• Home: Who We Are
    • Sample Clients and Sectors Served
    • What We Believe
    • Team
    • Contact
  • Leadership as a System
    • Is Leadership Really a System
    • What is a leadership system?
    • How System Elements Interact
    • The Power of the Purpose
    • Developing Leadership Systems
  • Methods
    • Lean
    • Balanced Scorecard
    • Baldrige
    • Mapping Strategy
  • Expertise
    • Office of Financial Aid
    • State and Local Government
    • Social Service and Nonprofits
  • Resources
    • Self Assessment
  • Blog
  • Sitemap
  • Contact

Praxis Solutions

~ Accelerate the Journey

Praxis Solutions

Category Archives: Systemic Leadership

The Leadership System and patient safety

27 Tuesday Feb 2018

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Leadership Systems

Business TeamThe Next Wave of Hospital Innovation to Make Patients Safer, is the title of a paper published by the Harvard Business Review in August of 2016. In the article, the authors argue convincingly that the age of major technical innovation to preserve patient safety is over. Furthermore, that the wave or process improvement and the creation of standardized work has taken patient safety as far is it will go. The next wave of innovation will come from, “ paying attention too how individuals interact with one another and organize their day-to-day work”. They go on to say that health care organizations will have to monitor “actual behaviors, practices, and interactions that unfold between people as they care for patients and manage the organization”.
These statements, in our view, only confirm the validity of seeing leadership as a system so that the system can be designed to produce a desired outcome.

If patient safety is the desired outcome, making the primary purpose of a leadership system will turn the entire leadership structure toward this objective. The authors call it “high reliability organizations” and from their descriptions this means organizations that focus on the interactions of core organizational elements – the workforce, information and patients. An organization that is highly reliable sounds like one where all systems are structured and organized to achieve a principle focus, vision, or mission. This will take a leadership system that is similarly focused.

Share this:

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • More
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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.

Share this:

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • More
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

First Break all the Rules

18 Saturday Nov 2017

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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.

Share this:

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • More
  • Email
  • Print
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...
Newer posts →

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

Enter your email address to follow this site and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Follow Following
    • Praxis Solutions
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Praxis Solutions
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
    %d bloggers like this: