80
experiences gained in his particular plant, Jonah from his expe- rience gained in observing so many plants. You see, conven- tional plants are very similar to each other even though they differ dramatically in their details. Just ask yourself whether or not The Goal was written about your specific plant? Most read- ers claim that they can almost name the characters. As long as our organizations use the same distorted measurements and as long as management is trained to think in approximately the same way, it is no wonder that organizations are approximately the same.
So at the start, Jonah does possess the necessary intuition. He guides Alex, using the Socratic method, to find his own core problems and then guides him to find simple, practical solutions. Alex, armed with the powerful emotion of the inventor, suc- ceeds in implementing his ideas in a surprisingly short period of time. He breaks the current constraint and the wheel of the improvement process makes a full turn. Now Alex's plant is not so conventional anymore; it is now much more unique. Jonah being external, not a part of the organization, does not benefit from the resulting elevation in intuition and thus his task, as a catalyst, becomes much more difficult. He cannot guide Alex over the phone anymore or through remote short meetings, now he must come to the plant. Once again the process repeats itself. Through questions, Alex is guided to turn the wheel once again. Now the plant is even more unique and Jonah's task—being external—becomes more and more an impossibility.
A good Jonah will be able to help an Alex Rogo turn the improvement wheel, maybe three times. An exceptional Jonah might succeed in doing it four times. I don't believe that there is anybody external to a plant, who can turn the wheel more than five times. What happens when the plant becomes so unique that Jonah, leaning on his intuition which is derived from the general cases, misreads the situation? In such circumstances, misreading will not be just a small glitch, Jonah will misread it by a mile. Let's remember, Jonah is guiding Alex through ques- tions not through answers. What is the chance that Alex will figure out his perceived core problem? A problem which does
81
not exist in reality, but only in the mind of Jonah. Alex having the correct, healthy intuition simply will not be able to ever find this erroneous core problem. Now the Socratic approach turns on the one who used it.
Just imagine Alex in this situation. He is so eager to find the answers; it is so important to his plant, and he fails. How many weeks do you think will pass, before Alex will become so frus- trated, that he will grab Jonah by the throat and say something like, "okay, so I'm totally dumb, now give me the answers." Jonah, afraid for his life, will abandon the Socratic method and spell out his erroneous conclusion. We should not expect a very polite response from Alex, who guided by his healthy intuition will immediately spot the mistake. The result, a wall of mistrust, is built between Alex and Jonah. But can Alex find his core problems on his own? Can he construct simple, practical solu- tions on his own? Remember, Jonah has only guided him to find specific solutions, he didn't expose Alex to the focusing tech- niques at all.
Unable to pinpoint the next constraint, Alex will revert to continuing to improve the things that he knows how to im- prove—the previous constraints, which have already been bro- ken. The plant's performance will now go into stagnation, which is the exact opposite of what we originally set out to achieve—a process of ongoing improvement.
The conclusion is quite clear. Alex and Jonah must not be two different people. Alex must be Jonah at the same time that he is Alex. It is not a matter of learning oceans of data, examining many cases or studying by heart numerous procedures. Fortu- nately, almost each of the managers in an organization has al- ready acquired enough intuition. Intuitively we do know the problems, we even feel the simple solutions.
What is missing is the ability to verbalize our intuition, to provoke it, focus it and cast it precisely into words. The five steps of the Theory of Constraints, the Effect-Cause-Effect and the Evaporating Clouds methods are relatively easy to adopt, since they are totally in line with our intuition. It is just a matter of some practice which is especially geared towards unleashing
82
their usage in a very broad spectrum of subjects, otherwise we'll continue to narrow the scope of TOC to production only.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with regards to the Socratic method itself. This method is counter-intuitive, not that we do not all recognize its validity, but when we are struggling to pinpoint a problem and then succeeding to even outline a solution, the temptation to show off and to spell out in detail our solution, is immense. We need considerable self-discipline to give, in such situations, just the questions and to refrain from giving the answers, while our audience is floundering. And then to watch how others take full ownership of our brain child. If this is not counter-intuitive then it is certainly counter to common behavior.
Using the Socratic approach is even more important, than previously perceived, when we take into account the fact that in Western organizations—in spite of all the lip service—en- trepreneurial spirit at the medium and lower ranks is not, ex- actly, encouraged. Due to this "culture," the medium and lower ranks take upon themselves many limitations that the top man- agement never intended to impose. Let's remember that as far as action is concerned, what you think is not so important; what your people think you think, that's what really counts.
Bearing in mind management's inexperience in using the Socratic approach along with the absolute need of the troops to use their intuition, we have constructed a very large set of Socratic tools. These tools are in the form of computer simulations—almost games—which are thoroughly backed by detailed tutor guides. These simulations have been