Tag Archives: improvement

Lessons from the 2014 football World Cup!

July 14, 2014 Simon Black Leave a comment

In a late response to the drama of the football world cup I have a list of lessons learned prompted by HR Grapevine. I have amended their proposed list and have included a couple of items which I have interpreted quite differently, so here is my personal list:

1: Don’t be too reliant on one star player

A number of matches have shown balanced teams succeed ahead of those that relied on one star player. Argentina’s Lionel Messi underperformed in the final and the German team got the result. Brazil struggled as soon as Neymar was ruled out through injury. Uruguay were at sea without Suarez. Weeks earlier in the tournament England were too reliant on the Rooney factor and appeared simply not to set up to act as a unit.

The system should be greater than the sum of its parts, and no more so than in a team. Algeria, Mexico and Costa Rica performed above and beyond expectations.

The same is true about the capability of any team.

2: Trying hard will only get you so far

I think the England team were well prepared and earnest in their efforts (despite the hype – both negative and positive – from the tabloids). Best efforts are often a sure fire way to failure (Deming has a lot to say about this). However mediocrity can be turned around – but this needs a transformation in approach.

A huge amount can be achieved by engaged the people who are ‘good enough’ to enable them to perform even better (see point one above).

3: Utilise technology – if it makes sense to do so

FIFA endorsed the use of goal-line technology to deal with the age-old problem of knowing whether a ball had crossed the line for a goal or not. This is not new technology – similar approaches have been used in cricket since 2001 and tennis since 2006. The issue is will it solve the problem? It has been a great success.

Another nice innovation was the marker foam to set positions of defenders in a ‘wall’ at free kicks. Again this was a repeating problem – could we make the job of the referee easier to implement? Simple and effective and in this instance no digital technology in sight.

The first question with technology and innovation is – will it improve what we want to achieve?

4: You need to align team and individual goals

One of the big stories for England in the run up to the world cup concerned whether Wayne Rooney would finally get a goal after 3 unsuccessful tournaments. A bigger question for England fans should have been ‘who cares?’. Ultimately the world cup is not about individual players achieving anything it is about a team wining the championship. All else is a side story.

The problems occur when one person’s goal overrides the team’s goals. Did Rooney shoot when he could make passes to better placed team members? Did he dive into shots which other players were about to take themselves? Did he neglect his defensive duties on the left against Italy allowing them to win the match? There is evidence that points to all of these things. Did England switch off once Wayne had ‘got his goal’ in the game against Uruguay ? Who knows?

The winning German team successfully rotated a whole range of players to do the job. The Netherlands played a recognised centre-forward as a wing back (Dirk Kuyt) and he studiously grafted into that unfamiliar role with great effectiveness. The Dutch even drafted a substitute goalkeeper just for the penalty shootout.

5: Clarity of purpose, identity, belonging and vision pay off

Germany’s plan to recapture the world cup (which they last achieved in 1990) started back in 2000 after a poor showing in the European championships. The German Football Federation invested heavily in the future with new academies and a manager with a long-term plan.

They developed an identity for German international football and engaged players on the basis of playing to that philosophy.

A footnote to this is that German midfielder Sami Khedira picked up an injury in the warm up a few minutes before the start of the cup final and had to be replaced. Khedira will be devastated to have missed the game, but it was clear in the post match celebrations that he revelled in the team’s success and fully identified with the achievement of the team for the part that he had already played in the tournament up to that point (see point 4 above).

An alternative view is offered at HR Grapevine:

http://www.hrgrapevine.com/markets/hr/article/2014-07-14-hr-lessons-from-the-world-cup?utm_source=eshot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HRM%20-%2014/07/2014

Excellence

Finding space to relax, flow and perform

June 30, 2014 Simon Black Leave a comment

Many of us have had an experience of ‘getting in the zone’ with work – in the office, in the garden, in physical pursuits, in sport, in artistic or musical endeavor. Things just hit the spot and we are performing at our peak…satisfaction is part of doing it.

As Brian Clough, the outspoken, but assuredly talented European Cup Winning football manager once said “Remember this…you can’t do anything to the best of your ability unless you relax. Nobody can. Nobody can…you’ve got to relax, then it ‘oozes out of you’ – IF you’ve got anything in you.”

