Ackoff

Are you a T-type person?

Jim Laughton

05 Nov 2025 — 2 min read

Image generated from Readwise daily review.

In general, I’m not a huge fan of Toyota cars. I did once own a silver Toyota MR2 Roadster, which was fun to drive, drop the roof during a British Summer, even in the Winter with the heaters on full blast. I actually wish I could have bought a Mazda MX-5 instead. Sadly, Mazda didn’t release the newer version in time! I still enjoyed my MR2, but it wasn’t a sensible car when we need to be sensible people (no luggage space, so it was either my suitcase or a passenger, but not both)!

I am, though, inspired by Toyota for evolving the Toyota Production System to ‘The Toyota Way’ and all the offshoots. There is so much to learn, and the influence of Dr W Edwards Deming on Toyota (and many Japanese manufacturers following World War II) makes it a no-brainer for me.

Go Deep, Go Wide

So the T-type isn’t ‘Toyota-type’ person, but the kind of person Toyota respects by developing them, develops by respecting them (one of the fundamental pillars of 'The Toyota Way' with continual improvement as the other - why continual and not continuous? Click here). We should all be striving to support our employees to be T-types.

We want deep expertise in all our areas (the core or pillar of the ‘T’) whilst developing people who have experience in other domains, so that they appreciate the system (see Dr Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge), which is the horizontal part (going wide, in football parlance). Only by understanding all aspects of an organisation, whatever the primary expertise, can we see the interconnectedness within our systems.

Employees then understand how their work and problems they face can impact other parts of the organisation, how their improvements need to account for impacts in other areas of the system (true systems thinking). Breaking down a problem into its components is often the advice for approaching problems, whilst the part often missing is recognising the counter-measures might address the problem and have adverse effects elsewhere.

Let me introduce…….Russell Ackoff

One of the best explanations of systems thinking and the danger of the usual reductionist approach comes from Russell Ackoff. Critical is the product of the interactions of the parts. It’s back to cars, amongst other examples:

Systems Thinking with Russell Ackoff

Hold on, Russell who?

Let me be distracted for a moment, because many might not have heard of Russell Ackoff. I hadn’t until one of several epiphanies I’ve experienced over my life. This one came in 2019 in Orlando, Florida. After attending a pre-conference workshop at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement National Forum, co-presented by Bill Bellows, my interest in Dr Deming was enthused exponentially. Bill recommended I learn more by watching Russell Ackoff recordings to deepen my Deming ‘journey’.

Learn more

Bill Bellows has numerous podcasts 'interviewed' by Andrew Stotz on The Deming Institute’s In Their Own Words. Many other deeply insightful interviews are highly recommended.

You can also watch more from Bill and others through the In2:InThinking Network here. Their YouTube channel has recordings of past events.