Kanban Change Leadership: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

7 METRICS AND IMPROVEMENTS

Imagine you are an admiral of the fleet of the British Empire in the eighteenth century. You have just defeated the French at the siege of Toulon, and your men are celebrating wildly on the decks of the 21 ships you command. The formation passes Gibraltar and sets a course for home. As an old sea dog, you know how treacherous the English seas can be. You may have beaten the French, but as the fog slowly slides out over the water, you can do nothing but put your faith in God and prepare for the slow journey. So you summon all of your navigators and have them determine the position of the fleet as precisely as possible. And then it’s there. The fog on the evening of October 22, 1707: the god-awful screech of wood on rock, screams, the splashing of the water as hundreds of arms desperately wave around seeking buoyancy. And then it’s gone again. The flagship, the Association, has disappeared within a few minutes. Shortly afterward, the Eagle and the Romney sink too. All told four ships go under and with them 1450 men before the fleet can come to a stop. “The longitude! We miscalculated the longitude,” you think to yourself as you are washed up at Porth Hellick Cove on St. Mary’s Island, more dead than alive. The westward-lying Isles of Scilly were upon you sooner than the navigators had calculated.

You were Sir Cloudesley Shovell just now. Along with his men, the decorated British admiral of the fleet fell victim to one of the greatest problems of ...