.

2 - I have some fact checking and typo editing work to do. (Thank you, Jan.  I know full well that the Soviet regime collapsed in 1989; and I am vaguely aware that it is now 2009; but I did the math in my head and called that a 30 year time span.  In your comment you stated that you are too young to know about much of the past.  I say thank goodness for young people like you who can bail out old guys like me who should know better than to do complicated math like that in my head.)

3 - I need to tone down the rant.  You are asking a leopard to change his spots, you know, but I will give it my best shot.  The most recent poll I saw gives Congress a 35% approval rating.  I am four-square in the 65% who don't think too highly of our political leadership ... and I suspect the 35% who do approve did not really understand the question.  That said, I will tone it down as best I can, as much as it will pain me to do so.

4 - I need to offer more specific solutions.  I deliberately tried to avoid that in this article because many of them require a lot of background and explanation.  The necessary accounting changes are a good example.  It would take a book (like the one I wrote, for that matter) to explain what is wrong and how accounting needs to be changed.  I will take your suggestions to heart, however, and try to find the middle ground in which solutions can be proposed without going into much detail.

5 - I need to work on word economy and shorten it up.  I will do so with a vengeance. However, this is at odds with #4 which asked for more information, so it will be something of a literary challenge.

All of these suggestions are valid, and I agree with them wholeheartedly, and the next version will incorporate them all as best I can.

I did not use the word "lean" once in the entire article.  My thinking was that lean is very much misunderstood by far too many people, and that using the term 'lean' might cause some readers to turn the article off when they assumed I was advocating some convoluted approach to lean they have come to understand.  I think that it is interesting that, while all of you are lean proponents or you wold not be involved in this, not one of the 294 inputs suggested that I raise the subject of Lean Manufacturing.

Thank you all so kindly.  I have my work cut out for me.  Check back later today for the improved version. 

Comments

[mattf]

Bill:

Business is crazy here and I just saw your original post from yesterday. I'll try to give my input, but it seems you have gotten a significant amount already. I am very thankful to everyone who is able to do this. Such initiatives start small, but I am very glad it has taken off.

[Nathaniel]

One thing that has worked well over the years in regards to getting technical experts to sign off on the documentation. One thing you may want to consider, on the cover page, is to have other Lean experts help draft the document, or see if they agree with it and will sign it....like a petition of sorts.

[Mark Graban]

I read your piece yesterday Bill and will wait until the revised version is out to make comments/suggestions.

One idea though (probably already got this) is to add a bio summary about who you are as the author.

[James Sandfield]

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN

The problem with your article is that it will raise awareness at most.
I think your approach will fail, however your goal can be achieved.
You have gone into solution mode without understanding the problem.

STOP: Is making a nation lean a good thing? What is purpose? What is motivation?
LOOK: How successful will approaching everyone be?
LISTEN: What is the right approach?

It is not by having better arguments that the senate and congress will listen.
After-all they do not make decisions based on logic.

STOP: Is making a nation lean a good thing?

Don’t make the wrong thing be implemented the right way.

System: The US nation
I shall use the null hypothesis (H0) and alternative hypothesis (H1) classification.

H0: Carry on: with no real change, companies that are not lean will fail, companies that are lean will succeed – the balance remains the same.

H1: Become totally lean: with total lean success, we will hit physical boundaries. If Toyota is say 8% effective (lean limit?) and the US nation is 1% effective (generally accepted non-lean level), what happens when the US nation becomes 8% effective (manufacturing & health care discussed)?

At 2% effective, off-shored activity is back in the USA and your health system works (implication = sustainable economy + citizen’s quality of life improves).

At 4% effective, exporting goods to Western world and life expectancy significantly rises (implication = expanding economy + citizen’s live longer).

At 8% effective, exporting goods to all nations and life expectancy is over 100
(implication = trade barriers + unsustainable aging population).

Problem if the US nation became truly lean, the economy will still be doomed.
In fact, this is even demonstrated in Japan – if everyone in Japan was as lean as the exemplars, Japan’s economy would implode or it would rule the world.

Or we should use excess capacity elsewhere?

STOP: What is purpose?

Supersystem: All nations
What is the purpose of human civilisation?

Ignoring the religious and environmental arguments, over the last 8,000 years, civilisation has mixed 2 types of issues: problems (famine & disease) and solutions (innovation or war).

Every great civilisation has failed (EG Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Mayan). Eventually our current civilisation will fail unless the next innovation is powerful enough to contain the problems and the war solution. Can Lean be that solution? Yes if the US nation (& others) use the human capacity (generated from lean) to achieve this innovation.

What is this next innovation?

Well we already have lots of ability to treat the problems (famine & disease) but a new problem has arisen from saving lives: Earth does not have enough resource. Therefore the next human innovation is to get more resource – oil or land has been the solution but they are all taken.

The next logical step is get resource from outer-space: colonise or import (before the war solution becomes uncontrollable). I suggest this is the human civilisation purpose we should pursue.

Therefore making the US nation (& others) lean is a good thing to do as it will give true capacity to do this.

STOP: What is motivation?

Subsystem: Leaders (elected or otherwise)

Again H0 and H1 classification.

H0: Carry on: with no real change, greed for reward continues, political manoeuvring outweighs value adding, the system is self-fulfilling – no need to change.

H1: Become lean: less reward (Toyota executives get less pay), harder work (it is harder to be lean), more satisfied citizens (customers).

You are right to carry on your blog and to continue your campaign – or the null hypothesis (H0) will prevail.

LOOK: How successful will approaching everyone be?

The project management approach of waterfall (all at once) rarely succeeds.
Cascade is a much better approach, after-all this is how lean succeeds in companies: one person, one process, one team at a time.

Approaching 535 senators / congressmen at once will only raise awareness in some.
You will be unfocussed and unable to move them to the correct desire level.
You have the knowledge, ability and reinforcement to succeed but no desire from senators / congressmen – this is the problem that needs to be fixed.

So don’t over-process 534 with no success (one of the 7 wastes?), pick one and make that work. Get their desire (how about one with a burning platform of a nearly bankrupt state?).

Then use the lessons from the 1st senator / congressman to get another to see, then another, etc. Let them see the problem one by one and once you have reached your 100th monkey then all the monkeys will want to play.

LISTEN: What is the right approach?

Lean practitioners should use lean methods. Your approach with the senator / congressman could follow 2 particular methods:
1 – SIPOC: scope the stakeholders and measures of the problem.
Perhaps they have advisors and lobbyists that need to be involved?

2 – A3: approach the problem with structure.
Have you found the root cause? Have you identified the options? Or have you gone straight to solution – more training (your good argument) will not succeed.

PS: Waddya Mean by “Failure”

Your book ‘Evolving Excellence: Thoughts on lean enterprise leadership’ picks up on a particular issue you have not addressed:

p.112 discusses that lean failure is part of the journey – this is contradictory: why should non-lean (which does not see failure) change when they see lean failure. Lean failure is poorly executed lean – this needs to be fixed.

[Brian D]

Bill:

I think you need to spend more time on the "Wall Street" issue. With just about everyone in the market through 401K and IRAs, we (as a society) have created much of this pressure to have our investments do better than someone elses...chasing better returns. Unfortunately, as Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us".

[miket]

I suppose you could customize the executive summary part somewhat to target different congress people. That's one way to shorten it to single page papers without having to cut out as much. lol. I would keep the whitepaper part the same though.

You could also write to a portion of the 535 and gauge the responses and then adjust and write to the rest.

[miket]

Could you meet one of your local congressman and talk to them?