Category Archives: Mapping Strategy

Leadership Systems – Staying Connected to Staff and Customers

08 Monday May 2017

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A team orientationSummary

It is time we recognize that our current approach to leadership development is a waste. $50 Billion and research says there is nothing to show for it. It’s only value is perpetuating the fantasy of a tiny minority ruling over the majority. This has been the view since the beginning of time. We still kneel at the altar of gods and goddesses … and wonder why there is no measurable value in developing leaders. We believe that training emerging leaders as sages will make them better rulers when the more power they acquire the further they are from their greatest source of brilliance – their staff and their customers. Or to be blunt, the higher they rise the stupider they get.

In an article titled, Leadership – It’s a System, Not a Person! author Barbara Kellerman, the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School takes on the $50 Billion leadership development industry and states: From the beginning, learning about leadership was, for good and sound reasons, all about leaders: single individuals who could, despite being a tiny minority, control the overwhelming majority and on occasion, single-handedly change history. She goes on to say: the leadership literature – was focused for eons on gods and goddesses, sages and princes, philosopher kings and virgin queens. The basic model of leadership has not changed. It is time to change it.

Problem

People are frequently promoted because of their technical skills. Nurses move into senior positions because they are good nurses. Associate engineers become senior engineers because of technical experience. Eventually they become leaders when they need to manage people with technical skills different than their own. They can no longer rely on the prowess of their technical skills to manage and direct others. They are part of a system of leadership. The system serves as their platform. However, without platform design, individual leaders default to the traditional role of leaders = leaders tell followers what to do. All too often, the results are revenues at any cost, profit at any price, and production not matter what the risk.

Case: In September the U.S based – Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), sited a major automotive parts manufacturer and its staffing agency for repeated safety violations. The most notable of which was a robot that malfunctioned. A young woman, laboring to meet demands of leaders who required quota be maintained at any cost (usually at the expense of worker’s personal time and safety), stepped in to clear a sensor fault. It abruptly restarted, crushing her to death. She and her family had been planning a wedding. Now they were planning her funeral.

Solution

Two Lenses of Leadership

There are two lenses through which to view leadership. 1) The lens of the individual leader seeking to influence others; and 2) The lens of the organization which should be structured to deliver measurable value. All systems, including the leadership system, should be designed and aligned with the delivery of this value. But Barbara Kellerman points out that the 40 year old leadership industry “has not in any major, measurable way improved the human condition, which is precisely why it should be reconsidered and reconceived”. In our view, the solution is understanding leadership as a system which is the platform for leadership success. Without a designed leadership system or platform, individual leaders operate to their own sense of mission and organizational performance becomes highly variable.

The remainder of this article can be viewed in its entirety at:

http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/leadership-development-inflating-egos-and-destroying-value

 

Leadership Systems – Delivering Maximum Value

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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PartnersSummary

Given the total lack of evidence that developing leaders actually results in better organizational performance, maybe it is time to convert what we know about leadership. The model says that by accumulating individual power and influence we earn a trip to the C-Suite. Instead, we should be developing strong leadership systems that focus on maximizing customer value.

Problem

John Maxwell is as good as anyone about insights into leadership. But the tagline to his bestselling book: 21-Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, may give us a clue as to why our thinking about leadership is wrong. It states: Follow Them and People Will Follow You. With this model of leadership, the primary function of leaders is the accumulation of organizational power and influence by getting personal followers. The problem, is that the focus is on the individual leader and not the needs of the organization, to say nothing of the customer.

Solution

Focus on Developing Great Leadership Systems.

Under this model, leadership is understood as a system that is interconnected with other systems and the leader submits everything she controls (elements), and builds critical relationships (interconnections) to deliver maximum value (purpose or function). It is not about leaders and followers. It is about leveraging the highest value of each interconnecting system to provide the maximum total value to the customer, patient, or student.

All organizations – governments, nonprofits, hospitals, commercial, manufacturing, high tech, and educational – all operate in systems. For example, hospital operating rooms operate in a world of interconnected systems. There is the admitting system, the diagnostic system, the technical systems, the surgical systems, the facility system, the surgical support system, the purchasing system, and many others. When individual leaders, understand they lead within a system that has been intentionally designed to deliver maximum value, then and only then can mission be attained.

