Tips for Lean Managers

What Does the Observer Have to Do with the Observed?

Avatar photo By Jon Miller Published on June 20th, 2007

The fact that light is both a wave and a particle at the same time has been puzzling physicists for decades. More recently, managers have been puzzled by the fact that work is both value and waste at the same time.
This wonderful video explains what is called the double slit experiment.
As in the experiment in the video, when light is observed the probability field collapses and light behaves like a particle. The act of observing light disturbs it somehow and makes it act like a particle.
When a process is consciously observed, the probability field for work collapses and suddenly the observer sees 95% waste. The act of a conscious human being observing a process makes the waste become clear.
Light acts as though it knows it is being observed and acts like a particle. Work acts like it knows its being observed and shows us mostly waste. Please take away the waste, the work is saying to us.

Avatar photo

Jon Miller

Jon has dedicated his 25+ year career to the field of kaizen, continuous improvement, and lean management. Jon spent the first eighteen years of his life in Japan, then graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s in linguistics.

  1. Ravi Mohan

    June 21, 2007 - 4:15 am
    Reply

    “When a process is consciously observed, the probability field for work collapses and suddenly the observer sees 95% waste. The act of a conscious human being observing a process makes the waste become clear.”
    What is the “probability field for work”? how does it “collapse”?
    The double slit experiment is hard science, not fluffy mysticism. Is the analogy over stretched?

  2. Jon

    June 21, 2007 - 5:09 am
    Reply

    I meant no disrespect to hard science by using these terms, Ravi.
    Since the mechanics behind the behavior of light in the results of the double slit experiment are so little understood by today’s science, I took of liberty of imagining “work” as behaving in a way similar to light.
    “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” – Albert Einstein

  3. Ron

    June 21, 2007 - 6:14 am
    Reply

    Now this is the type of post we should all start our day with! Awesome, Jon. Really. I totally see the relationship.
    Ravi, have you had any experience with value stream mapping? If so, I am sure you can relate how people who thought their process was infallible are totally shocked to “see” that this process is adding value

  4. Ravi Mohan

    June 21, 2007 - 7:44 am
    Reply

    @Jon
    No harm done. though I am a bit leery of the abuse of quantum physics to justify many unscientific things.
    @Ron
    I have no problem with people’s *perceptions* undergoing a change, even radical change.
    It is the equating of a perceptual change to a physical change via an analogy that rubs me ever so slightly the wrong way.
    I much prefer argument by logic or evidence than by metaphor. But that’s just me. As I said earlier, no harm done and I am just being pedantic,
    Cheers,
    Ravi

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