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to be intangible, whereas the problems of the new system are all too tangible. Having the benefit of theory is the antidote to these challenges. If it is known that this loss of productivity is an inevitable part of the transition, it can be managed actively. Expectations can be set up front. In my consulting practice, for example, I have learned to raise these issues from day one; otherwise, they are liable to derail the whole effort once it is under way. As the change progresses, we can use the root cause analysis and fast response techniques to figure out which problems need prevention. Ultimately, the Lean Startup is a framework, not a blueprint of steps to follow. It is designed to be adapted to the conditions of each specific company. Rather than copy what others have done, techniques such as the Five Whys allow you to build something that is perfectly suited to your company.

The best way to achieve mastery of and explore these ideas is to embed oneself in a community of practice. There is a thriving community of Lean Startup meetups around the world as well as online, and suggestions for how you can take advantage of these resources listed in the last chapter of this book, “Join the Movement.”

13

EPILOGUE: WASTE NOT

This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management, first published in 1911. The movement for scientific management changed the course of the twentieth century by making possible the tremendous prosperity that we take for granted today. Taylor effectively invented what we now consider simply management: improving the efficiency of individual workers, management by exception (focusing only on unexpectedly good or bad results), standardizing work into tasks, the task-plus-bonus system of compensation, and—above all—the idea that work can be studied and improved through conscious effort. Taylor invented modern white-collar work that sees companies as systems that must be managed at more than the level of the individual. There is a reason all past management revolutions have been led by engineers: management is human systems engineering.

In 1911 Taylor wrote: “In the past, the man has been first; in the future, the system must be first.” Taylor’s prediction has come to pass. We are living in the world he imagined. And yet, the revolution that he unleashed has been—in many ways—too successful. Whereas Taylor preached science as a way of thinking, many people confused his message with the rigid techniques he advocated: time and motion studies, the differential piece-rate system, and—most galling of all—the idea that workers should be treated as little more than automatons. Many of these ideas proved extremely harmful and required the efforts of later theorists and managers to undo. Critically, lean manufacturing rediscovered the wisdom and initiative hidden in every factory worker and redirected Taylor’s notion of efficiency away from the individual task and toward the corporate organism as a whole. But each of these subsequent revolutions has embraced Taylor’s core idea that work can be studied scientifically and can be improved through a rigorous experimental approach.

In the twenty-first century, we face a new set of problems that Taylor could not have imagined. Our productive capacity greatly exceeds our ability to know what to build. Although there was a tremendous amount of invention and innovation in the early twentieth century, most of it was devoted to increasing the productivity of workers and machines in order to feed, clothe, and house the world’s population. Although that project is still incomplete, as the millions who live in poverty can attest, the solution to that problem is now strictly a political one. We have the capacity to build almost anything we can imagine. The big question of our time is not Can it be built? but Should it be built? This places us in an unusual historical moment: our future prosperity depends on the quality of our collective imaginations.

In 1911, Taylor wrote:

We can see our forests vanishing,