If you have not had a chance to check out the Quality Digest article
Systems Thinking Saves Service, please do. I have had hundreds of curiosity seekers sign-up for the newsletter and take advantage of the free download "Understanding Your Organization as a System," I suspect mostly from this article. For those that are new . . . welcome.
I had a few readers write and say that I am splitting hairs about lean and systems thinking . . . hardly. If you haven't noticed the difference between the Vanguard Method and lean than you aren't curious enough. The differences are stark. There are differences between service and manufacturing for starters. Add methodologies for human system changes and important new thinking on economies of flow, outsourcing, shared services and why change management programs fail in service organizations and the difference will be emergent to anyone curious enough to seek.
The article was a challenge to the statement that lean six sigma is unrivaled "and no other competing methodology is apparent." Well, IMHO there is one (and possibly others) method that is apparent and as the article attests more effective in treating the whole system.
In my last conversation with Dr. Deming in the summer of 1992, he discussed with me that the psychology of changing/improving organizations offered up an area of opportunity for future breakthroughs. John Seddon comes from this background and continues to make advancements in learning how to do this more effectively. Many differences to the Toyota tourists that wanted to see what Toyota did so Americans can do it too (copy). John wanted to understand why change programs failed and he found copying (by virtue of tools) was counterproductive to developing a system that could be self-reliant in learning and improving.
Too many executives believe they are saving money by "not reinventing the wheel" and embrace forms of copying like best practices, technology, benchmarking, tools, etc. The real problem is these folks DO get short-term gains from such activities, but the learning stops, and unfortunately so does innovation. Almost all systems have been designed this way. The Vanguard Method offers ways to fix this and other thinking problems that get in the way of both innovation and execution. Culture improves as system conditions that prevent performance are removed.
Truly, if we are copying we will always be playing catch-up to the leader, and worse . . . stifling culture and innovation.
The Vanguard Method offers a path to help organizations through intervention break the bad habits developed through command and control thinking. We get you started with better thinking about the design and management of work avoiding the pitfalls and mistakes we have seen other organizations make. After that, you have the thinking to propel the organization forward.