Practical Impact

In his book, The Power of Habits, author Charles Duhigg tells the story of the Rhode Island Hospital. Even though it was a leading educational hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center it was also a place of feudal fights where nurses were pitted against surgeons. Nurses even had their own color coded method of identifying surgeons they worked with. Quoting Duhigg: “Blue meant ‘nice,’ red meant ‘jerk,’ and black meant, ‘whatever you do, don’t contradict them or they’ll take your head off.’ ”

Duhigg recounts the true story of an elderly man who was brought in with a Subdural Hematoma. Immediate surgery was required. Ignoring repeated caution from the nurses, the surgeon stated: (Quoting Duhigg): “If that’s what you want, then call the fucking ER and find the family! In the meantime, I’m going to save his life.” Within two weeks the man was dead. The surgeon operated on the wrong side of the man’s head. It would be easy to say that the fault was the surgeon’s and he should be dismissed, (he was). However, over the next four years similar accidents occurred for which the hospital paid $500,000 in fines.

The good news is that changes were made. It might be obvious to say, they implemented check lists and other procedural changes to improve patient safety. However, the stronger reality is that they challenged, broke and then transformed the entire leadership system. Leaders become subservient to the requirements of a system rather than every leader establishing their own operating procedures. The result was a dramatic drop in errors and a prestigious award for Critical Nursing. Where the old leadership system put the surgeon at the top of the pyramid with virtual unquestionable authority, the new system empowered everyone around the care of the patient – delivering maximum value. Duhigg concludes with an example of a routine surgery performed by an experienced and well trained surgeon. Before he started he went through a check list but missed a minor point. In response, the youngest and least experienced nurse pointed out the error which was welcomed by the surgeon.

A leadership system, therefore, is the system that connects leaders, and organizes the elements they control with the critical relationships to produce the desired outcome – maximum value. With the example of Rhode Island Hospital and the old system, surgeons had enormous and virtual dictatorial power, which often came at the expense of their patients. Under the new system, the surgeons recognized the nurses as part of a total system of patient care. The result was more medical value provided to the patient. It was not a matter power and control. It was about delivering to the patient maximum medical value for their health.

Challenges

The largest challenge to thinking about leadership as a system is the hundreds of books and training courses that provide rich formula driven approaches to personal power and influence. A simple search on Amazon books about “leadership” and 200,000 titles will come up. Same search on “Leadership Systems” and 16,500 titles come up. Virtually all titles on leadership places the individual leader at the center of the story. A review of one title found 50 different traits of effective leaders. Any combination of Jesus, St Francis of Assisi, Aristotle, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr, or Winston Churchill would never be able to adequately demonstrate all 50 traits.

A good example for the weakness of modern day thinking on leadership is an outstanding book by Stephen Covey, Speed of Trust, the one thing that changes everything. the problem with it is this: if an organization has a system that destroys trust, how can any one individual, especially one just emerging as a leader, ever change an entire organizational system? For most, the system itself will kill any attempt to create a culture of trust.

 

First Steps

Determine the requirements of the system. We just did this with a local hospital. When asked about the requirements of a leadership system – the lights went on – both form them and us. As a community based hospital they determined that the focus or the requirment of a leadership system was the empowerment of their staff, their patients, and their community. The implications were massive. From this basic requirment, we then identified critical behaviors and activities of leaders, then a plan to train and deploy the system and then the final – how to measure it. Basically they determined three measures for their leadership system:

1) Staff safety;

2) Patient safety;

3) Engagement with the community.

Each of which is easily measurable.

Comments Welcomed: Dan@PraxisSolutionsNP.com

Credits

Mr. Theo Yu, MPA, a doctorinal candate in Transformational Leadership from the Bakke Graduate University.

This article was originally published by: Management Exchange, an online community dedicated to reinenting management in the 21st Century. It can be viewed in its orginal format at:

http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/leadership-vs-leadership-systems

What is a Leadership System?

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operating-room-nurseDefinition of a leadership system: The system that connects leaders, and organizes the elements they control with critical relationships, which will produce a desired outcome.

Every organization has a leadership system. It might be a good one or a bad one, but there is a leadership system built into every organization.

In her book, Thinking in Systems, author Donella Meadows writes: “A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. If you look at that definition closely for a minute, you can see that a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.”

A leadership system, therefore, is the theory of systems applied to leadership. Using Meadows definition any leadership system is going to exhibit three component parts – elements, interconnections, and function or purpose.

Elements of a Leadership System can be:
• The leader;
• Organizational Mission;
• The current system;
• The unique product or service being provided; and
• Governance including the regulatory environment.

Interconnections (critical relationships) of a Leadership System can include:
• Reporting structure;
• Core business processes; and
• Customer requirements.

Function or Purpose of a Leadership System may include:
• The customer;
• The way in which the customer will be served; and
• Plan on execution of organizational mission.

Though not immediately recognized, every organization of any size has a leadership system. The question is, does it work? As others, have noted, systems have a way of driving behavior that is not intended. This is probably at least one answer as to why a leader can go from one organization and produce transformational improvement and go to another organization and fail miserably.

