A Letter from Chris Suarez

PULL THE CORD

Good Morning Team,

It’s time to pull the cord. To stop our busy lives, our activity-filled days, our random streams of consciousness, and pull the cord. For what purpose?

Well, lets first discuss where that expression originally came from.

This week I have been studying a group of CEO’s across multiple industries for a project I have been working on – retail, manufacturing, technology, financial, communication. I am a firm believer that we can learn from the past and reinvent for the future. I was reading about the original Toyota founder, Sakichi Toyoda.

Sakichi has been credited for pioneering the concept of Jidoka in the early 1900s. This became a pillar of all manufacturing and was the basis of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The majority of our readers today won’t know Japanese, but Jidoka is ultimately a belief that if at any time quality decreases, all work should stop. On the assembly line, Toyota realized that even a small problem, if left unaddressed, would create some major problems and complications for their product and organization later. Put simply, the little things matter.

By definition, the word Jidoka simply means “automation with a human touch”.

So many business lessons emerge there across all industries. Machines, technology, and automation cannot function without “human touch” – or human direction and leadership. Technology and automation improve only when human genius, attention, and invention are attached. We will circle back to that concept in a future letter.

For today, let us pull the cord.

One of the simplest and most well-known demonstrations of Jidoka was the “Andon Cord”. Japanese manufacturing introduced the Andon Cord in the early 1900s. It was just that…a simple rope that hung above the manufacturing line, which if pulled, would stop the entire production line and halt all forward movement and work. This wasn’t a rope that the manager would pull, or the shift overseer would pull, or the crew leader would pull. The Andon Cord was there for ANYONE who saw something needing to be addressed. If something needed to be fixed, they would act and pull the cord. They had the power to halt all production or forward progress to make sure the system, the process, and ultimately the product was corrected if needed. Everyone trained and encouraged to look for what mattered, to focus on their output, to deliver quality, to speak up, or stand up for what they were doing.

We see some of the most profitable and socially responsible companies implementing this theory and concept. For instance, Amazon is a tech company that has implemented “automation with a human touch”. If any of their customers complain about a product, Jeff Bezos says “fix the defect or you can’t sell this product.” Any of their service reps can and should immediately halt the sale of any product if there are customer complaints. Left alone, the automated sale of products would result in continued customer complaints, dissatisfaction, and eventual break down in a business model. But the human touch of that service rep stopping the sale of the product allows Amazon to continue to improve their product quality, increase customer satisfaction, and actually reduce business friction.

Today, however, I believe we need to pull the chord on how we as a group of humans are showing up. We see things that bother us and there seem to be two camps…Those that see the breakdown in the quality of the human experience, voice an opinion quickly (usually on social media) and then continue on about their day, their week, their month, their life. There is another camp that gets upset, reacts emotionally, get really loud, without a strategy or proposed solution. On the assembly line, when the cord is pulled, all attention is focused on the solution – from the lineman, to the crew leader, to manager, to engineer. It’s all hands on deck around one purpose: solve the problem so forward progress can be made.

Here is what doesn’t work. Seeing a problem and then voicing an opinion, being loud for the sake of being heard, reacting emotionally, and then just moving on without a solution.

In business and in life we often feel we are just too busy to pull that cord. The lost revenue or lost time is just too much to bear. The fear that the time spent on the solution won’t bring results prevents us from pulling the cord above our head, even when we know it’s the right thing to do. I would argue then we are either choosing an inferior product, a less experiential life, or making a decision for the immediate while giving up on the future.

Perhaps we’ve been doing that in our businesses. We’ve certainly been doing that socially, economically, physically, even spiritually.

It’s time to pull the cord. And why?

To find purpose in that pause.

To find solutions in that pause.

To find peace in that pause.

To find an experience in that pause.

And then, and only then, move forward with a better human experience for all.

Jidoka,

Chris Suarez