It’s late morning. I am at a resort restaurant in Mexico, sipping from a cup of coffee, bored. Suddenly, I notice a waiter replacing a table cloth on a table, a few feet away. He swipes the dirty table cloth off with a single precise move, and then unfolds the new one in its place in a just a few more. Much like watching David Copperfield perform a magic show, I watch him in awe as he repeats his moves over and over again.
Same restaurant a few hours later. It’s lunch time and now I intensively study waiters at work hoping for the repeat of the morning show. It’s another waiter’s time to clean tables, and he does his job well. Except that this time the show does not happen. The moves do not express waiters confidence in what he does, they were different and there were more of them, and they seemed to differ somewhat from one table to another.
Why did I bring this tale of the two waiters? Principle 6 of The Toyota Way says: “Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment.” Whereas, Principle 7 says: “Use visual controls so no problems are hidden.” Both principles are tied together in a way. Waiter 1 seemed to have polished his steps to perfection, while waiter 2 did not. As I was watching both in action, I could easily see the difference.
Principle 6 was not devised by some bureaucrat at a large corporation. It is rooted deeply in Japanese culture. As Zen monks “needed to pass on instructions to greater numbers of learners and to later generations… it became necessary to train many teachers, or masters, and to be able to do this, the formalization of do practices began in the mid-Edo period” (sometime in 17th century) So, per Davis and Ikeno, the process of mastering an art involves 5 steps:
- keishikika (formalization)
- hampuku (constant repetition of pattern or form)
- mastering the pattern or form
- kanzen shugi (achieving complete perfection)
- toitsu (becoming one with the pattern or form, going beyond it)
To make things a little simpler, a pattern needs to be identified, followed, perfected, and then we can go beyond it. Standardized tasks in the Toyota way are just such a pattern, which needs to be learned and perfected. As we reach the toitsu (become one with the task), we can now reflect and improve the task as needed.
Both waiters did get their jobs done. Even though waiter 1 was probably working a little faster, let’s for a moment assume that both could do their 3 tables in the same amount of time. Which waiter do you think I would ask for next time I come back to that restaurant? I would always pick waiter 1 because I appreciate his mastery. I think that majority would subconsciously make the same choice. Clearly, a win for the Spirit of Perfection.
Can a Spirit of Perfection win when the definition of perfection is fuzzy? Classical music lover may not appreciate rap, but a rap lover would appreciate good wrap and a classical music lover would appreciate good classics. Formalization process has been invented and perfected for a variety of arts, from fencing to calligraphy to flower arrangement. Thus applying formalization to any other creative process should just be a matter of defining the forms and processes.
In calligraphy, a pattern is perhaps a letter or its component and in martial arts it’s a particular position or move. Just as a painting consists out of visual patterns and techniques, software consists of patterns, architectural components, and techniques. Just as a painter perfects his technique and becomes ONE with his patterns and starts inventing his own style, a software developer gains mastery of software patterns and becomes ONE with his skills and can start taking the art of software development in an entirely new direction.
Besides their skill level, there seemed to have been one more thing that differentiated waiter 1 from waiter 2. I think it was a Spirit of Perfection: waiter 1 seemed to have been determined to be great, while waiter 2 was just doing his job. The Spirit of Perfection was in the air and that’s what I think truly caught my attention. And while there is no guarantee that waiter 1 will one day run that restaurant, the Spirit of Perfection is definitely one of the determinant factors for future success.
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