I think the basic principle here is, that if you have so much going on all the time, if you are always working at 100% of capacity (or forcing others too), all of that noise and activity is going to hide the problems (until it’s too late).

You might think you are getting somewhere, while all along you or your company may be dying, or barreling along in the completely wrong direction – and you won’t even know it because you are all caught up in the tyranny of the urgent and forcing everyone else to do the same.

Taking time and making time to stop, rest, reflect, think, and re-tool is vital not only for the business world, but for your personal life as well.

A good book on the concept of Margin is Dr. Richard Swenson’s book, “Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives”

Also, I see a problem with this idea that “placing workers in challenging situations will force them to improve their processes and thereby create a culture of continuous improvement.”

This can work if the workers are in control of, or have real and direct impact on the way that work is performed.

However, it has been my experience that sometimes the most important processes (such as software systems, policies, etc.) are kept completely outside of reach or influence of those doing the work. In fact, in my company the culture is such that the workers are completely locked out of the design of systems and policies.

When your company is arranged this way, and you put the stress and pressure on those doing the work instead of on those in control of how the work is done, all that happens is that good people leave, and the work just gets done more and more poorly.** Those least responsible for the inefficiencies are the ones who pay the highest price and the ones responsible just move on to other high paying jobs once the company collapses.

The ideal arrangement, one I’m sure Ohno would probably agree with, is to have those arranging the work in in direct and constant dialogue with frontline workers, who can then play a vital role in shaping how the work is done.

** For an extreme example, see the sad case of MiniScribe, whose CEO put so much pressure on his employees that they eventually began shipping bricks in place of hard drives in a desperate attempt to keep making his sales quotas.

HELP.