Day 5 Leadership & Planning Service Initial Work
The Chief Executive and I had a conversation as to how to take forward this analysis and transformation work with his organisation. He came up with a view, that I should perhaps act as the Transformation Director, to ensure that the change happens and is led in the right way, over the long term. This design follows the typical setup we expect to see with change managed in an organisation. But, I replied that if he is willing to lead this, and and he is, then why his own Directors and managers cannot do the same and lead their transformation in their services? Why delegate the task of creating transformed services? Is not the task of leaders and managers to also lead change and transformation? The Chief Exec will then ensure the service design becomes a normal part of our organisation by being a part of what we should all be doing.
It is organisations like Toyota, and so many others, that have led the way in how to develop a culture and mindset where change is normal and everyones job.
So, after some discussion, I said that I would send the Chief Exec some text that would help him to create a new set of organisational principles.
- That we will set up a meeting where he and the Directors will discuss this approach, and the Chief Exec will make clear his vision and working principles of leadership that he expects the organisation to adopt. That meeting is now set,
- This will be followed by a session where the new leadership is started by taking the next level of managers through two hours of background and a case study.
The Methodology
I have taken all the directors now through a session where we talk about the history of why management traditionally focus on command & control. Why C&C is so prevalent, and why it is mostly inadequate. We then go onto alternative approaches. I like to use real examples, because it makes anything come to life. And anything that is fundamental to us cannot be simply understood in a rational way, it has to relate to our personal experiences to be understood at a deeper level. I dont like to use slides and simply pass on information. I tell stories (using slides), people can relate to it personally, and see for themselves.
I use an example of the industrial revolution, and the importance of the Ford assembly line concept, how they developed a popular and successful management style with other major car manufacturers. The belief in economies of scale and how that is only relevent to a very narrow set of circumstances. I then compare this with one of the classic Design Thinking organisations — Toyota and the Toyota Production System (TPS). The difference between the two is the way i use to help leaders to grasp a new way of seeing their work.
I sometime also talk about complexity at this early stage, but thats a video for another time — I like to use Grint as it is so simple and relevant to managers in organisations.
An Example of a Normative Approach, based on Learning through Experience
This is a manager who I asked to follow the workflow steps in her service — Planning, where people and businesses ask permission to build something. Her and a technician has dedicated three days a week where they move to another room, and only focus on this.
As part of understand, they are looking at their own workflow from a different perspective — end to end, and outside in (from the customers) perspective. Actually, they have started the first exploratory Experimentation whilst they are finishing the Understand.
Just looking at one part of the workflow, the manager and the technician went through a part of the process that they called ‘Processing’, by sitting with front line staff and following this end to end.
The pic above is what they did. She was puzzled how long it was, 75 steps she claimed. We must be able to improve on this! (Please note there are no fancy techniques as this was their efforts in the way that made sense to them)
So, they looked at this and started to think about a simpler flow.
I watched and made a comment now and again.
I asked “what is the actual value work” (those things we are here to do from the customers persective) The eventual answer is… only two of the boxes! She started to stare at the sheets, unbelieving… She was thinking, as was the technician. Wow, that can’t be… only two?
Ok, then awhile later I asked what the title of the stage was that they were looking at. Processing, it was called. Processing I asked, what's that? it is what we call it. But what is it? No answer. They eventually said that it was printing out letters and sending emails Er… yes. Pause… Is that all this is?
What is happening in both examples is that I am jarring the boundary of her thinking. I am pushing the envelope, and she is going wider in her thinking. It is causing her to pause…
Printing, we do all this to print and send something??? No! Yes! Oh my God.
She is a clever manager, who has been doing this for years. So, they had normalised a wasteful element of the workflow by calling it something sensible, rahter than what it actually was, and that had hidden it from the managers view.What happened by just changing the title of this block of work and call it was it actually is? It caused her to understand outside-in, looking outside the system inwards. And seeing it as part of the whole.
Her state of mind was relaxed. She has been away from her desk and distraction for two days. She had been encouraged to think differently by being in that environment and being prompted, and primarily by the beginning to see the service through the eyes of Systems Thinking, rather than reductionist and internal thinking.
A Security Risk
By the end of the day, the director came in for a quick update. The Planning manager started to tell the story of the day, how they were looking at the number of steps, and the waste of paper. The manager was getting more animated waving her arms, raising her voice at the ridiculousness of this. Starting to hop up and down The director got in on the energy, and responded to each of her exclamations… Every now and again, in the story that the manager told, the director’s mouth dropped open. Then they were both hopping up and down, and I was just watching.
Finally the story ended. We were all buzzing and had to go home, slightly dazed. When we left the room, a security man said that they had been called by reception because someone thought that someone in the room was being assaulted, and aggressive arm waving has been seen!!! The manager went upstairs to her desk, and had to tell part of the story to some poor employee that simply wanted to go home, just because she had to tell someone. I went back to by hotel, and found it difficult to sleep thinking of the manager, her service, her hopping up and down, and her change in viewpoint and subsequent mindset in half a day that got her so excited. I wondered about the power of what she had achieved, herself. The key to this is that she got there for herself — it was her discovery.
This is about learning, not training. This is about change or perspective by expanding views and understanding of the system. This is about seeing our system from the outside-in — and the expansion in view that gives us. It helps us to see the service from our customers perspective.
