The bible recounts the moment when the Red Sea split to allow Moses and his people to escape from their exile to freedom (see Beshalach). What’s that got to do with business potential?
The Gap Between Knowing and Doing
Dr. Deming taught us that stupidity is a choice. This isn’t about intelligence or IQ. It’s about refusing to use the mental capacity we already have. We know how to build companies that work systemically and focus on throughput. This has been our focus at Intelligent Management for 30 years. The knowledge exists. What’s missing is the decision to actually use it.
The real challenge lies in moving from knowing to doing. Why is this transition so difficult? Because when we act, we change our reality. Nothing stays the same, and this touches something deep in how we see ourselves and our place in the world. It’s frightening.
Consider the story of Moses and the Red Sea. The miracle wasn’t just divine intervention. Torah scholars tell us the sea didn’t part until someone took that first step into the water. Divine power met human courage and decision. As Deming reminds us, it’s all about transformation.
Industry as the Engine of Sustainable Wealth
Our goal, both as individuals and organizations, should be transformation. But into what? We should become the fastest and most effective vehicles for turning our potential into reality.
Industry offers the ideal environment for this transformation. This is where raw materials are literally transformed into valuable products. A country’s economic strength must rest on a robust and competitive industrial sector. Why? Because industry is where materials, processes, and methods combine with human intelligence to generate maximum wealth. It’s the natural birthplace for a new approach to creating sustainable prosperity.
We can transform industry through systemic thinking. Before we examine the practical applications, we need to understand the cultural and philosophical forces that can block transformation and identify the patterns that will support and sustain it.
Beyond Change Management: True Transformation
When we adopt a genuinely systemic approach, our goal isn’t to change the organization. It’s to transform how the organization pursues its goals. This is fundamentally different from Change Management, re-engineering, or incremental improvement.
The Decalogue methodology was designed specifically for transformation. It’s not Kaizen. It’s not Lean. It’s not Business Process Re-engineering. The goal isn’t better performance because better performance naturally follows. The goal is a complete paradigm shift in how the organization conducts its business.
The Decalogue brings together two powerful frameworks: Dr. Deming’s New Economics and the thinking approach to systems found in the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Dr. Goldratt. He called this thinking “common sense” and labeled its applications “thinking tools.” After thirty years of intensive work, I’m convinced there’s nothing common about this “sense,” and these “tools” are far more sophisticated than the name suggests. Truly coherent thinking remains one of humanity’s greatest challenges.
A New Foundation for Creating Wealth
The Decalogue provides a unified approach to economics, finance, and management. In doing so, it creates the foundation for a new way of understanding how sustainable wealth is created. Through rigorous investigation, it separates genuine knowledge (what we know and what shapes who we are) from superstition (what we believe is true without solid explanation).
We live in a world where uncertainty reigns and where assumptions about how to do business and with whom are continuously challenged. Polarization of wealth is increasing. We can no longer carry out business as usual. We need to dig deeper. We need to understand what causes these problems and find a real path forward where everyone can thrive. That is the ultimate purpose of the Decalogue.
This post is by Dr. Domenico Lepore, Founder of Intelligent Management Inc. and author of several pioneering books on management, including ‘Deming and Goldratt: The Decalogue’, ‘Quality, Involvement, Flow: The Systemic Organization’, ‘Moving the Chains’ and ‘From Silos to Network: A New Kind of Science for Management’
At Intelligent Management , we’ve been helping organizations develop and implement breakthrough solutions for over 25 years. Contact us today to learn how we can help you create breakthrough solutions that take your business to a whole new level. Reach out to us at intelligentmanagement@sechel.ws or through our online form here: https://intelligentmanagement.ws/contact-us/
OUR BOOKS
Intelligent Management works with decision makers with the authority and responsibility to make meaningful change to optimize your company for the digital age. We have helped dozens of organizations to adopt a systemic approach to manage complexity and radically improve performance and growth for over 25 years through our Decalogue management methodology. The Network of Projects organization design we developed is supported by our Ess3ntial software for multi-project finite scheduling based on the Critical Chain algorithm.
See our latest books: The Human Constraint from Routledge; From Silos to Networks: A New Kind of Science for Management from Springer; Moving the Chains: An Operational Solution for Embracing Complexity in the Digital Age by our Founder Dr. Domenico Lepore, and ‘Quality, Involvement, Flow: The Systemic Organization’ from CRC Press, New York by Dr. Domenico Lepore, Dr. Angela Montgomery and Dr. Giovanni Siepe.
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