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My Brand of Insanity, a blog to change thinking.

In This Issue

My Brand of Insanity

The 3-Day Fundamentals of Systems Thinking Workshop

Awaken the Sleeping Giant

Getting Knowledge

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Dear Systems Thinker,

Perseverance is paying off and the number of people receiving the newsletter and/or downloading "Understanding Your Organization as a System" is over 2,500. The blogs, articles, etc. are conduits to discovering a better way of thinking in service organizations. Something that must proceed the use of tools and technology. Thank you for participating in "spreading the word" and all the questions, phone calls and comments.

My Brand of Insanity

Each newsletter, I will share some random thoughts on current events, service (good and bad) and other sometimes closely attached and sometimes detached thoughts. Having been a proponent of W. Edwards Deming's thinking for more than two decades it is not hard to imagine why the title for this section. Here are a few announcements, thoughts and observations:

Government inquiries on outsourcing and shared services are causing a stir. The conventional wisdom is that these are "givens" to cost savings. I am challenging this assumption at every possible opportunity. I urge national, state and local governments to continue to read about a better way at www.thesystemsthinkingreview.co.uk. Having worked for the State of Indiana as CIO for FSSA, I see my state doing the wrong things righter putting them in good shape through the current crisis, I still hold out hope that new thinking will prevail. The decrease in costs and improved service are worth the "risk" as systems thinking is safer than the known way.
Poor work design born from old thoughts about the functional separation of work and productivity/financial measures continue to prevail in the banks I have visited. The front office, middle office, back office design is locking in wastes and providing horrendous service to customers. Technology is still entrapping the worker and causing frustration with increased workloads. This industry badly needs updates to thinking. It wasn't long ago small and mid-sized banks were aspiring to be just like the big banks with financial incentives and rewards for lending officers and other "salespeople", many steered clear, copying the big boys is a bad idea (copying in general is a bad idea).
A recent post I wrote called The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Benchmarking, Outsourcing, Shared Services and Command and Control Thinking. One of my favorites with links to other blogs I have written. This is appropriate for private and public sector service.
Interesting stat running around Twitter . . . as baby boomers retire the number of workers entering vs. leaving the work will be 3 leaving for every one entering. Systems thinking increases the capacity of your organization something Taiichi Ohno taught us. Will you be ready?
3% of the problems have figures, 97% of the problems do not. - W. Edwards Deming

For comments or to share your experiences contact me at tripp@newsystemsthinking.com.

The 3-Day Fundamentals of Systems Thinking Workshop

Inquiries abound about the 3-Day In-House Workshop Fundamentals of Systems Thinking this past month. Typically, this 3-day workshop is designed to take a mixed group of executives, middle managers and front-line workers through all the basics of systems thinking. Once you have discovered a new way of thinking we take you to the work in your own organization to "see" the system conditions that are inhibiting the reduction of costs and increased customer satisfaction. Knowledge comes from application of the principles of systems thinking by conducting "check" (the what and why of current performance) in your organization. Once you have studied your organization we will be able to talk about the scope of change, measures and the principles to drive the redesign of work leading to concrete steps for successful change.

We guarantee our work, you don't like what we have show you. Then the 3-day workshop is free.

Questions we answer are:

Awaken the Sleeping Giant

One of my favorite movies is Tora! Tora! Tora! when after the attack on Pearl Habor Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto declares "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." We are experiencing an economic Pearl Harbor that up to this point had been a slow drip of wealth and economic power from the United States.

Now we have a full blown crisis, the second major one in my lifetime. The first was the decline of manufacturing in the US that started after the "Japanese Industrial Miracle" created in large part by an American W. Edwards Deming. A traitor . . . no, he saw that the US after WWII was engaged with filling the world's need from product and not interested in new thinking that had already been proved during the war effort.

Getting Knowledge

How does an organization get knowledge? One of the things that I like about the Vanguard Method is its practicality. Getting knowledge for service organizations begins with "check", meaning what can we learn about the type and frequency of demand from customers, and how well a service organization delivers from a customer point of view. This helps answer the question of how capable a service organization is to delivering the value required by its customers.