Csikszentmihalyi emphasises this idea in his book ‘Flow’, where he describes the phenomena as:

intense and focused concentration on the present moment
merging of action and awareness
a loss of reflective self-consciousness
a sense of personal control over the situation or activity
a distortion of your awareness of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered
experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding

Can we ever hope to get close to this in the world of work? On the basis of Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas, three things could be considered in the way we design work:

Goals are clear (we know what and why we need to get on with the work)
Feedback is immediate (if we are, or are not, doing things correctly – we see it ourselves)
There is a balance between opportunity and capacity (we can do it and we have permission)

Of course we also have to be bothered about the work. We have to care – the goals of the work should relate to our own purpose. This idea, in relation to Quality, is explored in Robert Pirsig’s famous philosophical fiction book ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ (Pirsig highlights this book “…should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It’s not very factual on motorcycles, either.”).

People should have a sense of purpose, should care about their work, should have their own goals, sources of feedback and the capactity and opportunity to perform. Maybe managers should reflect on this the next time that they: don’t allow people to make decisions; give jobs to people who lack capability; offer their own ‘feedback’ in the absent of decent measures which staff could use for themselves. There are lessons for us all…

Incidentally, Zen and the Art…’ was rejected by 121 publishers before finally being accepted (a world record for a bestseller). It has since sold more than 5 million copies. There is probably something in that for another blog…

Reading:

Brian Clough on British Success in Europe. National Football Museum’s ‘Kicking and Screaming’ project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olVNwDK3UD8

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: the psychology of optimal experience, Harper Perennial, New York.

Pirsig, R.M. (1976) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An inquiry into values. Corgi, London.

***this is the 100th post since we launched this blog in November 2011***

Change Principles, Excellence

It’s the environment isn’t it?

May 22, 2014 Simon Black Leave a comment

There has a been a recent flurry of interest in workspace design (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25355618). Google, Apple and Facebook are often cited for their creative office spaces, designed to enable or even enhance the creative thinking of their staff.

However it is not clear if a creative office space stimulates creative thinking, or whether it is the elimination of bad office design that appears to free up the minds of workers (i.e. workers may have been creative already, but just get it sucked out of them by a poor environment). After all did the innovative and creative workers of the past have wacky working environments (maybe they were not really as creative!)?

It could be that the managers of these organisations might just be fiddling with ‘hygiene factors’, the things that Herzberg identified in the 1960s as having no positive impact on motivation, but are merely the basics that need to be sorted out (along with pay, management style, working relationships etc). Over the long term there is a risk, unless the managers at these organisations are doing something else, that their workforce may not be motivated to make a real difference to the performance of the business – will they still have leading products and services of the future or will better alternatives emerge from their competitors?

Over the past few decades it has become clear that whilst many ‘enlightened’ managers have dutifully followed the good manager mantras: developed themselves as leaders, worked on motivating staff, built trust and rapport, coached and developed, and engaged in team-building, the things that really matter is a common sense of purpose, how work is designed and what power people have over decisions and quality of the work that they do. This sounds fine in theory, perhaps, but in reality job design often sits in the lap of central departments (like HR), rather than the worker or the team, so the power even to design jobs is not at the point of knowledge – the people doing the work. The result is that managers can only be left to fiddle around the edges with team-building and cheer-leading. Or perhaps some just repaint the office.

An effective manager will learn how to understand and design work and how to engage people to ensure improved performance. An effective team will seek a clear purpose, investigate how their performance affects users, will challenge thinking, ask questions and engage in improvement.

Reading:

Herzberg, F. (1968) “One more time: how do you motivate employees?”, Harvard Business Review, vol. 46, iss. 1, pp. 53–62

BBC (2013) 10 bizarre objects found in ‘cool’ offices. BBC News Magazine. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25355618

Wakefield, J. (2008) Google your way to a wacky office. BBC News website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7290322.stm

Change Principles, Process Improvement

‘Value’ versus ‘Waste’ – why bother?

April 10, 2014 Simon Black 1 Comment

If we want to make improvements at work we need to balance between two sets of action: reduction of waste and addition of value. William Sherkenbach reminds us that waste and value are NOT reciprocals

– you can reduce waste but not add value;

– you can add value but not reduce waste.

You need to do both in a balanced way. The reduction of waste does not ensure value.

