Chasing the Rabbit focuses on a group of
organizations that face a particularly challenging predicament. They
are in industries that are brutally competitive--everyone chasing the
same customers, with similar products, sourcing from the same
suppliers, and subject to the same regulation--but, somehow they escape
what should be a tooth and nail, dog eat dog experience and race ahead
as without rivals. The examples abound--Toyota in autos, Southwest in
commercial aviation, and a host of less well known but equally
remarkable instances.
The point of the book is that the front runners and
their followers alike face a similar challenge--they are responsible
for and dependent on incredibly complex systems, entailing hundreds if
not thousands of people, spread over nearly as many disciplines, all
needed to deliver value to customers.
The basic difference is that most organizations design
complex systems, struggle when operating them, and resign themselves to
muddling through, making do, and otherwise getting by. The day to day
costs are measured in inefficiency, delay, frustration, and
demoralization, with the steadily accumulating 'minor' stuff
periodically being punctuated by catastrophe.
The front
runners, the high velocity 'rabbit' organizations, as I call them in
the book, take a fundamentally different approach. Even though they
too start out with imperfect systems that are constantly hiccuping, the
front runners use small problems as indications of what they didn't
previously understand, where they need to improve, and what they need
to learn. Building knowledge and expertise at a rate faster and a
duration longer, they outrun the field like a world-class marathoner in
front of a pack of pack-a-day smokers.
Though the book is deeply grounded in my research about
Toyota, it has examples from disparate fields--product design (Pratt
& Whitney engines), 'new economy' (aQuantive, a internet
advertising firm recently bought by Microsoft for $6 billion), and
health care. There is also the military example of the US Navy's
exceptional experience bringing nuclear propulsion on board
warships--sixty years and not a single reactor related injury. A sharp
contrast with the Soviet Navy or the US space program.
The main message of the book is that we can accomplish
much more with less cost, effort, and risk than we currently take for
granted. This is true, even amongst the manufacturers who have
embraced lean and six sigma, certainly in the delivery of medical care,
and also in the provision of governmental services. The theme is
overwhelmingly optimistic. Rather than constantly debating what we
have to trade off or give up in order to get something else we want and
need, we can discover how to achieve far more of the potential of our
efforts.
