Many intelligent people get quite upset when top business leaders are criticized, principally because those who get upset subscribe to two fallacies: “argument from authority” and “appeal to accomplishment.” In the former, an opinion is believed to be correct simply because someone in authority (high in status) said it. For example, when a CEO says “What gets measured gets managed.” In the latter, a person cannot question something owing to the fact that they lack the accomplishment in question. For example, “You can’t criticize the CEO because you have never been a CEO.”
Both fallacies are the result of preconceptions such as Natural order, divine right (secular version), and infallibility, which remain fixed in some people’s minds despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. These preconceptions all relate to status, power, rights, and privileges that top leaders possess, rightly or wrongly, and which are often abused which then result in criticism. Needless to say, top business leaders and their admirers view criticism only as destructive, with no possibility that it could be constructive. And they both interpret criticism, even mild criticism, as a grave insult.
Without criticism coming from below, especially, top leaders do not know about problems that they should know about. Deflecting criticism means they remain steadfast in their view that they can do no wrong. That is how disasters like the Boeing 737 Max crashes begin. No company is immune from such problems given that leaders at all levels of an organization are averse to criticism, constructive or otherwise. Which brings me to Toyota’s production system.
The development of the Toyota production system occurred because Toyota leaders and followers were willing and able to criticize themselves and their work. To create such a novel management system, one must possess the preconception, “whatever is is wrong” (which reflects reality) — unlike the top leaders and their admirers who reject criticism due to their preconception, “whatever is, is right” (which reflects fantasy). The daily practice of TPS is daily self-criticism (kaizen, especially), and it is this self-criticism that allows the Toyota production system to evolve over time. Companies have difficulty replicating TPS because most leaders at all levels have the preconception “whatever is, is right,” which makes them resistant to both external criticism and self-criticism.
Then in 1988, Lean came along, a Western derivative (low-fidelity) interpretation of Toyota’s production system. Lean’s message to top leaders everywhere is simple and harsh: You are mismanaging the company. Lean is external criticism delivered to the people who fundamentally dislike criticism because of their preconceptions about leadership. And the criticism is coming from people who have neither authority nor accomplishment. Consequently, most top leaders do one of the things that they do best, which is to ignore criticism and take offense. Once offended, most top leaders will never forgive the offender and thus never take up their cause — in this case, Lean.
Some people in the business of selling solutions to business leaders are very critical of Lean. They say, “Lean did nothing to change the trajectory of the business.” That is true; classical management still prevails. But it’s not just Lean that failed to change the trajectory of the business. The same can be said for all other attempts to improve the practice of management starting in the early 1900s and especially since the 1950s.
This is the source of great consternation for the many well-meaning people who developed new ideas for improving management. The problem lies far less with the new methods that have been developed than the innovators’ failure to understand the Institution of Leadership and the System of Profound Privilege. In simple terms, the failure to understand the way most top leaders think. They focused on leaders’ behaviors when they should have instead focused on their preconceptions.
Preconceptions → Beliefs → Behaviors → Competencies
Unfortunately, the people who gave us Lean have not thus far applied self-criticism to Lean nor are they willing to accept external criticism of Lean. (“an outside view,” as W. Edwards Deming said). In that regard, they are no different than the top business leaders who reject Lean. Whatever is, is right.