This is why John Seddon always starts discussions around improvement by asking people to understand what is happening first; how much good work they produce (the stuff that people want) and what it is (why it is valuable), how much waste is produced (stuff that is not what people want) and what types of waste. Seddon calls these the WHAT’s of performance. Only once we know what is happening can we differentiate value from waste (or ‘failure demand’ as Seddon labels it). What is interesting is that by examining demand properly we can identify those things which on the surface appear to be a customer requirement (e.g. a request for a service or a query) but can actually turn out to be driven by a failure earlier in the process. If these things are identified we can flush out built-in failures in the design of systems, procedures and policies.

To some degree or another, a given production of good output (value) will generate a parallel degree of waste. If you double the output (good things), you will double the waste output (at the very least, aside from errors due to additional pressure on people and machinery). To improve quality of output (i.e. to get proportionally more good stuff) we need to redesign the system. Identify value and eliminate waste and failure.

An analogy is water consumption. If you find a new source of water and make it available for consumers to use, but don’t fix the leaky pipes, you will just generate more leaked water. A good water system has good supply of water and a continually diminishing occurrence of leaks. Water service professionals are concerned with water catchment (source and supply channels) and the integrity of the distribution network (fixing leaks).

However, taking the idea further using a different analogy, an economical way to run a car involves a combination of maintenance and driving technique for improved fuel efficiency, or a person could simply drive the vehicle fewer miles. How you carry out your driving relates to purpose. If we only drive a few blocks to buy a pint of milk, our decision about the car’s fuel economy might be different compared to someone who uses the car to commute 100 miles per day to work. Or, if we only want to take our prized sports coupé out at weekends in the summer to impress people at parties, the decision will be different once again.

Purpose is defined by the needs of the user. The ‘user’ is the user of our product or service. But also remember that ‘purpose’ should not exist in its own bubble. If we buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle just to use it to cruise in the sunshine on Sundays, that might be just fine. However, if we ‘rev it up’ every Sunday morning as we start our trip to the seaside, the neighbours might have something to say about it.

Purpose, value & waste. The start for discussions about performance is to understand all three.

“all models are wrong…some are useful”

March 28, 2014 Simon Black 1 Comment

This day one year ago (March 28th 2013) saw the death of one the country’s most quietly influential exports, Professor George Box. Born just after the first world war in Gravesend, Kent and attending University in London for both his batchelor’s degree and his PhD, he ended up spending most of his life in the USA.

This modest and witty Kentish man, who stumbled into the world of statistical analysis is now considered amongst the top ten statisticians of all time.

I recall seeing a George Box presentation at the 1995 First World Congress on Total Quality Management in Sheffield; he described how industrial progress has been based on increasing knowledge and systematic design (he used a schematic of historic developments in shipbuilding to which I have often referred people to illustrate this point).

As a statistician made famous for the development of models to better describe phenomena, Box’s most memorable quote was:

“essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful”

If you come across a model, remember it is just that – something to map onto your mind to help make sense of things. If the model helps, make it something useful to you – by using it. But don’t waste time picking small holes in things – ‘worry selectively’ as Box would say. There is no ‘best way’ to see anything, but if there are fundamental flaws in a model, or it is useless, then drop it. As much as not worrying about everything, there is also little time to keep flogging dead horses!

Reading:

Box G.E.P. (1976) Science and Statistics. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 71 (356): 791-799

Box G.E.P. (2013) An Accidental Statistician, Wiley-Blackwell

Jones B. (2013) George Box: a remembrance. http://blogs.sas.com/content/jmp/2013/03/29/george-box-a-remembrance/

Excellence, Integrity, Partnerships

Why bother with partnerships?

January 7, 2014 Simon Black 1 Comment

‘Partnerships’ might become the new buzzword of the year. But what is this really all about? Why ‘partner-up’ in a collaboration when we used to just do it without using the ‘P’ word? The danger is that partnerships means everything to everyone but in the end does not mean anything in itself.

