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Category Archives: Leadership System Rules

Leadership as a Social System

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Dan Edds in Developing Leadership Systems, Leadership System Rules, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions

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Leadership Systems, NationalBaldrideQualityAward

social systemOur core belief is that leadership is a system. It meets the three criteria that Donella Meadows (and others) uses to identify a system:
1. Critical elements (workforce, customers, and assets);
2. Observable interactions (relationships); and
3. A core function or purpose.

However, a leadership system is clearly not a circulatory system where elements interact based on chemistry. Nor is a leadership system a watch where the elements interact mechanistically. Nor is a leadership system a data system where critical elements interact based on the rules designed by software developers. A leadership system is a social system where the great “me” tends to be at the center.
Peter Stroh in his book Systems Thinking For Social Change: A Practical Guide to Solving Complex Problems, builds on Meadows definition by suggesting that a system is defined not by any function or purpose but a desired function or purpose (uses the word ‘outcome”). This is a critical development in understanding leadership as a system. As a system, leadership should be about the purpose or outcome that is… desired, or intended, or designed. It is also a social system because human beings are involved. While some compare human systems with a beehive (system) humans clearly operate in the world of free will, selfishness, learning, and a capacity for complex thought. Conversely, bees with a brain that is little larger than a pin head operate according to what has been encoded into their DNA with little capacity for learning and apparently need no leadership at all
In our research, we are seeing that organizations which identify an outcome or purpose of their leadership system, enjoy long-term growth and sustainability. For example, in 2000 the SSM Healthcare System won the national Baldridge Quality Award for health care. At the time they had 22,000 employees, 5000 physician/providers, acute care hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient facilities, and clinics. Their application suggest a strong of purpose or outcome … individual leaders are responsible for the communication and deployment of SSM’s mission and values. From here, SSM continued to grow and the CEO did not resign until 2014 when she retired.
The iconic Salvation Army has a similar outcome or purpose of their leadership system – execute on the mission which is preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination. The entire leadership system of the Salvation Army is to produce this mission.
In a drastically different kind of organization, the New York Mafia or Costra Nostra as it is sometimes called, has a clear and compelling purpose for its leadership system – protect the “family”. Members of the “family” put their own interests, even their own life as subordinate to the larger “family”. While the mafia certainly preyed like sharks on the public, it would be hard not to acknowledge their success. For over 70 years they dominated their competitors and become a shadow government raking in billions of dollars a year through multiple changes in senior leaders, while government authorities and even the FBI knew nothing of their existence.

Leadership Systems: Using Information as a Key Resource

01 Thursday Feb 2018

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

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Leadership Systems

quote-knowledge-is-power-in-post-capitalism-power-comes-from-transmitting-information-to-make-peter-drucker-57-54-59

Peter Drucker on the Power of Information

A key resource in a leadership system is information. The old saying “Information is power” is certainly true and many leaders use information well. Way more leaders use it protect their power and kingdom. In every organization I have been involved with, there is always someone who wants to pretend that they have access to a secret source of information. It’s a power game. But what if the leadership system, provided unencumbered access to all information related to performance?
I frequently get into discussions with clients about how to motivate workers to higher performance. I have struggled with this myself. One solution for leaders is to make information more available and transparent. Donella Meadows, in her iconic work, Thinking Systems, recounts the effect of the 1986 Toxic Release Inventory. This was a piece of Federal regulation that required U.S. Companies to report all hazardous air pollutants released from their factories. With no further regulation, no Federal club to manufactures, hazardous emissions began to drop. In 1988 the initial data became public and 2 years after that there was a drop in hazardous emissions of 40%. It seemed manufacturers were more concerned about public perception (resulting from the free flow of information) than a threat of a Federal lawsuit.
I was recently talking with a Senior Medical Officer (SMO) from a small healthcare insurer. He told me how he was able to motivate their primary care physicians to follow up their diabetic patients and their A1C tests. Every physician was sure 75%-80% of their diabetic patients were having their Hemoglobin checked at regular intervals. They were wrong. According to the SMO it was down around 40%. He had several choices, but his approach was a basic understanding of competitive human nature. He simply published the actual results by physician. Within a few months, the actual results came up to 75%. Information, simple actual results proved more effective that financial incentive, meetings, reminders, or threat. That is the beauty of a system.

