The Toyota Parable

Bill Saporito at TIME.com (4 Feb 2010) provides the story from which this 'digest' version comes:

Toyota built its reputation and market share through its renowned "continuous improvement" method. The Toyota mantra was "Quality First" because it led to lower costs, and hence to higher market share.

But in the '90s, Toyota set out to become the world's top auto company. Being the best and being the biggest created a tension that Toyota couldn't resolve, says MIT operations expert Steven Spear: "If quality is first, it drives a certain set of behaviors. If market share is the goal, it drives a different set of behaviors."

Even as Toyota was catching up to the global No. 1, General Motors, the reputation of its cars was slipping. Spear, who has apprenticed in Toyota factories, says the problem was that the "Toyota way" — in which knowledge accumulated by élite cadres of engineers and assembly workers over many years is shared across the company — was diluted by the demands of production. "In the late '90s, people in Toyota would say, 'This is going to bite us in the ass,' " says Spear. "They just didn't know when."

Now they do. "We have to strengthen quality control," says Shinichi Sasaki, executive vice president for quality. It's a startling admission from a company that made reliability its quest. Toyota will fix its manufacturing problem. Restoring its reputation is going to take a lot longer.

This reminds me a lot of the Old Place. You can see how 'the demands of production' are leading to the dispersion of the knowledge assets of the corporate body, the loss of quality as quantity production is ramped up. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Dragon Gate — A Zen Parable

I quote the following from Tricks of the Trade by Howard S Becker, pp. 218-9:

"In the middle of the ocean, there is a special place, which is a Dragon Gate. It has this wonderful property: any fish that swims through it immediately turns into a dragon.

"However, the Dragon Gate does not look any different from any other part of the ocean. So you can never find it by looking for it. The only way to know where it is is to notice that the fish who swim through it become dragons.

"However, when a fish swims through the Dragon Gate, and becomes a dragon, it doesn't look any different. It just looks like the same fish it was before. So you can't tell where the Dragon Gate is by looking closely to find just where the change takes place.

"Furthermore, when fish swim through the Dragon Gate and become dragons, they don't feel any different, so they don't know that they have changed into dragons. They just ARE dragons from then on."

It used to be thus when we were wyverns, and the Wyvern Gate was not the province of a king who never was a wyvern.

Jewellers & Master Craftsmen

I'm sitting at my desk today, deliberately with all the doors and windows closed and with no ventilation. It's like some sort of sweat lodge but not as hot and humid.

The reason for this is to attempt to breach the barriers of discomfort in order to actually get some work done. I realise that, even though an environment can be inimical or caustic or painful to the mind or body, personal discomfort can actually trigger creativity and productivity. It's something one tends to forget.

In the area of the mind, the key thing is to seek cognitive dissonance. I think that teachers tend to spoonfeed because it is easy to do. If you relent and give students ready answers, they tend not to show growth in their neural networks. Rather, they learn the wrong thing; i.e., that if you wait the teacher out, you will get answers without having to think from first principles.

This is why from the beginning, the master teachers have always taught in parables. (The 13th chapter of St Matthew's Gospel has quite a bit to say about it, if you are so minded.) The point is that unless you make people realise what they don't know, unless you unsettle their secure underpinnings and foundations, you actually aren't going to shift them into a new place and thus educate them. Education is literally a 'drawing-out', not a 'putting-in'.

This is why master teachers make carefully-crafted disturbing remarks. Jesus said, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," and then proceeded to outline the kinds of division that his legacy would provide. The point is that all students have preconceptions of how they want the teacher, the class, and the subject to behave. A good teacher will break all those preconceptions first, not work with them as some people recommend. It's a bad teacher who relies on bullet points and direct process teaching from the beginning.

After much thought about the present state of education in Atlantis, I've decided that maybe 90% of the teachers I've seen are good at 'putting-in', 'grinding and polishing' and 'metal shaping' – all the skills necessary to be a good jeweller. Some institutions are also very good at 'stone selection', which always ensures a minimum value (since you can always re-cut a good stone later on).

But there are very few who will take otherwise unvalued or undervalued pieces, and point out how good they can be, and what the fundamentals of value and worth really are. Most will cater to the mass market, and not to the collectors who can really make the difference. A true education is one that changes perception and moves it to a new and better place.

