Great Ideas Are Evergreen ...

I'm reading "Practically Radical" by William C. Taylor (founder of Fast Company Magazine).  The book is all about change and changing ossified companies.  It's a good book - but, what strikes me is how changeless

some of the strategies for change can be.  The first section of the book stresses the need to look at an organization with outsiders' eyes.  That's absolutely true.  We get blinded by what "is" and can't see what "can be" when we've been in an organization too long.  The only thing is: this is the same advice delivered by a host of other management books.

In one powerful example, Taylor cites a hospital that sent a team of its employees (including doctors) to Japan to see first hand how Toyota manages quality production.  As the story goes, a Toyota manager asked to see floor plans for the hospital.  "What is this room with chairs?" asked the Toyota exec.  "A waiting room," was the reply. 

Toyota:  "Do you have other waiting rooms?"

Hospital:  "Yes, fifteen of them?"

Toyota:  "And they all have twenty five or so chairs?"

Hospital:  "Yes."

Toyota Exec:  "Aren't you ashamed?"

Nobody had looked at the hospital's operation as one built around customers/patients. 

If an outsiders' point of view is so critical to making change that it is a core idea to a host of management books, why don't more organizations do it?

It's uncomfortable.  And it causes change.