Collective Ignorance: On the Razor’s Edge

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Famous ‘Razors’ in Human History

1852:  Despite meeting his end more than 500 years prior, William of Ockham becomes the namesake for Occam’s Razor, the principle that guides us, in true K.I.S.S. fashion, to avoid complicating theories with additional assumptions when a simpler explanation will fit the observations.

 

1992: Scott Hall, a.k.a. Razor Ramon, makes his professional wrestling debut.  In more than four years with the World Wrestling Federation, he wins 4 championships and shows the world what happens when you mess with the bad guy.

 

 

2003: Gillette debuts the M3 Power, the 432nd incarnation in the Mach 3 line of shaving products.  At a time when the shaving experience couldn’t get any less enjoyable, the M3 Power was the first razor to feature an annoying battery-powered hum and finger-numbing vibration.

 

OK, so outside of an occasional reference to Occam’s Razor, the ‘razors’ on this list have not had much of an impact within the Lean community.  Well, my friends, that’s all about to change.  Move over Occam.  There’s a new razor in town.

A New ‘Razor’ for the Lean Community

In the world of philosophy, a razor is a principle or a ‘rule of thumb’ that allows us to slice away unlikely explanations for a phenomenon.  While Occam’s Razor may get the most press, it is a relatively new razor that may have the greatest utility for us on the Lean journey.

Coined in 1990 by Robert Hanlon of Scranton, PA (the birthplace of all great world knowledge), Hanlon’s Razor advises that we:

In other words, Hanlon’s Razor cautions us on two principles that are central to Lean thinking: 1.) not blaming the individual for bad intentions and 2.) acknowledging that our knowledge and understanding are in short supply.

Whether it is Respect for People or Just Culture, resisting the urge to place blame on the individual is a well-known and widely-discussed precept within the practice of continuous improvement.  Instead of addressing an error by naming, blaming, shaming and retraining, the Lean practitioner is taught to look beyond the human error to the underlying root causes within the process.  I won’t discuss it here any further, as there have been many terrific pieces written on the topic already (see here, here and here for examples).

Ignorance, however, is a subject that you don’t find covered much in the Lean literature, at least not directly, but it’s no less of a barrier to our success.  Given the word’s typical connotation, to say that we are ignorant  feels like a insult.  It feels like an attack on our abilities, when in reality, it’s much less about who we are than it is about what we do (or don’t do).  Indeed, although we are generally intelligent on an individual level (as you have undoubtedly demonstrated by reading this blog), we tend to accept a collective ignorance – about our processes, about our products or services, and about our people –  that is rooted in our adherence to conventional managerial practices that focus on outcomes over learning and improving.

Overcoming our collective ignorance requires a focus on deepening our understanding of what we do.  Learning, in turn, requires the presence of three distinct components in all situations: 1. a clear expectation of the who, what, where, when, and how (standards), 2. a thorough understanding of the actual reality (the current condition) and 3. a commitment to understand and act on the differences between what is and what should be (problem solving).  We can overcome our collective ignorance when we, at all times and in all things, create the conditions that support a culture of learning.

3 Ways to Overcome Collective Ignorance

1. Create Clear Standards.  Clear standards define not only what should happen, but how, when and by whom.  In doing so, the role of  a standard is twofold, both creating a basis from which to drive further improvement and representing the extent to which we collectively understand our processes.   Lack of standards, therefore, not only inhibits the improvement process, but it also limits our knowledge to the individual level.  Without standards, each person knows only how it is that they do or manage the work; through the act of defining and refining clear standards, we are able connect our knowledge across individuals, specifying the best known way of collectively delivering a desired outcome.
2. Practice Go-and-See.  The only way to truly understand reality – the current condition – is by actually being present to observe it.   Knowledge is not created in the board room (unless we are trying to learn about what goes on there, and in that case, I’ll opt for the bliss of ignorance).  The same goes for the conference room, the back office, the coffee shop, or the bar at happy hour.   True understanding, as the name implies, only occurs at the gemba.  Go and see (and if you are so inclined, draw and teach while you are there) with a perspective to learn.
3. Experiment.  Whether it’s a bias of overconfidence, an underestimation of complexity, or a fear of the unknown, taking action is too often relegated simply to implementation, and is not seen as an opportunity to test our understanding.  Whether we like it or not, we cannot know what it is that we don’t know.  The only way to understand and to learn is to do by experimenting to create an actual reality against which we can test and enhance our knowledge.

Putting it all together, I’d like to propose Joel’s Corollary: a form of  Hanlon’s Razor adapted to the Lean world:

Do you have a law, a principle or razor that you would like to canonize for the KaiZone Community?  Claim your 15 minutes of fame by sharing it in the comments section below!