Tsuchiya Tetsuo and the turn to data — and to “not doing” (2014)

What not to do, and what the data does

The heart of this turn is that it set two opposing principles in place at once. Data management is thoroughly a management of doing — replacing instinct and experience with numbers. “Management by not doing” is the opposite: not driving employees with rapid expansion or quotas. Most corporate transformations lean toward imposing numerical targets and squeezing the front line; Workman did the reverse, using numbers relentlessly while asking nothing unreasonable of people. Firm the foundations with data, and stack the challenges at a pace that does not strain. That combination is what made a specialist company’s transformation last.

Workman’s course shows the value of not hurrying a transformation. Between Tsuchiya Tetsuo’s arrival in 2012 and the leap of WORKMAN Plus in 2018, no conspicuous new format appeared. Those years were a run-up in which the data foundation was built. Had results been demanded immediately, that run-up might have been cut short. To take time, while the core business is still stable, to prepare the next strength — the twin wheels of “not doing” and data management offer one answer to the question of how a mature single-business company readies its next phase of growth.