Toyota's assembly line in the 1970s: any worker — earning the equivalent of $30,000 to $60,000 a year, and not responsible for the defective station — can flip a lever that halts the *entire* line at every stage the moment they spot a defect such as a poorly-sealed windshield. First-order: the line stops. Second-order: over half a million dollars of production is lost to a single minor error. On the surface this seems insane — fatally expensive for an industrial manufacturer. Third-order: forcing defect-elimination at the source, sustained over decades, gave Toyota the highest quality rates, lowest defect rates, and most efficient factories in the world. Marshall's framing: the worker was empowered to stop production at roughly **10x his entire annual salary** to correct one mistake — and the policy made Toyota worth more than General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Peugeot, Ferrari, BMW, and Mercedes *combined*. The case is the mirror image of [[The Cobra Effect]]: a decision that looks ruinous at the first and second orders is justified entirely by the third. Read the outcome and anyone nods; almost no one would have authorized it cold. (Mechanics of the wider system: [[Toyota Production System Principles]].) --- *Source: [[Book Inventory/Progression|Progression]] (Sebastian Marshall, 2016) — Uncommon Virtues #3 — Higher-Order Thinking*