We have found that Toyota’s managerial methods resemble, in a number of their fundamentals, the workings of the Linux community; the Toyota Production System (TPS) owes some of its vaunted responsiveness to open-source traits. In fact, Toyota itself is evolving into a hybrid between a conventional hierarchy and a Linux-like self-organizing network.
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Both emphasize granularity: They pay attention to small details, eliminate problems at the source, and trim anything resembling excess, whether it be work, code, or material. Linux members, for example, share an obsession with writing minimal code, compiling each day’s output before proceeding to the next and extirpating programming flaws as they go along. For their part, TPS engineers are relentless in applying short cycles of trial and error, focusing on just one thing at a time, and getting inside and observing actual processes. Both groups carry those principles to apparent extremes.
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Monetary carrots and accountability sticks motivate people to perform narrow, specified tasks. Admiration and applause are far more effective stimulants of above-and-beyond behavior.