Getting water out of a dry towel

Almost every year, whenever my clients visit the Toyota Kaikan Museum in Toyota City, Aichi, we are often reminded of many basic lessons about the Toyota Production System (TPS), which includes a thought-provoking exhortation from management icon Taiichi Ohno (1912-1990). He said: "People don't go to Toyota to work; they go there to think."

- REY ELBO

That brings us to the question: Which is more important - working or thinking? Or, to be more precise, which comes first - working or thinking? This came to mind when I encountered a manager who brags about telling their workers to do as they're told without deviation from a standard instruction implemented in the first year of their company's establishment.

Never mind that their standards were created more than 25 years ago. If they're still clinging to them, then they should be using typewriters instead of computers. When told of this story, Neil (not his real name), a retired corporate executive now working as a barangay (village) bystander, jokingly claimed he welcomes change "as long as nothing is altered or changed."

He would only accept positive changes, such as a 30 percent senior citizen's discount instead of the current 20 percent.

Going back to our main topic, how many bosses would like their workers to become mechanical robots? "Do it my way or else..." The trouble is that when mistakes happen, unreasonable bosses blame their workers for blindly following the instructions.

Thinking vs working

In psychology, there's such a thing as Cognitive Appraisal Theory, which professes that "thinking must occur before experiencing emotion." In other words, thinking precedes working as long as it is encouraged - if not required - from an army of workers and not from outsiders.