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Category Archives: Failure of Leadership Development

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.

Developing Leadership Systems Vs. Leadership Development

09 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by Dan Edds in Developing Leadership Systems, Failure of Leadership Development, Leadership System Rules, Leadership Systems

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Leadership Systems

Frustrated leaders

Stop Developing Leaders; Start Developing Leadership Systems

In October of 2016, the influential Harvard Business Review published two articles on the failure of leadership development. The first, titled Developing Employees, Why Leadership Development Isn’t Developing leaders. The second, Spotlight On Building the Workforce of the Future – Why leadership Training Fails-and What To Do About It. According the authors of the former, American corporations spent $160 Billion in employee training and education in 2015, and received little of value.
The problem seems to be threefold:

  1. Senior leaders and HR departments seem to believe there is a causal relationship between employee training and organizational transformation. A belief that has never been justified;
  2. The training itself. Too much training is classroom learning that is removed from the actual work experience; and
  3. The systems are unyielding.

Both articles spoke to the “context” and “systematic context” or an eloquent way of saying that training was not aligned with organizational systems. One article was clearer, “the individuals had less power to change the system surrounding them than the system had to shape them”. Exactly! Systems are virtually always stronger than an individual. So, spend billions on training and nothing on systems development and … perfect scenario to waste a lot of money.
In our view, the solution is not to change the training but to change, or more accurately, design the system. When it comes to leadership, design the leadership system like we would any other system. Applying systems thinking to leadership we can articulate the major components of a leadership system to be:Leadership System Model
1) Relationships;
2) Resources;
3) Rules
Structure around a primary focus or intent.

Links to both articles:

https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-leadership-development-isnt-developing-leaders

https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-leadership-training-fails-and-what-to-do-about-it

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

Blog Categories

  • Developing Leadership Systems
  • Failure of Leadership Development
  • Leadership System Rules
  • Leadership Systems
  • Mapping Strategy
  • Praxis Solutions
    • Balanced Scorecard
    • Baldrige
    • Lean training
  • Systemic Leadership

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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Contact Information

Praxis Solutions for Nonprofits
Bellevue, WA 98006
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(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]