The Resilient corporation

The presentation by Yossi Sheffi on the resilient corporation is quite interesting. I found it started out great with examples than it was a bit weak but finished very strongly. He makes the argument that culture and pushing the decision making and responsibility down to the lowest levels are the biggest contributors to a resilient corporation. For example a fairly freshman sailor can stop the complete operation of an air carrier when she sees a problem - that's quite a responsibility and statement of empowerment. Any assembly line worker of Toyota can stop the production line - again quite a responsibility.

Come to think of it, it does make a lot of sense. Management can not oversee everything nor make any decisions. Although management often doesn't trust employees to make the right decisions. It is the employees who are on the front-line who can identify early on quality problems, safety problems or identify that something is wrong and make the right decision to resolve it or to stop production to get someone in to solve it. Management needs to work on creating the right culture and provide leadership in case of disruptions and crisis.

You can find the presentation here. It is quite interesting and I can only recommend it!