The Oxford dictionary defines a partner as someone “who takes part in an undertaking with another or others… with shared risks and profits“. If we are serious about partnership it actually means something which carries very specific and, potentially, radical expectations:

1. there is a shared vision of what you want to achieve

2. work expectations are mutual and shared (but NOT contractual)

3. work is conducted through a RELATIONSHIP which builds over time, based on integrity

4. clarity: in desired results, working principles, resources, accountability and consequences

5. the association is long term – the work might change but the relationship continues

6. the association is win/win – partners have to actively seek mutual benefits

7. work output is a sum of the whole partnership, NOT just ‘we do our bit’ and ‘you do yours’

8. there is trust and openness, including when problems or difficulties occur

9. therefore, partners work together to solve problems and make improvements

Critics would argue that this list sounds fine in theory but is it of practical value? Let’s face it we have to have contracts and sometimes people let us down – we also need to prioritise our needs above others or we will not optimise our outputs, surely?

Actually we really need to consider these assumptions more seriously. When we perform at the highest level alongside collaborators or work colleagues, what are the things that really give sense to the work that we do? Is it contracts, standards, specifications, or something else?

I would argue that it is something else – we need relationships which allow us to navigate the flow of work, to be able to ask the right questions, to seek advice and resources, get goods delivered or receive the information on time. We need people who care about the work, who are bothered about the end user (and don’t just do the bare minimum to reduce their own costs). We need people who will raise problems before they incur cost or who will be honest with highlighting difficulties or practicalities before they become a real problem. This is a true work partnership.

Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York, NY.

Kouzes J.M. and Posner B.Z. (2007) The Leadership Challenge, 4^th Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass John Wiley and Sons.

Excellence

Fun and the nonsense of work

December 16, 2013 Simon Black Leave a comment

A colleague recently made me aware of the Volkswagen brand campaign ‘The Fun Theory’ which illustrates how fun can be related to choices people make in life by presenting some light-hearted ideas to change mundane tasks such as throwing away litter or climbing stairs. For example against the question “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?”, their electronic stairway piano made 66% more people choose the stairs over the escalator (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SByymar3bds&app=desktop).

funtheory sequence 2 — Initially people prefer the escalator…sound pads are fitted to the stairs…more people use the stairs!

Of course ideas around fun at work are not particularly new: Douglas McGregor talked about Theory Y managers assuming the people value work as an activity as natural as play. Deming – a statistician by trade, the godfather of Systems Thinking and Statistical Process Control and at first impression someone who would appear fairly austere by today’s standards, always opened his seminars with ‘we are here to have fun‘. Although in person he was actually someone with a strong sense of humour and a dry wit, more importantly, Deming always talked about the need (not the nice to have, the need – it was essential) for people to have “ joy in work“: it is one of his most distinctive and quotable catchphrases.

Let’s consider a couple of FUN: amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable [1]
definitions of fun and joy… JOY: a deep feeling or condition of happiness or contentment [2]

Clearly fun has roots in joy, whilst joy itself is a longer-lasting, life-permeating condition. Deming was clear about what should be done to bring joy back into work. Work should be designed such that it is a pleasurable experience, yet he recognised that most organisations design fun out of the experience. However fun (like respect) is not something that you ‘do’ to people – it is not the point of intervention. The trick is not to design fun back in as an add-on (like the piano steps), but instead to eliminate the things that take fun out of work – lack of purpose, lack of decision making, lack of information, inability to influence outcomes, inability to address the concerns of customers and users, inability to make the service improve, inappropriate comparisons of performance (celebration of irrelevant highs or castigation for lows which are outside our control), inbuilt sub-optimisation and inertia, judgement by uninformed outsiders or distant supervisors. Deming didn’t pull punches – these things were for him the forces of destruction.

Even people doing unimaginably difficult jobs in emergency services, terminal healthcare and humanitarian aid (to name a few), themselves gain deep satisfaction and joy in what they do. In these spheres, however, even people with a strong sense of vocation can be demotivated by the negative forces impinging on their work and can leave their professions. Fun and joy are central to the understanding of human psychology of work – and how we should design it.

To think otherwise is counterproductive. A lack of joy at work is a complete nonsense.

The beauty of learning – nothing is wasted

August 7, 2013 Simon Black 5 Comments

The term ‘learning organisation’ first gained popularity in the 1990s and is, unusually in the faddish world of ‘management-speak’, one which seems to have endured. What is a ‘learning organisation’ and why try to become one?

An organisation that learns is best able to adapt. It finds out what works and what doesn’t and, most importantly, does something with that knowledge.

