Joe G on Nostr: "Innovation happens at the assembly line" - Henry Ford There are few quotes which ...
"Innovation happens at the assembly line"
- Henry Ford
There are few quotes which capture the heart and spirit of decentralization than this one; it is, indeed, those hardened few on the frontlines who know best what is needed, what works, and what will improve any system if implemented properly.
In the book, Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down, J.E. Gordon presents a rather simple quip about how systems and processes should be designed to empower the lowest-level operator to recognize when things are not going as they should, and to give them both the authority and agency to act:
"Where human life is concerned, it is clearly desirable that a 'safe' crack should be long enough to be visible to a bored and rather stupid inspector working in a bad light on a Friday afternoon.”
As it's famously said in the Marine Corps, "The Corporal is the backbone".
By no means is stupidity the DNA, as Gordon writes, rather, it's the power of giving ownership to the man/woman doing the dirty work on the ground.
In his book, The Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell distinguishes this unique distinction of decision making within an organization by separating such mechanisms into the constrained view or the unconstrained view of human instinct:
1) The locus of discretion
2) The mode of discretion
In the first, the operator knows what's best.
In the second, the boss knows what's best.
Finding the balance is certainly a challenge, but history tells us that innovation will more often arrive from those bored inspectors; those unlikely backbones turning the cranks on whatever endeavor we happen to be engaging in.
- Henry Ford
There are few quotes which capture the heart and spirit of decentralization than this one; it is, indeed, those hardened few on the frontlines who know best what is needed, what works, and what will improve any system if implemented properly.
In the book, Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down, J.E. Gordon presents a rather simple quip about how systems and processes should be designed to empower the lowest-level operator to recognize when things are not going as they should, and to give them both the authority and agency to act:
"Where human life is concerned, it is clearly desirable that a 'safe' crack should be long enough to be visible to a bored and rather stupid inspector working in a bad light on a Friday afternoon.”
As it's famously said in the Marine Corps, "The Corporal is the backbone".
By no means is stupidity the DNA, as Gordon writes, rather, it's the power of giving ownership to the man/woman doing the dirty work on the ground.
In his book, The Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell distinguishes this unique distinction of decision making within an organization by separating such mechanisms into the constrained view or the unconstrained view of human instinct:
1) The locus of discretion
2) The mode of discretion
In the first, the operator knows what's best.
In the second, the boss knows what's best.
Finding the balance is certainly a challenge, but history tells us that innovation will more often arrive from those bored inspectors; those unlikely backbones turning the cranks on whatever endeavor we happen to be engaging in.