I'm assuming this is an innocent question that you're asking bc so many other folks are. But there's no special cultural sauce that made Korea do this. They have a competent public health service & decided to roll out high-volume testing ASAP. That's literally it. Competence.https://twitter.com/StefanFSchubert/status/1239308154980184065 …
-
-
I've worked with food facilities trying to adopt Lean practices, which Toyota came up with in Japan to run their factories super-efficiently. (Lean is why Toyota's cars are high-quality AND cheap.)
Show this thread -
Americans LOVE to make excuses about how Lean must just work better for Japanese companies "because their culture is just ~like that.~" But actually, Lean is pretty counter-cultural for Japan too. Toyota had to work hard at it for DECADES to make it work.
Show this thread -
They've also been really successful at making Lean work in their American factories. Toyota took over a GM plant that was legendary for horrible quality & labor problems. They started running it with Lean, & those problems went away. With the same ~troublesome~ union staff.
Show this thread -
That plant was called NUMMI, it's the Fremont CA plant that Tesla later bought. It's a really great example of how Lean works GREAT with American workers in the United States, actually. As long as management actually DOES ITS JOB instead of making excuses.
Show this thread -
I hear "well that's just [insert Asian country]'s culture" excuse all the time in my work. And it's always bullshit. It's just a lazy excuse that lazy people trot out to cover their asses. If it's an excuse you've heard a lot? Congrats, you know a lot of lazy people. Alas.
Show this thread -
The reason so many American businesses fail at Lean so often isn't because "Western culture" "makes it impossible." It's because enough of us accept racist ass-covering excuses instead of self-critique & results. That's it.
Show this thread -
Which is wild because last I heard, self-critique was supposed to be one of the biggest strengths of ~western culture.~ You know, critical Greek philosophers & satire & the protestant tradition & all that. It's supposed to be our specialty.
Show this thread -
I mean it's completely routine for Americans to just say things like "What is it about THEIR ASIAN CULTURE that made X possible" and the secret is literally just competent democracy & transparent, non-corrupt government. Which is, again, SUPPOSED to be the west's whole thing.
Show this thread -
I really wish they'd just say "I can't do X bc I'm an incompetent fuckup" instead of blaming it on "US culture." At least that'd be honest. We have perfectly competent people, & Americans keep advocating for competent policy. We know how to do it. The problem's not "cultural."
Show this thread -
And every time we make a "culture" excuse for willful, malevolent errors like the ones that got us into COVID unprepared- Trump firing our pandemic team in 2018 & refusing to allow tests into the country bc he's afraid data will hurt his popularity- we're just enabling them.
Show this thread -
Sorry for the long thread. But the "we can't possibly take cues from ASIA" excuses have been following me my whole professional life & I'm so fucking sick of it. Don't let anybody use that line on you. It's a giant red flag that someone's full of shit.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.