Creating a Lean R&D System

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Seeing and Removing Barriers

in the R&D Environment

As I look out the front window of my house, I tend to absorb the beauty of

the scene. ere is a beautiful oak tree out there next to the dock. e dock

juts out into a cove. If it is summer, there is a swim platform oating y

or so feet across the inlet, and if it is daytime, people, especially children,

can be found playing in the water. To the le, the inlet opens onto the

river, a shallow half-mile-wide estuary with clamming and moored boats,

posts with osprey nests, and navigational signs and buoys.

Depending on the day, it may be dreary or blindingly brilliant. I may

see a sunrise that catches my breath, or snow and sleet. I may see vio-

lent weather that only wind, wave, and my own vulnerability can reveal,

or depths of peaceful tranquility that only calmness and water seem to

inspire within me. I will be annoyed when the geese come (their facility

for turning green plants into fertilizer is somewhat frustrating), and I will

be joyful when the swans appear, marveling at their beauty and the facility

with which they run the geese out of town.

I am not a sherman, but my neighbor is. He sees everything that I do,

but he also sees that the bait sh are (or are not) running. He sees the

waterway not merely as a place to swim or paddle, or to observe beauty,

but also as a right-of-way to the ocean and the trophy bass that it may

yield in future expeditions. e neighbor behind me, a retired commercial

sherman, sees the same channels as a source of employment, seeing the

water—haven to many dierent species—by its seasons of harvest.

At the same time, none of us is a navigational engineer, so we do not see

the changing depth of the channel and the consequent need to dredge,

place markers, or remove obstacles. None of us is a biologist, who might

2 • Creating a Lean R&D System

note the changing levels of jellysh and postulate something about river

health, observe the horseshoe crab mating season and speculate on their

future population, or a thousand other things. We are not shore-based

contractors looking at pilings and assessing our year’s business in dock

repair.

Take a look around you right now. Are you in a room? How would that

room look to you if you were an interior designer? How would it look to

you as an architect, a stone mason, an HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air

conditioning) technician, a building inspector, an ergonomist, or a child?

How would a blind or deaf person perceive that room?

MENTAL MODELS

Each of us has mental models, lenses through which we perceive the

world. Some call them neural networks; others call them paradigms. Bob

Burdick, a retired IBM engineer, collectively calls these lenses our be state,

while John Boyd, a famous military strategist and thinker,

*

called them

our orientation. ese mental models come from our genetics, our physi-

cal attributes, our experiences, our training, and our likes and dislikes.

ese mental models provide us with two very important things: the abil-

ity to see what is important, and the ability to suppress what is not. e

separation of our observations into “important” and “unimportant” is an

object lesson in a fundamental Taoist principle known as duality. When

we observe something, and make a judgment about it, we immediately

create its “dual” opposite (hence “duality”

†

). e Tao De Jing (Book of

the Way) points out that there can be no “good” without its dual oppo-

site “bad,” no “beauty” without “ugliness.” We cannot make something

“observable” without making other things “hidden” and this duality is

*

Lieutenant Colonel John R. Boyd published very little. Most of his work, which is legendary in

military circles and within the community that researches fast-learning strategy, was devel-

oped on acetates for live presentations, or “briefs,” which for Boyd might last 8, 12, or 16 hours.

Nevertheless, two excellent references to Boyd include Robert Coram’s biography, Boyd: e

Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (New York: Back Bay Books, 2004), and Frans P. B.

Osinga’s excellent analysis of his sources, Science Strategy and War: e Strategic eory of John

Boyd (New York: Routledge, 2007).

†

Duality is a Taoist term for separation or barrier between us and the “real” fabric of the universe—

the Tao.