As I work on research for a sermon about why God, when He can accomplish whatever He wants without us, has us help, I recalled of something that Gene Kim said in Beyond the Phoenix Project (a recording he did with John Willis):
John Shook wrote about his NUMMI experience in the Fremont plant, a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. He wrote, “What my NUMMI experience taught me that was so powerful was that the way to change culture is not to change first how people think, but instead to start by changing how people behave — what they do. Those of us trying to change our organizations’ culture need to define the things we want them to do, the way we want to behave and want others to behave, to provide training and then to do what is necessary to reinforce those behaviors. The culture will change as a result.
This is what I meant by, ‘It’s easier to act your way to a new way of thinking than to think your way to a new way of acting.'” (Emphasis mine.)
Gene then continues, saying it lead to the Shook Change Model. MIT Sloan Management Review has Shook’s article about his NUMMI experience (it will require you to have at least a free account): [Read more…] about Shook Change Model