In his book, The Power of Habits, author Charles Duhigg tells the story of the Rhode Island Hospital. At the time, it was a leading educational hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center. Its intensive care unit was considered one of the best in the country. It was also a place of feudal fights where nurses were pitted against surgeons and usually lost the battle. Dhuigg tells the true story of an elderly man who was brought in with a Subdural Hematoma. Immediate surgery was necessary. Only the surgeon, ignoring input from nurses in the OR operated on the wrong side of the man’s head. He eventually died. The man was not the last. Within a few months, others died to simple system procedural failure.

The good news is that changes were made. While it might be easy to say, they implemented check lists and other procedural changes, the reality is that they challenged, broke and then changed the entire leadership system. The result was a dramatic drop in errors and a prestigious award for Critical Nursing. Where the old leadership system put the surgeon at the top of the pyramid with virtual unquestionable authority, the new system empowered everyone around the care of the patient. Dhuigg concludes with an example of a routine surgery performed by an experienced and well trained surgeon. Before he started he went through a check list but missed a minor point. In response, the youngest and least experienced nurse pointed out the error which was welcomed by the surgeon.

A leadership system, therefore, is the system that connects leaders, and organizes the elements they control with the critical relationships to produce the desired outcome. With the example of Rhode Island Hospital and the old system, surgeons had enormous and even dictatorial power, which often came at the expense of the nurses. Under the new system, the surgeons (leaders) recognized and organized the nurses as both a critical element and relationship in the care of a patient (desired outcome). The perspective and input of nurses become  valuable relationship that would make the whole greater than skill of the individual parts. The result was more intellectual and practical care given to the patient and not less. It was not a matter of surgeons winning or losing power and control. It was the patient receiving the best possible care.

Mapping the Leadership System to Mission

13 Monday Feb 2017

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RAdult businessman using his tablet computer to communicate his tecently, I did an assessment for an administrative unit of a modest sized urban school district. Because one of my core beliefs is that mission is sacred, I will often ask leaders if they can tell me their mission. If they can articulate their mission, there is a high probability that they have a leadership system that has been designed around mission. If they cannot articulate their mission, their leadership system is on default – leaders tell followers what to do. There is no clearly defined purpose of their leadership system.

Although it was posted clearly, of the 100 or more people I interviewed, including the Assistant Director of Communications who help craft the statement, not one could articulate the District’s mission. The most telling response was from a long time elementary school principal. When asked about the District’s mission, his response was “I don’t know, get kids ready for college I guess”.

It is unfortunate when organizations that exist to serve young people’s education, or nonprofits serving the most vulnerable, or government agencies protecting the health and physical safety of its citizens cannot articulate a clear and simple mission. We find that invariably, when mission is not clearly defined and understood, that individual leaders, managers, and front line staff – pick their own.
We have a growing conviction that our approach to leadership is deeply flawed. In John Maxwell’s book, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, there is a subtitle: follow them and people will follow you. John Maxwell is as good as any writer on leadership. His work is some of the best there is. But the subtitle may just point out the flaw in our thinking on leadership – it is not about gathering more staff, more resources and more power (more followership). Leadership is about a system and not about individuals. This is not to say that leadership is never about an individual man, woman or child standing tall and leading the charge. But in our view, leadership is as more about a system than about an individual. And like any system, there are requirements that will cause the system to deliver customer value.
Therefore, like a software system, a circulatory system or a mechanical system the requirements of the system must be identified, documented and measured. This starts with mission, and documenting the leadership system that will best execute on mission. This is opposite of the normal pattern. All too often, leaders determine their mission, when in reality the mission should determine the leaders. The mission of the US Marine Corp determines the leadership system. It has determine this over 200 years of experience. The mission comes first. In many other organizations, mission comes second, after the leaders figure out what it should be.

Mapping Strategy and Operational Alignment

18 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Balanced Scorecard, Baldrige, Leadership Systems, Mapping Strategy, Praxis Solutions

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Close up of a men's quadruple skulls rowing team, seconds after the start of their race

At Praxis Solutions we strongly believe in the value of a strategy map. The chief reason is that it is – visual. Most of us are visual learners. We feel, think, respond to and remember pictures and stories. “Pictures are worth thousand words”. This means one well-crafted picture can tell the story behind three pages of text. Time and again we see the power of a visual representation of strategy.
However, there is another important value in a strategy map – operational alignment. A strategy map visually tells the story of a leadership system and how the system is aligned with mission. In addition, a strategy map shows the connection between budgets and the execution of vision. Processes become aligned around meeting customer requirements instead of asking customers to bend to the requirements of the process. Leadership knows what they are supposed to produce rather than the default command and control.