As Jesus said, "For these people's hearts have become callused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes... Blessed are your eyes because you see; blessed are your ears because you hear." The heart is easily callused, made callous, especially when it is young and tender. This leads to cynicism and discontent. But if the calluses can be abraded with sufficient violence or skill, the heart can be made to burn with a passion for outrageous levels of learning and understanding.

Dreams Of Small Things

I slept, and I dreamt. In those dreams I stood entranced, a prisoner on a high tower. I was fettered around the ankles with chains of silk and glass, with chains of air and fire and the beautiful hair of unknown women. And a great voice which silenced the multitude beneath said to me, "Write what you will. It changes nothing, but it does not return to me void."

Then I saw, as if through a glass of great clarity, the truth of the crowd beneath. They fought and duelled, drank and ate, conspired and collaborated, negotiated and socialised, and accomplished the works of their hands. They built what to them was great and mighty and sure to bring swift death to others, or glory to themselves. They strove mightily to assail each other's ramparts and defences and, when balked, swore equally mighty oaths and returned to their mills of cruel technology.

One might slay another, another might essay calumny upon a third. The sequences and alliances shifted; the entanglements swelled and shrank. And to each of these, it mattered nothing that a greater work was upon them and over them and around them. Indeed, their happiness was with the work of their hands alone, established or not, made beautiful or not by the perfecting touch of the hidden voice.

All this I wrote, and it seemed to me that I had a plate as of horn and ivory, framed in metal, and as I moved my hands across it, words of black fire streamed across its face. And the voice said, "How have you written it?"

I replied, "With black fire that is not quenched, on a plate of horn and ivory framed with metal that does not rust."

Then, behold, I saw the crowd look towards me, as if from a valley far below, as if they were ants. And some of these ants were larger, or more wrathful than the others, and they made towers and weapons of war to assail me. I was afraid, for I was myself an ant. But the voice said, "As you have written, so it is; for this is a gift, and a covenant. Woe shall surely be upon you and your house for the misuse of your gift; but blessing and power will be upon your house for the gift returned as service to me."

And lo, I was a grasshopper, not much larger than the ant, but more dangerous; not much larger, but dependent upon the ants for sustenance. "You shall hunger," said the voice, "And you shall grieve in dark times. When you have learnt from the ant, you shall be wise. Go now, and serve."

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I must stop washing down my coffee mug with apple/blackcurrant juice and drinking the washings.

Samaritan

I think I felt sad today. It was a grey day, rain falling carelessly and ceaselessly with no particular pattern except that of general chaotic precipitation. But I was happy with the rain - if you summon thunderbirds to your canyon, expect flash floods, as the old medicine man said.

The sadness came from thinking about a compatriot of mine, an elder statesman who has served longer in politics than anyone still active in the country (except one other). This statesman has been for many years one of the few voices of political opposition here.

He was a school swimmer, a leader, an active and involved participant in the affairs of his school. He went to New Zealand for his first degree, and then began a life of dedicated public service. He started off in the school system. After twelve years of teaching science, the former civil servant turned to law and politics. Mild in demeanour, scholarly in appearance, he nevertheless turned out to have a depth of character that saw him lose an election once, and then never again.

Now, he has served six terms in the nation's parliament so far, defeating fresh, seasoned or freshly seasoned candidates of the party in power. That party has enjoyed, and continues to enjoy, a supermajority unthinkable of in a typical democracy. But this man has survived and, now in his sixties, he is as much a gentleman as ever. None of this was mentioned in the brief introduction he was given as he spoke to us today.

Today he spoke of three lessons from the parable of the Good Samaritan. He said that the first lesson was that one should render service all the time because that was our duty. The second lesson was that one should always be compassionate to others. And the third was that even if you had to expend your own resources in service, with no hope of reward, you should do so. Seldom have speakers from the pulpit been this succinct. There were no frills or clever rhetorical tricks in this very short speech, the shortest in living memory at our St David's Day services. On this cold day, my heart felt strangely and mightily warmed.

My friends in these times, who stand on distant heights, I leave you with one last image. Think of this: a short distance from the Chapel of the Living Waters, a plaque is displayed, listing the names of the many political leaders whose intellectual roots are buried here - but the name of this gentleman is not on it. For the good Samaritan was not a Jew.