• 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

Tag Archives: Expertise

Leadership Systems – Delivering Maximum Value

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by Dan Edds in Baldrige, Leadership Systems, Mapping Strategy, Praxis Solutions

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Expertise, Methodology, Solutions

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

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


Thrilled Customers

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]