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Category Archives: Developing Leadership Systems

Key Elements of the Leadership System – Managing Vs. Developing

16 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by Dan Edds in Developing Leadership Systems, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions, Systemic Leadership

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Leadership Systems

Public Speaking 1

Developing Public Speaking Skills

Every system has key elements. A leadership system has three: 1) workforce, 2) financial resources, and 3) knowledge & information. I recently witnessed the difference between managing these elements vs developing them. The difference is of a seismic scale.

Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center is a system of multiple hospitals and clinics. They are one of the top hospitals in America. For example, they are:

1. The only recipient of Leapfrog Group’s, highest recognition for quality and patient safety, for twelve consecutive years;
2. A Recipient of the Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence from Healthgrades for eight consecutive years; and
3. A Recipient of Healthgrades highest award for patient experience for five consecutive years.

Few health care organizations in the world can match this record of consistent long-term performance. As but one example of developing vs managing their key leadership elements, every Friday afternoon, they hold a series of “report outs”. These are exactly 5-minute reports on recent Kaizen or Rapid Process Improvement Workshops. The name would suggest a simple after-action report. Hardly the case. Each report out is part of an integrated approach to developing each of these critical elements. For example:

Developing Workforce. Report outs are done by two participants of each workshop but not the leader. They want to develop public presentation skills of their workforce, so it is the rank and file that do the report outs. Leaders giving the presentation robs staff of the challenge and opportunity for self-improvement. Staff giving their first report out presentation are acknowledged. In my observation, the Chief of Staff was the senior executive and he warmly acknowledged one woman giving her first presentation.

Creating More Value from their financial resources. As the first health care system in the world to adopt the Toyota Production System they are all about eliminating waste. Eliminate waste and more resources flow to patient value. Since adopting TPS the time nurses spend interacting with patients has gone from 35% to 90%.

Developing New Knowledge & Information. As processes are improved and redesigned the knowledge is immediately operationalized and distributed throughout the system. Systems are not improved in isolation, but in collaboration with other systems for total system improvement.

For this health care system, with a long-term record of delivering outstanding patient care, managing is not enough. Developing their key system elements is a heart beat that throbs throughout their leadership system.

The Leadership System: Power of Purpose

09 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Dan Edds in Developing Leadership Systems, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions, Systemic Leadership

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Leadership Systems

IcebergI was just re-reading David Peter Stroh’s book, Systems Thinking for Social Change, and was reminded of the iceberg as a metaphor for a system. 90% Of an iceberg is what lies below the surface of the water. It cannot be seen but the Titanic lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean because of it. The purpose of a leadership system is what lies below the surface of the water. Outside observable behaviors of individual leaders, it cannot be seen. Though hidden, its power is incalculable. The size of its mass relative to what can be seen, gives us an understanding of its power.

Most organizations try to manage the enterprise by controlling the elements and to some degree the interconnections. But unfortunately, they are trying to control 100% of the iceberg by focusing on 10% of the mass. The math does not work. Organizations would be far more successful by focusing on the 90% of the iceberg. For leadership, this means identifying the systems purpose. Once this is set, everything else will fall into place.

In his book, The Power of Purpose, Richard Leider describes personal purpose this way: “Purpose is the aim around which we structure our lives, a source of direction and energy. Through the lens of purpose, we are able to see ourselves-and our future-more clearly”. The same could be said for the purpose of the leadership system = Through the power of purpose, the aim around which we structure our leadership, we will have our source of direction and energy. Through the lens of our purpose, we will see ourselves and our future more clearly.

Leadership System: The Chief Purpose of Leadership

23 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by Dan Edds in Developing Leadership Systems, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions, Systemic Leadership

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Leadership Systems

According to Donella Meadows in her ground breaking work, Thinking in Systems, a A primer, every system has a purpose or chief function.  the system produces something of value, an intended results.

William Swenson Army

Capt. William Swenson

In a conversation with Colonel Marc Gauthier, a 34 year veteran of the United States Army, Army Ranger and Special Forces, I asked: what is the primary function or purpose of the leadership system for the Army? After some clarification, he thought for a moment and referenced General Mark A Milley, current General of the Army, the highest ranking officer and CEO equivalent of the Army.

On August 7, 2015 General Milley accepted the appointment and outlined his priorities. The first two might be expected from an Army General:

1) Readiness; and
2) Innovate.

However, the third priority is different. Here is the full text of his communication to his troops about this third priority

Care of the Troops: (Always) Every day we must keep foremost in our minds our Soldiers, Civilians, and their Families. Our collective strength depends on our people—their mental and physical resilience is at our core. We must always treat each other with respect and lead with integrity. Our Soldiers are the crown jewels of the Nation; we must love them, protect them, and always keep faith with them.