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

Leadership System and the Open Door Policy

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by Dan Edds in Leadership System Rules, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions

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Baldridge, Leadership Systems

Leadership Systems - Open Door Policy

An open door policy is a nice value. It only becomes part of a leadership system if it is built into the rules of the system.

Inc Magazine recently republished an article by Gary Vaynerchuk titled: Why My Door is Always Open. According to his LinkedIn page, Gary is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of VaynerMedia, a full-service digital agency servicing Fortune 500 clients across the company’s 4 locations. He is also a sought after public speaker, a venture capitalist, 4-time New York Times bestselling author, and an early investor in companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo and Uber.

In his article, which is really rather good, Gary speaks to the value of the CEO having an open-door policy. As I read the article I was struck with the dichotomy of my last CEO. His personal leadership skills, in many ways was off the charts. He was smart, respectful, engaging, passionate, and visionary. His understanding of leadership as a system was awful. In contrast to Mr. Vasynerchuk, he would arrive in the morning, immediately go into his office, shut the door, pull the internal window blinds and not come out until after lunch. Consequently, all but one of the senior leaders would do the same. As a senior project manager, I knew within days of starting that my time with his firm would short. The unspoken rule was, you don’t bother the CEO until after lunch and he opened his door. His other leaders just followed his lead. Team work and collaboration, two things desperately needed in a consulting business, was non-existent. While the senior leaders had been stable, the rest of the firm was a revolving door of smart people coming and going. When the COO called me after my resignation and ask why, I told her. Her response was why didn’t you say something? Really?

While an open-door policy is a nice touch for a CEO, it only turns into a system if her leaders and managers do the same. It must be built into the rules of the system and not just a value of the CEO. Contrast this to a small regional hospital in Western Washington. This CEO understands leadership as a system and in designing the system, one of the requirements is… all leaders will have an open-door policy. I have never seen an organization with greater team work and collaboration among competing disciplines. it is breath taking.

Link to the Inc article:
https://www.inc.com/linkedin/gary-vaynerchuk/why-my-door-always-open-gary-vaynerchuk.html

First Break all the Rules

18 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by Dan Edds in Leadership System Rules, Leadership Systems, Praxis Solutions, Systemic Leadership

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Leadership Systems

Marines becoming an officer

Marine Corp Leadership Rule: Leaders Eat last

Every leadership system has them. Every organization has them. They are one of the three pillars of a leadership system. They are both formal and informal.  Bryce Hoffman, in his book: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company tells the story about Alan breaking an unofficial rule. The “rule” had been that everyone, including the CEO had to make an appointment to see the Chairman and schedule it through his assistant. Alan, as the CEO, thought this was silly so one day he just walked by the assistant and straight into the office of William Clay Ford, Jr.. He broke a standing rule and walked on the perceived power & control of the assistant. Rules are important, occasionally it is important that rules be challenged.

I asked my young Marine Corp nephew not long ago who eats last in the chow line. Without hesitation he said “the highest ranking officer”. This is the theme of Simon Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t. For the Marine Corp, this is a behavioral rule of their leadership system. Leaders eat last. Could this be a reason why the Marine Corps is one of the most successful organizations in the world in teaching leadership?

Marcus Buckingham, in his book, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, recognizes two things: 1) organizations and systems come with a prescribed set of rules, and 2) great leaders, operating in a world of systems and a leadership system that is made up of rules, must frequently break those rules because they have the ability to destroy his or her personal leadership. This is so because, the system is mightier than the individual.

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  • 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
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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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Achieving Excellence

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

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.

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]