Making a system that works

For several years, I’ve been saying that the genius of American business is that it knows how to make stupid people do something valuable, as epitomized by McDonald’s. Mostly people I’ve told it to have just shrugged.

Now I have “proof” that I was right. I’m reading The E-Myth Revisited, and it’s right there, on page 100: “The model will be operated by people with the lowest possible level of skill”.

The point is that you design a system of standards and practices that make the system as a whole produce more value than those same people could’ve done without the system. A lot more value.

Maybe Denmark could learn from this. Danish politics are still stuck in a world of technicianship. We believe that the way Denmark shall stack up to the competition is by being better educated. Which is fine. And our level of education probably is higher than most other countries. Yet we still have serious unemployment, especially among people with a higher level of education. Could it be that we’re not good enough at turning that knowledge into value for the customer?