Bokhyllan är en kategori där jag samlar utdrag ur böcker jag läser/läst som jag finner tankeväckande på olika sätt. Kanske kan det inspirera till att andra väljer att läsa, kanske öppnar det för diskussion..

Först ut är ett utdrag ur Matthew E. Mays bok The Elegant Solution (Amazon). I utdraget skriver han om det japanska ordet hansei och dess innebörd och vikten av att reflektera över händelser för att skapa en djupare förståelse och uppnå bättre resultat. Han skriver också hur västvärlden skiljer sig åt i detta avseende – att dem enda tillfällena då vi egentligen reflekterar är när vi inte får ett önskvärt resultat eller då en katastrof inträffar.

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Utdrag ur The Elegant Solution – Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation av Matthew E. May:

Hansei (hahn-say) is the Japanese word for reflection. Hansei is the rigorous review conducted after action has been taken. It’s a huge and absolutely vital part of learning. And with a few notable exceptions, our Western culture is just plain miserable at it.

Hansei is not about confirmation. It’s not about celebration of success. It’s a sobering reality check, regardless of a project’s outcome. Were you to attend a hansei meeting following a resounding success at Toyota, you would be shocked at the tone of the meeting. It’s stern and serious. Fine, the team greatly exceeded expectations. Guess what, that means they didn’t understand their process. Their objectives should have been met. And even if they matched perfectly to the target, the team must still examine the course of action and the interim measures, not just the final results.

In Western culture, about the only time anything close to true hansei occurs is when a catastrophic failure happens. 9/11. Cloumbia. Hurricane Catrinca. Even then, it’s a “special study,” generally focused more on conducting a fault-finding autopsy in order to place blame more than anything else. When projects meet their objective, we celebrate. Unfortunately, there’s little in the way of deep learning in that approach. Our Western culture bias for action doesn’t value reflection nearly as high as it should. Horrors, if we catch anyone in their office staring out into space, they must be daydreaming, goofing off.

We just don’t seem to get it. It’s about thinking. Hansei fosters real learning and insight. Our shortcomings in this area have everything to do with why so many individuals and organizations suffer from self-induced learning disability in business.