[Translation] Standards: excellence vs. mediocrity
Original from 4/24/2011: Gestão 2.0
The text below is a translation of the excellent article “Standards: excellence vs mediocrity,” written by Jason Yip, a Thoughtworks consultant whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person last year.
Before starting the translated text, a small introduction: we all know how many concepts we take as foundational in the Western world can be radically different in the Eastern world. One of those concepts hard to translate from the Eastern to the Western world is precisely “standards.” In the Western world a “standard” is a common denominator — static, rigid, hard to change, the status quo. In the Eastern world, the idea of “standard” is “the best.” If tomorrow another “best” appears, that should be considered the new standard. It isn’t something unreachable that we admire from below knowing we’ll hardly reach it, like a “record.”
Imagine a world where the “record” is the “standard.” I talked about this in another article called Standards, Commodities and Innovation — recommended reading. Now, here’s the translation of Jason’s article:
A few years ago, I joined a Lean study tour in Japan. As expected, we visited a Toyota factory. Unexpectedly, this visit was led by a factory manager who also accompanied us on the tour. At one point, we were looking at a demonstration area for fundamental skills training — developing the basic skills needed to be a productive member on the assembly line. Most of it was about hand-eye coordination and motor skills. For example, there was an exercise where you take a thin rope and lead it around pegs following a known sequence clockwise or counterclockwise. I sketched an example of what that might look like:
I was able to do the exercise in 8 seconds. Then we watched a video showing the factory champion doing it in 4 seconds. We then asked the factory manager what the standard was, expecting the answer to be something between 5 and 6 seconds. His answer? 4 seconds, of course. If someone is able to do it in 5 to 6 seconds, they would train them to reach 4 seconds, but slower than that, and they’d probably find something else for the candidate to do.
Our basic premise was that “standard” should be something easy enough that anyone could do it. Sometimes that “standard” comes with the expectation of training, but often it ends up being about the lowest common denominator in order to get consistency. Obviously, we can’t get consistency if our standards can only be reached by a subset of people. The consequence of this way of thinking is that “standards” inevitably push the organization toward mediocrity.
Toyota’s premise is that the best should be the standard. There’s still the expectation that people can reach it (with training) and an expectation of consistency, but it’s a standard of excellence rather than a lowest common denominator. This creates a much higher expectation of performance and challenge. The consequence of this way of thinking is that “standards” inevitably push the organization toward excellence, especially as people’s capabilities continue to develop over time.
In one case, standards are an anchor; in the other case, standards are an engine.
And is this different in our world of information technology and software development? I don’t think so. Think about the last standard you encountered (e.g., coding standards, design standards, etc.) Was it developed as an anchor or as an engine? And what would it be like if all standards were developed to be engines?