Recent events made me re-think the meaning of Redesign. One was the Sanriku railway destroyed by the recent earthquake & tsunami in Tohoku. As I understand it, it is the small railway (2-3 cars?) running along the coastline and had trouble making profit even before the recent disaster. I heard that some people in the area have a strong attachment with the railway & want to try to restore it.
It seems to me that basic question needs to be asked before a decision is made to restore or redesign, such as what are we trying to accomplish by restoring the railway? Is the railway the best way to provide transportation for people in the area? Is heavy investment for building tracks worth doing now? Can other means such as mini buses or a car service fulfill the needs better now?
It is understandable we have nostalgia for things we have cherished. (Just think of how we remember our alma mater.) But we need to think what our original objective was & how we can accomplish that objective by redesigning our system. And, maybe that means a different alternative altogether. The same applies to how we think about business when we think of redesign or restoring something, whether it be a department, or a product. Is it practical or are we doing it from a place of nostalgia?
Yoko Ishikura is a Professor at Hitotsubashi University ICS in the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy in Japan. She has held positions as a professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Business of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, as a consultant at McKinsey and Company Inc. Japan and a visiting professor at Darden School.
Professor Ishikura is a consultant to a number of multinational companies and has been a frequent speaker at management conferences, seminars, and workshops throughout the world. She was a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee for the Japanese government and the International Competitiveness Commission for METI. She is currently a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum.
She is the author of Strategic Shift from OR choices to AND paradigm, Building Core Skills of Organization , and the co-author of the following publications: Managing Diversity in the 21st Century, Strategy for Cluster Initiatives in Japan , and Building a Career to the World Class Professionals – all in Japanese. Her books in English include: Asian Advantage, Hitotsubashi on Knowledge Management and Trust and Antitrust in Asian Business Alliances.
Professor Ishikura’s current research interests are focused on global competition, innovation, and knowledge management. She received her BA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan; MBA from Darden School, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia; and DBA from Harvard Business School.
