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0 pointsPunchyHamster4mo ago0 comments

> At their worst, they take on all the worst aspects of cults together with all the worst aspects of high school. Endless manoeuvring for influence, currying favour, autocratic fiefdoms emerging without people having the mental framework to even identify that they exist.

But that's just how it works in typical normal hierarchy. The normal hierarchy just makes it easier to "pick a target" you need to please

The falling of any, whether formal or flat, is incentive misalignment, if a given structure makes it so screwing other people over so you look better is profitable, it will inevitably happen. And it's really hard to align incentives that way, like how even in "flat" companies often working on new shiny profitable brings more capital (whether social or actual) than maintaining long-term project

> I don't know how this applies in the context of Toyota, but there are plenty of places where pushing the Stop button - while formally permitted - has a social cost such that only a certain few are effectively given permission to do so; large amounts of energy are expended either attempting to belong to that few, or currying favour with them. Power tends to accrue to those most inclined to seize it.

The idea that gets lost in the translation is empowering people to put stop to things that can in long term be net loss to company and trusting worker with knowing enough about their job that the power won't be used willy-nilly.

For the idea to work you not only need culture where that won't be shunned by some manager coz it made him miss their KPIs, but also having each worker be competent enough to know where to use the power

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mrguyorama4mo ago

You specifically need a culture that considers "Unskilled labor" to be an oxymoron. Where a literal assembly line worker feels like they have enough expertise to say "No, this is a problem worth stopping production over".

American car companies for example have always preferred to just keep the line moving and have a later QA step fix up the problem, or literally push the problem onto the dealer.

You need to treat even your low employees as not replaceable cogs in a machine.

This is the opposite of what American business school culture has taught for decades, which is why Toyota was unable to teach GM how to do what they were doing.

Not only did GM managers not do a good job of respecting their employees, but decades of that lack of respect meant that the employees didn't trust management enough to play along with the system in good faith. Everyone was "Defecting" and it makes everyone worse off.

Yet Japan DOES have a strictly hierarchical work culture, where openly countering something your boss says isn't exactly welcome. So I wonder how this sort of "Trust your employees to have good ideas" thing came about.

tristor4mo ago

> Yet Japan DOES have a strictly hierarchical work culture, where openly countering something your boss says isn't exactly welcome. So I wonder how this sort of "Trust your employees to have good ideas" thing came about.

What happened is that they bought into the Edward Deming viewpoint of Total Quality Control (TQC), and instituted this throughout their business in a way which melded correctly with their culture, ultimately resulting in Kaizen and The Toyota Way. It didn't happen overnight, it happened over a period of about 20-30 years, so that now we think of it as something inherent to Toyota that is not possible to replicate. Because of Toyota's strict commitment at the upper levels and the strict hierarchy of Japanese work culture, once they had committed they expended every necessary effort until the thing was done, which differs from American companies where it's often hard to get folks to even try anything new in the way they approach their work.

mmooss4mo ago

> once they had committed they expended every necessary effort until the thing was done

That's too simplistic to describe the reality of humanity. Whatever Toyota's discipline, it's a matter of degree and they have challenges implementing it.

Earw0rm4mo ago

> But that's just how it works in typical normal hierarchy. The normal hierarchy just makes it easier to "pick a target" you need to please

It means that the org has been intentionally designed with that in mind, so those running it will be aware that this is an operational factor.

> For the idea to work you not only need culture where that won't be shunned by some manager coz it made him miss their KPIs, but also having each worker be competent enough to know where to use the power

And a culture which allows the worker to possess whatever information and context they need in order to exercise that competence effectively. Hiring and training is part of it, sufficiently open information-flow is the other key.

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