A system purpose can be tangible like the circulatory system pumping blood and delivering nutrients, gas, and hormones to the body. It can also be intangible like a leader serving her subordinates. This purpose or function is the “why” leadership exists. It is the reason why a leader gets up on the morning. It is the way individual leaders see themselves delivering maximum value to customers and stakeholders. General Milley was simply restating what every commissioned and enlisted officer knows from the first day of training – the job of a leader 

is to love his men (and women), it is to care for them, and always keep faith with them.

On October 14, 2013, Captain William Swenson received the nations highest honor – the Medal Of Honor. This is his story, of how he fulfilled General Milley’s priority – of loving a soldier.

The Leadership System: Perfectly Designed to Get Intended Results

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by Dan Edds in Developing Leadership Systems, Failure of Leadership Development, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions, Systemic Leadership

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Leadership Systems

DemingEdwards Deming put this title in a different way: Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it does. Therefore, when Seattle Swedish Hospital’s, Neurological Institute changes surgeon’s compensation formula from one where revenues were shared to one that compensated surgeons on production, they received exactly what the system was designed to produce. Surgical production went up, collaboration when down, safety went down, and a new age of internal competition was born.

This according to a 4-part expose that was published in 2017 by the Seattle Times. As a result, the CEO of Swedish Hospital resigned, and the director of the Institute lost his license to practice in the State of Washington. The final result will be determined by the courts. It will take a generation to heal the scars.

Deming is also often quoted as saying: I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management) 6% special events.

Dr. William Tate, one of the early pioneers in systemic leadership uses the analogy of a fish tank. The traditional model of leadership is one that occasionally pulls the fish out of the tank for training and then sends them back into a toxic tank. The result is little if any change. Better to change the tank (the leadership system).

The Leadership System – Routines & Processes

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by Dan Edds in Developing Leadership Systems, Failure of Leadership Development, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions, Systemic Leadership

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Leadership Systems

social systemIn our contemporary age, most of us understand the role of processes. Processes are what takes the raw materials of production, whether they be aluminum ingots or knowledge of the human brain and turns them into a soda can or the removal an aneurysm. But a cousin to processes are routines. Routines are tasks and activities that are regular patterns of human behavior. For a leadership system, routines and processes are part of what makes leadership – a system.

A conversion with a the director of a level 1 trauma center revealed a simple, but important routine. The current CEO of the hospital regularly rounds to each department, including the trauma center 2-3 times a week. In doing so, he learns the names of physicians and nurses. He learns their concerns, what they like about the job and what frustrates them. He invites 2-way communication and dialog. He learns in real time any potential labor challenges that might be on the horizon. Consequently, trust and respect for the administration is high. Senior leaders, following the lead of the CEO do the same. A culture of mutual respect and trust grows.

Contrast this with executive leaders who lead from the sanctum of their office. Out side of direct reports, there is no relationship. For this type of leader, trust and respect of the workforce is probably not a priority.

Processes and routines are also the bank of organizational knowledge, skills, and experience. They serve as organizational memory. Procedures are changed and turned into new routines and processes because experience and data says there is a better way. Innovation occurs when existing processes are modified, reorganized, and streamlined. For the leadership system, processes and routines need the same kind of continual evaluation as an intricate surgical procedure. Annual strategic planning needs continual review and the process itself to make it more effective. Communication between senior leaders and front line staff always needs improvement. Routines that encourage and build 2-way communication yields enormous value.

The challenge is that only when we understand leadership as a system, will we understand how to improve the system. By understanding leadership as a system, leaders can be trained to its requirements.

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Recent Posts

  • Key Elements of the Leadership System – Managing Vs. Developing
  • The Leadership System: Power of Purpose
  • Leadership System: The Chief Purpose of Leadership
  • The Leadership System: Perfectly Designed to Get Intended Results
  • The Leadership System – Routines & Processes

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  • Praxis Solutions
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The Value of Check Lists

Commercial airplanes take off and land thousands of time each day. Their pilots do so routinely. Yet each time a pilot takes off or lands she does so with a check list. The result is safer air travel for millions of travelers. Surgeons are also finding that check lists saves lives. A check list assures the routine gets done correctly. An Office of Financial Aid began using a check list. The result has been fewer errors, faster processing time, happier students, and happier staff evaluators.

Small Change = Big Impact

One of our clients, an Office of Financial Aid, made a small change to their process of processing financial aid applications. They learned in a lean training that small batches often results in faster throughput. So instead of staff grabbing an arm full of aid application files, they took only ten. They would not go back to get another ten until the ten they were working on were finished. The impact was dramatic. No lost files, no running around asking co-workers if they were working on "John's" file, dramatic drop in errors and rework, higher productivity, higher worker satisfaction, and faster awards of financial aid. Simple change, but major impact.

