At GBMP’s launch of the Shingo Institute’s Build Excellence workshop, it occurred to me that perhaps systems thinking might be more aptly named systems rethinking. Workshop participants offered up current systems in their organizations that actually impeded continuous improvement, each time expressing frustration with the difficulty to create system change.

For larger organizations with more explicit codification of systems, the task to create a change was more onerous. One class participant commented, “Our standard procedures are documented in dozens of binders—all of them covered with dust.” But even in smaller organizations, creating a new system will mean undoing a de facto process that, despite its shortcomings, feels normal.

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