The book
Where the Flow Stops
An approved date unmade in the lift, an order that waits six days for fifty minutes of work, a question left in a notebook, a nurse who fetches linen from another ward. Where an organisation stops collecting what it knows, and how to measure what is found honestly enough to share it.
Seven chapters: the meeting after the meeting, the order that waits between desks, the question nobody asks, the person who already knows, a number both sides can sign, the first ninety days, and a field manual of twelve working pages.
The articles
The Keystone · Where the Flow Stops · 1 of 5
The Meeting After the Meeting
A decision approved at a quarterly review is unmade in the lift ten minutes later. Argyris and Schön's espoused theory and theory-in-use, the Abilene paradox, pluralistic ignorance on boards, and what it costs a firm to keep its best information in the corridor.
From Where the Flow Stops, Chapter 1.
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One Order, One Desk, One Week
A replacement part for a hospital kitchen spends fifty minutes being worked and six days waiting. Flow efficiency, Little's Law, Kingman's heavy-traffic result, Reinertsen's queues, and why the busiest desk in a building is so often the slowest.
From Where the Flow Stops, Chapter 2.
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The Question Nobody Asks
An analyst in her fourth month sees an assumption in the forecast that looks wrong and does not say so. Edmondson's hospital wards and work teams, Google's Project Aristotle, the 2017 meta-analysis, and what the evidence can and cannot show about the climate a leader sets.
From Where the Flow Stops, Chapter 3.
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The Person Who Already Knows
An oncology nurse runs out of clean linen and fetches it from another ward, and the hospital never learns. Tucker and Edmondson's 239 hours of observation, Orr's Xerox technicians, Polanyi and Hayek on the knowledge nobody writes down, and what it would take for a firm to collect what it already pays for.
From Where the Flow Stops, Chapter 4.
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A Number Both Sides Can Sign
A finance director has to sign a quarter's saving that the team says it found. The Hawthorne illumination data, regression to the mean, Kerr, Campbell and Strathern on what targets do to measures, and the energy-savings contract as proof that a gain can be baselined, adjusted and shared honestly.
From Where the Flow Stops, Chapter 5.