Lean for Teams

Our Lean for Teams workshop was launched in June of 2014 with a college Advising Office. This engaging and interactive training was a customized specifically the the college. It formed the framework for a four day lean kaizen event the followed immediately.

Does Lean Work in Government?

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee is making lean a central part of his reform initiative. From his website: Empower state employees to find efficiencies through greater use of Lean Management. Lean management is an approach that asks those who know best - our front-line employees - to identify strategies to help them serve the people of Washington more quickly and easily. These efficiencies will help us prevent additional cuts to essential services and programs.

Value of a Strategy Map

A strategy map visually communicates the cause and effect relationships that must be in place to successfully execute strategy.

A Board Member States:

If this is where the agency is going and how we are going about it, I am fully committed – and able to talk about it to my peers and potential donors.

Client Testimony

Praxis was very thorough and well organized in their methods for gathering information from a variety of people and sources in our organization to obtain a full and complete picture of our environment.  Their experience in the industry and prior consulting work was very valuable and the final recommendations were thoughtful, meaningful and are valuable to us as we work to improve the efficiency of our organization.

Clay Gehring, Chief Information Officer, Spokane Public Schools

Improving an Office of Financial Aid

Dan facilitated a week long Process Improvement training for our Financial Aid Department.  As a result, our staff have maintained and engaged in a strong focus on process improvement.  Summer is an extremely high processing period as we approach fall quarter at our college.  At this time, because of process improvements, staff are well ahead in awarding aid for students and have surpassed all previous years.

Anne White, Dean of Enrollment Services & Financial Aid

Connecting With Clients

Dan’s ability to connect and communicate with each person on the team is his greatest strength. There were twenty team members from the grants administration and business services groups, a very diverse group, I don't think anyone else could have made the engagement work.

Mason General Hospital – Client Experience

We are now organizing our “nuts and bolts” team with associated workgroups focused on the Baldrige Quality Criteria. Our customer group has already begun our approach to use of social media, now in early deployment
I would highly recommend this offering to anyone seeking Baldrige or even considering a journey to excellence.

Eileen Branscome
Chief Operations Officer, Mason General Hospital

Value of Using a Strategy Map

We are now starting to regularly use the strategy map even at Board Meetings to frame discussions.

Sebastian Koellner, Hopelink - Performance Improvement Manager

ANNOUNCING – BALDRIGE RAPID ACCESS INTENSIVE

Developed in collaboration with the North West's Baldrige alliance member, the Rapid Access Intensive is a high impact intensive designed to accelerate the Baldrige journey. Why wait a year to get the benefit of a Baldrige report when you can accelerate this journey to a few weeks.

Experience With Community Action Partnerships

At Hopelink, we wanted to develop a strategy map and balanced score card, but were not sure how to go about it. Dan and Martin brought a wealth of expertise to the process. I personally appreciated their willingness to be a sounding board for ideas and their enthusiasm for developing structures and visual tools to summarize information.

Sebastian Koellner, Performance Improvement Manager

Experience With Community Action Partnerships

Hopelink is indebted to Martin and Dan for leading us through a process to transform our strategic plan into a strategy map. This new tool makes our strategic plan easily accessible and clear to a variety of external and internal audiences with a deceptively simple visual presentation. After months of work dedicated to developing this map, it has quickly become a much-used and useful performance excellence tool that our leadership refers to on a daily basis.

Marilyn Mason-Plunkett, Hopelink President & CEO

Client Experience

I had the opportunity to observe a series of facilitated exercises conducted by Performance Excellence Northwest. Their unique leadership approach assisted our staff in developing the framework and refining our Baldrige values as we started drafting our first Baldrige application. Their Baldrige Rapid Access approach not only accelerated our application process but improved the quality of that application. I can personally recommend this organization.

Scott Hilburn, President Board of Commissioners, Mason General Hospital.

Winston Churchill


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Excellence is born of commitment, intentional learning, hard work, and a burning desire to serve the customer.

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Contact Information

Praxis Solutions for Nonprofits
Bellevue, WA 98006
Info@PraxisSolutionsNP.com
(425) 269-8854

Jack Welch on Learning

"An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."

Baldrige in Public Education

Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria has a proven track record of driving comprehensive organizational improvement in public education.

Watch this interview, JoAnn Sternke, superintendent of the Pewaukee School District (PSD), as she reflects on PSD’s receiving the prestigious 2013 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award—the United States’ highest honor for quality and performance excellence.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JnraF4DGgY?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Baldrige in Healthcare

In the demanding and dynamic nature of Healthcare, Baldrige Performance Excellence has provided a disciplined and structural framework for guiding comprehensive performance. In short, lives are being saved, workers at all levels recognize their role in mission, people want to work for organizations that demonstrate excellence.

Watch David Fox, President of Good Sammaratian Hospital, 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the health care category.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khdal2dKW1k?rel=0&w=560&h=315]