Aligning Leadership

We recently finished building a strategy map for a rural healthcare organization. An additional phase included the development of a formal leadership system. This too is coming together well. But what we have found that is just stunning is this – the leadership model is perfectly aligned with process outcomes. For example, the strategy map identifies two process outcomes:
1. Safe & coordinated care; and
2. Efficient systems.
Without consulting or directing the outcome of the leadership model we are seeing that two primary results of their leadership system are – safe & coordinated care and efficient system. In other words, there is a recognized cause and effect relationship between what leaders do and the twin goals of safe & coordinated care and efficient systems. As one of the senior executives stated: “I have always been promoted because I was good at being a nurse, but when they put the title of “leader” on me, I was not at all sure what I was supposed do. Now I know”.
This is a powerful statement because most leadership training is focused on the individual leader acquiring organizational power and influence. In this model the role of the leader is to direct subordinates to do her bidding. This understanding of leadership is flipped on its head. The role of the leader is now to create the environment where staff treat patient safety and the coordination of their care as the highest priority. Mindlessly doing what the boss says no longer works. There are clear and unambiguous goals to reach. Furthermore, these objectives are highly measurable so if the targets are not being met, who is responsible – leadership. They cannot play the blame game.

To download a complimentary white paper on mapping strategy:

strategy-mapping

Understanding Leadership – As a System

27 Tuesday Dec 2016

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us-marine-leadershipThere is a fundamental difference between developing leaders and developing a leadership system. Ideally, leadership development should be based on the requirements of a leadership system that has been designed to execute organizational mission.

Not long ago, a nephew returned home from his 13 week United States Marine basic training. Within a week, he had passed the grueling 54 hour final test of his training known as the crucible, turned 20 years old, and had become a newly minted US. Marine Corp Private. He was a member of one of the most elite fighting force in the world. Upon his return, I asked him about what he had learned about leadership. I was expecting to hear reflections of his experiences and observations of acts of selfless courage. Instead, he spouted off an acronym – JJDIDTIEBUCKLE. He had memorized the acronym and its meaning as part of his training. He knew what every letter meant but I had strong doubts that he had learned anything at all about leadership. He had memorized the dictionary, as the US Marine Corps produces it, but had he learned anything tangible about leadership during his 13 weeks of basic training? I was disappointed.
However, upon further reflection, I realized he had learned a great deal about leadership. Even as a brand-new Marine with the rank of private, he had learned the fundamental basics of the Marine Corp system of leadership. In contrast, how many graduates with basic degrees in business enter their first entry level job and are given the fundamentals of their organizations system of leadership? Do the great business enterprises of our day provide their entry level employees the basics of a unique system of leadership – assuming they have one? More to the point, does Microsoft, Amazon, Federal Express, Exon, Boeing, Walmart, or Volkswagen give their lowest level hires a systematic way of looking at leadership in their on-boarding and initial training? Something tells me no. The larger question: do they even have one? Again, something tells me no.
The U.S. Marine Corp is clearly one of the elite organizations in the world given their mission. Yet they give their newest hires, even before they are officially hired, the keys to the executive suite. They teach every on one of them what is expected of a leader and how they are to lead. They have reduced the idea of leadership to a clearly defined system. Something tells me this is the next generation of leadership thought – leadership as a system.
Just in case anyone is interested. The following is the system of leadership as defined by the United States Marine Corp. A leader must exhibit the following:
• Justice,
• Judgment,
• Dependability,
• Initiative,
• Decisiveness,
• Tact,
• Integrity,
• Endurance,
• Bearing,
• Unselfishness,
• Courage,
• Knowledge,
• Loyalty, and
• Enthusiasm

= JJDIDTIEBUCKLE

Semper Fi

Baldrige Rapid Access Intensive – Accelerating The Journey

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

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highway road going up as an arrow

highway road going up as an arrow

After two full pilots, we are launching this totally new service. The two pilots have proved conclusively the value of this approach to kick starting a Baldrige journey. Developed in conjunction with Performance Excellence Northwest and two years in development, the results to date have been outstanding.

With the assistance of expert facilitators and the visual communication tools of story boarding and mind mapping, the Rapid Action Intensive will jump start your journey toward excellence. Along the way your team will learn the basic structure of the Baldrige framework, self-identify opportunities for improvement, strengths to be celebrated, and learn the comprehensive approach to excellence that Baldrige provides. It is hands on experiential learning as well as action oriented. You will come away with action items designed for excellence. You will also have the basic structure of a Baldrige application completed.

What others are saying:

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