However, a learning organisation doesn’t just accrue information. Some organisations appear to be addicted to data – searching for the ‘facts’ before decisions can be made. This is NOT a characteristic of a learning organisation since it will cause one of two problems (or both): either the organisation will boil itself to death in trivia and noise and not pick up the important signals; or statically churn data without adapting – paralysis by analysis. This is not learning.

A definitive feature about learning is that it involves proactively seeking out knowledge; to make good judgements based on insight. If we want people in our team, department or organisation to start learning, then we should steer them towards good judgements based on insights from analysis. The statement ‘costs are out of control’ is an opinion. However, if we define costs and out of control, we can then test that hypothesis and progress in our understanding (Scholtes 1998). This requires new disciplines of thought. For Deming, part of this transformation is about getting managers to see themselves as experimenters who lead learning.

The Learning Cycle (adapted from Scholtes 1998)

A good way to represent this type of approach is the Deming Wheel (or Shewhart Cycle, as Deming labelled it) Plan-Do-Study-Act; the never-ending cycle of learning (Scholtes 1998). Deming called for a change from ‘opinions’ to hypotheses which we can test, understand and then apply to our work activities.

Scholtes explains the phases of learning. ‘Plan’ and ‘Act’ are the stages of developing and reviewing theories and hypotheses. ‘Do’ and ‘Study’ are about application – work and the examination of work and outcomes. The phases of thinking and doing are intrinsically linked.

“There is nothing as practical as a good theory”
Kurt Lewin

Once again – the impact of incremental change

July 8, 2013 Simon Black Leave a comment

In the light of previous sporting posts it would seem improper not to refer to Andy Murray’s historic men’s singles tennis victory at Wimbledon – the first by a Briton in 77 years. Can we link his achievements with ‘change and improvement’?

One key element worth reflecting upon is Murray’s level of improvement in the last 12 months since working with new coach Ivan Lendl. This period has seen Murray win Olympic gold and also achieve a first grand slam title at the US Open; an ascencion in the sport which culminated in Sunday’s epic Wimbledon final. Ahead of these breakthrough achievements, Murray’s quote following the 2012 French Open is notable:

“There’s not been one radical change. A lot of it is minor details. But if you pick 10 small things to work on and change, that can turn into a big difference.” Andy Murray

This reminds me of a previous post; British cycling coach Dave Brailsford applies the same philosophy in bringing his team to world-conquering levels of performance. They key is that these cases hold a common belief in learning and continuous improvement – they see significant change as a set of small, relevant (and often testable) improvements – working on the system to improve capability.

Change which is focused on these aspects enables you to influence your success; work on what you CAN influence in the reasonable hope that improvements will overcome the factors over which you have no control (like the weather or how well the other person is playing). More effective thinking like this may help our teams, our services, our performance, our generation of knowledge to become even better.

Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York, NY.

Deming, W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Juran, J. (1989) Juran on Leadership For Quality, The Free Press, NY

Change Principles, Excellence

Tell me – what’s your purpose?

May 2, 2013 Simon Black 3 Comments

To be clear about our work – namely, who we are serving, how to do the work, how to change, what improvement looks like- we need to be clear about one thing:

WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE?

Peter Scholtes was one of the clearest writers on this concept; for him, like Deming before, everything starts with purpose; “Without a purpose there is no system”.

Until we have clarity of purpose, all we are doing is completing sets of tasks. ‘Purpose’ should be embedded in our thinking about work, people and organisations.

Scholtes offers a very clear analogy to illustrate the importance of purpose:

“Cleaning a table cannot be a system until the purpose of the clean table is made clear. A table clean enough to eat on requires one system of cleaning. Clean enough to dance on requires another. Clean enough to perform surgery on requires yet another. Everything starts with purpose.

“What is your purpose?” is the most useful question one can be asked.

When thinking this way, work is transformed from being seen as tasks to carry out, to become a reason to do something which adds real value; a framework for making decisions and seeking ways to improve.

Deming, W. E. (1993) The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, second edition. MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Scholtes, P. R. (1998) The Leader’s Handbook: A guide to inspiring your people and managing the daily workflow, New York: McGraw-Hill

Scholtes P.R. (1999) The New Competencies of Leadership, Total Quality Management, 10: 4&5, S704-S710.

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