John Seddon has outlined that no matter what the variety of demand, every demand went through 4 stages of work (from Freedom from Command and Control):

Understand what matters to customers.
Determine "by what method" the work would be done.
Do the work.
Review it against the original purpose (what matters to the customer).

The 3-Day Fundamentals of Systems Thinking Workshop

We guarantee our work, you don't like what we have show you. Then the 3-day workshop is free.

Questions we answer are:

How much scope your organization has for improving service, reducing costs, and/or improving revenue?
What leading service organizations have achieved by shifting from traditional thinking to systems thinking?
Why doing it the systems thinking way has an enormous and beneficial impact on staff morale?
Why manufacturing ideas don't work in service organizations?
What steps you need to take to make the leap to a systems thinking organization?

Many organizations have been saved by good luck, coincidence, and having a service that has been fortunate to have a good market. "Selling umbrellas in the rain" has come to an end, coming out of this crisis will require your service organization to think differently. New thinking comes from the outside, but we can help only if you are ready to think differently. The only thing you have to lose is a better way to run your organization. For more on the workshop click here or contact us at info@newsystemsthinking.com or call (317) 849-8670.

Awaken the Sleeping Giant

Now we have a full blown crisis, the second major one in my lifetime. The first was the decline of manufacturing in the US that started after the "Japanese Industrial Miracle" created in large part by an American W. Edwards Deming. A traitor . . . no, he saw that the US after WWII was engaged with filling the world's need from product and not interested in new (and better) thinking that had already been proved during the war effort.

The second crisis is now. Manufacturing is just about finished in this country. People wrongly believe that this is because of labor costs, so we outsource and share services to reduce costs. The "Big 3" automakers (I use that term loosely now-a-days) did. They outsourced and cut costs and still could not compete. So, the focus of reducing costs has been a non-starter . . . a loser. What sells cars or service or anything else is the ability to provide value to customers, slashing costs is the beginning of the end. How fast the end comes is dependent on the size of the organization and the management dolts that can cut costs as their primary focus. Never knowing how to create value, after all any moron can cut staff . . . but to build value? That takes talent. That is leadership.

Dr. Deming, Taiichi Ohno, John Seddon and others have offered us a better way. It requires different thinking than the command and control mindset that still prevails since the manufaturing crisis. Lean Six Sigma, A3, FMEA and all the tools will not lead us out of this crisis. New thinking is required about management, work design, measures, technology, outsourcing, benchmarking, shared services and command and control thinking in general.

In 1988 Konosuke Matsushita (Founder of Matsushita Electronics) is quoted as saying this to the US:

"We will win, and you will lose.

You cannot do anything about it because your failure is an internal disease.

Your companies are based on Taylor's principles.

Worse your heads are Taylorized, too."

So when will the sleeping giant awaken?

Getting Knowledge

John Seddon has outlined that no matter what the variety of demand, every demand went through 4 stages of work (from Freedom from Command and Control):

Understand what matters to customers.
Determine "by what method" the work would be done.
Do the work.
Review it against the original purpose (what matters to the customer).

John Seddon didn't say to go to the monthly financials or performance metrics of command and control organizations. Specifically, you have to go and see the work. This requires management to get up off their butts and see what is going on. It isn't the way it was when they did it 20 years ago . . . and a report? Well, let's just say reports can be misleading.

Dr. Deming had these things to say about knowledge:

A leader must have knowledge. A leader must be able to teach.
Information is not knowledge. Let's not confuse the two.
You should not ask questions without knowledge.
Management of outcomes may not be any more than a skill. It does not require knowledge.
There is no substitute for knowledge.
Lack of knowledge . . . that is the problem.

What prevents the development of knowledge? "Separation of the measures from the work, adherence to procedures, the functional separation of work and assuming that knowledge is associated with hierarchy" (Seddon).

So let's quit trying to "get knowledge" from knowledge management systems, technology, ISO 9000, and the like. Performing "check" offers us a better alternative.

That's it for this newsletter. Best wishes with improving your system.

Sincerely,

Tripp Babbitt
Bryce Harrison, Inc.

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