System

Two parallel tracks

giantknave Brain Farts , , ,

railway-track-leading-into-distanceI get a number of different reactions from people when I discuss organisational ‘systems thinking’ ideas with them. These range:

  • from “wow, that’s so right…but we are completely stuck in our current ‘command-and-control’ reality and surely can’t do anything about it!” ;
  • to “we need change and I can’t wait around for your theory to come to fruition – I’m going to accept things as they are and tinker at the edges as best I can…otherwise I will go mad with frustration!”.

To quote Russell Ackoff: the later response above is basically trying to make a “wrong thing righter” or, in effect, limit the damage.

However, I am very mindful that people can’t feast on ideas alone and that the point is to improve. All the theory in the world won’t help if we can’t apply it.

I have pondered this dilemma a lot and often…and came across (what is to me) a profound answer to this dilemma, as written by Alfie Kohn:

“When something is wrong with the present system, you move on two tracks at once.

  • You do what you can within the confines of the current structure, trying to minimise its harm.
  •  You also work with others to try to change that structure, conscious that nothing dramatic may happen for a very long time.

If we move exclusively on the latter track, such as by mobilising people to dismantle [the destructive instruments of the] system, we may not be doing enough to protect [our colleagues] from the destructive effects [of these instruments] with which they are going to be controlled in the meantime.

But – and this point can be more difficult to recognise – if we simply reconcile ourselves to the status quo and spend all our time getting our [colleagues] to accommodate themselves to it and play the game, then nothing will change and they will have to do the same with their [colleagues and on and on].

As someone once said, realism corrupts; absolute realism corrupts absolutely.”

So, we need to simultaneously travel along two tracks.

We need to accept that our progress along the (truly) transformational track of changing our management system will take time….but we MUST start and sustain this journey (i.e. not see it as an impossibility) whilst also doing what we can within our current daily realities. We can only do this if you and I continue to think, collaborate and learn….which, I suggest, may be intrinsically motivating for us and give us a clearer sense of purpose.

Bad digger driver or bad process?

giantknave Brain Farts , ,

5tonne_diggerOn Thursday 29th October 2014, a digger cut through a major gas pipe in the centre of Christchurch and a major evacuation ensued.

There was plenty of talk about this in the tea room at my work place the next day, about the major traffic jams and hassle it caused. The usual “I bet the digger driver gets it!” comment was made….and, possibly, he will. But, on reflection, do any of us think that the digger driver did it deliberately? I doubt it.

The Press article reporting the gas leak notes that the Fire Service representative said “a digger driver working in the area caused the widespread disruption”. Whilst maybe taken out of context, as the media delight in doing, it’s pretty emotive to single out the digger driver.

Much better, I would suggest, is that SCIRT (the infrastructure rebuild organisation) claimed responsibility, stated that they will be doing a full investigation and said “it is essential that we work out how this happened so it does not recur in future.” That’s a lot better, looking much wider than the person AND wanting to improve the process.

It is interesting to note that the reader’s comments section below the article is a mixture of blaming the digger driver, blaming SCIRT and conversely, trying to ‘cut them some slack’ by noting that the post-quake Christchurch environment is a somewhat tricky one to be operating within and it would be a miracle if no such defects occurred given the magnitude of the work being undertaken. I am often frustrated at how people jump to blame without being in possession of the facts.

Whilst this example of a defect causing pain for others is pretty major, we could (if we looked with our ‘blaming bad people’ radars turned on) find lots of examples at work in which you and I think badly of a person because of what we perceive they did, or did not do.

But, standing back, how many people turn up at work to deliberately do a poor job…conversely, how many people are doing their best given the environment they work within…and, perhaps most concerning, how many people have effectively turned their brains to their ‘low setting’ because of the system they have to work within?

So, whenever you find yourself blaming a person, try to stand back and think about the environment that they are working within. If you think about it, you are very likely to find many reasons as to why they acted as they did…and the harder you look, the more likely you are to consider the process could be improved.

Finally, if you think the process should be improved but believe it won’t be…I would ask you to reflect on why this is the case…perhaps the constraint is within the design of the ‘management system’ in which the workers have to operate.

As the Toyota saying goes “Be hard on the process, but soft on the operators.”

What you see depends upon your perspective.

giantknave Brain Farts , , , , ,

uh___perspective__by_paper_flowersIf you go on a site visit to see another organisation, let’s say because you want to see if you can ‘borrow’ someone else’s brilliant ideas, be very mindful of the effect of your own constrained thinking on what you will see!

“…Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” (Marcus Aurelius)

Examples:

The Operations Manager: If you go to see a manufacturing plant, see that it is really clean and tidy, notice that they use a technique (and related tools) called ‘5S’…you could come back to your own plant and tell everyone to ‘do 5S’.

…but you would have missed the point as to how that manufacturing plant arrived at their current reality. They will likely have engaged everybody in the factory as part of a deeper ‘Lean/ Systems Thinking’ management system. They will have an environment in which ‘5S’ is relevant to them and can thrive.

It is likely that your top-down mandate to ‘do 5S’ won’t be embraced and you, the ‘command-and-controller’ will say “it didn’t work here”…and will go looking somewhere else for another ‘brilliant idea’ to impose.

The Healthcare Executive: If you go to see a hospital looking for ‘best practise’, see that some of the best surgeons use ‘checklists’…you could purchase a pack of ‘expert designed’ checklists from a consultant and mandate their use by all your surgeons.

….but you would have missed the point that the checklists (or any other effective yet dynamic ‘standardised work’) were designed and owned by the people who were using them because they believed that they were a meaningful counter-measure to meaningful problems.

It is likely that your surgeons won’t accept your imposed checklists…and you will attempt to implement controls to enforce their use, leading to extra costs and much worker- management resentment.

Note that the American car manufacturers AND Toyoda (now Toyota) went to see Henry Ford’s revolutionary ‘River Rouge’ production plant at about the same time as each other (the 1920s)…but they were looking at the same thing through very different eyes and came out with very different observations (e.g. economies of scale vs. flow)…and the rest is history!

The best way to make meaningful and sustainable improvements is to always start from the perspective of the customer, see the customer’s value stream as a system, understand its purpose and provide an environment in which all the process performers and managers are intrinsically motivated to continually improve this system towards its purpose. And, to be clear, this (in part) requires the removal of any and all management instruments that do the opposite.

Whilst it might be useful to see what others are doing, perhaps to spark ideas, this shouldn’t be your starting point and neither should it be the end point. You should know what you are trying to achieve before you look, and you should (meaningfully) experiment before you implement.

Two quotes that apply here:

On tools: “A fool with a tool is still a fool” (Grady Booch); and

On environment: “People’s behaviour is a product of their system. It is only by changing [the system] that we can expect a change in behaviour.” (John Seddon)