Learning systemic leadership through practice

This page has two quite different examples; the first one is the basic practice that I use with most managers, using a real manager I am just starting to work with as I write. The second example is an account of a manager going to visit a customer and undergoing a similar framework but with a different context.

An outside in perspective unlocks a key

Probably one of the most difficult aspects of change - true personal development - is the ability of operational managers to expand their view of the service that they are responsible for, using a system thinking lens. This is about focusing on the outside-in perspective of customers or mission based for the public sector.
It requires a manager to understand and develop an expanded perspective, and to do that they have to be prepared to learn. And that cannot be done, unless the manager is prepared to challenge their own beliefs and thinking about management.

I usually find that egos, and the inability to 'admit mistakes' gets in the way of learning. This is especially true in the Western based management culture that has pervaded engrained management beliefs.
This apporach is based on the basis in particular written about by Argyris, and practically developed within Toyota. It is based on learning by seeing and doing.

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A Framework for leaders to begin their journey

high level triple diamond design method

This is the beginning of the Understand step. The manager is happily aware of their current management view of their service, which is typically based on the last 100 years of development of Command & Control. Their current views on design usually include;
- passing on routine work to admin staff.
- using targets to create improved service.
- focus on staff working faster and harder.
- the managers role is to make decisions.

My task is to help them through a self-realisation that their current mind-set is based on traditional sub optimal concepts. This is the start of the Leaders Journey that if it works well, will ensure that they come out of this having expanded and broadened their view of themselves and management.

Case study #1 - Starting from the Beginning with a New Manager

This is one of my standard approaches with any new manager, the learning is performed by going into the workplace. In this example the situation is the Licensing service in a local council, with a relatively new manager who thinks that the answer to her problem of a backlog, is to hire one more staff member. There are currently two officers working full time and one full time admin in the Licensing department.
I already know that there is plenty of re-work (waste) in the current flow, and if we identify and resolve that, then we do not need an extra staff. 

Step 1 - My preparation and learning

I go into the service for a few hours. I sit with front line staff and follow the flow of work from the beginning (usually where the demand comes in), to the end. I tell staff that I am there to learn about the flow of work, and that I am interested in the barriers they face when they do their work. I observe their activities, what they do, and the decisions they make. I try not to ask too many questions that will distract them, but I ask them to say aloud to me what they are doing and why they are doing it.
If their phone rings, or someone comes to ask them something, I let them carry on as normal. If they usually use the phone to deal with demands and communication with colleagues, I get a spare headset and listen to their conversations.
I write down the flow of work on my pad, ensuring they see what I am really doing. I ask them about the problems they face and if what they are doing is typical. Accuracy at this stage is not important.

Step 2 - Setup to uncover different management paradigms

(This step is optional)
This is where I take the manager and director, in a room, through the background to this design methodology, and the difference between traditional and systemic management. I tend to use Ford vs Toyota to represent traditional vs modern management approach.
​This is setting up the activity with the manager, explaining some background, to allow us to understand alternative ways of seeing how the work is designed, and management as a role. I then immediately go into step 3.

Step 3 - Going into the work to experience the work

I ask the manager for 1-2 hours of their time to be booked out. I let them know we will be going into the work, but they have little idea what I have planned!
Just prior to this, I ensure that the front line staff are set up with good demands from the phone contact centre, or walk-ins. They will probably be previous recordings of calls into the contact centre if all else fails. I am also looking for the ability to follow the end to end flow of work. At the time agreed, I go through with that manager the activity we will be doing next, tell them;
 
- We're going to sit with front line staff to understand how the work is designed, so only ask staff open questions to clarify your understanding. Please do not offer any comments or views on what they are doing, or expressions of surprise or disappointment.
- Let the staff member do their work, and we learn.

We begin by sitting with someone that takes calls, if there are no calls, we might listen to some recorded calls. We then watch what the conversation is, and what activities happen during the call.  We observe the activities that they do after then complete the call.
 
I start by asking a few questions to the front line person to mirror my behaviour to the manager, so that the manager understands what and how I am asking. In my head the manager should be 'chained to the desk' with no interruptions on the phone, or wandering off...
 
We then follow the activities from that person, usually to someone else. We get up, and sit next to the next person. This continues for as long as is practical.

Step 4 - Reflect and map the workflow

Step 4 - Reflect and map the workflow
When we have gone through enough of the flow, hopefully starting from the beginning of the flow, we return to a room and I ask "what did you see?" The answers help me to understand where their mindset and what their management style might be. 

I then start to ask them to map out what we have just seen using post-its, and I help them fill in the gaps that they have missed, for instance  'read' when the read a form, and 'check' when they check something on the screen. This is not simply a process flow, it is an activity flow.
When this is complete, in a non-perfect flowchart, it is detailed to show the main the actions that occur. It is actually much more than a flow, the manager has also experienced what the member of staff goes through, and the impact of the design of the work on them. What impacts the behaviour of front line staff, who they talk to, and what problems do they face.

The purpose

I then ask the manager the purpose of the service. They answered: ​

      to grant a license.

I then ask them what is the purpose from the person wanting the license (customer perspective), as it would be defined by the person? That question throws the manager for a moment, but with some encouragement through some dialogue with me where I ask them why did someone create the service in the first place, they eventually came up with:

to ensure that people have safe events, that do not disturb the community

​Notice the significant shift in the description of Purpose. The first definition is from the organisations perspective. The second is from the person or community.

Step 5 - Understand the service Outside-in, the first steps to see their service as a system.

I then ask the manager to identify the steps on their flow, that contribute directly to this purpose from the customers perspective. From the whole flow of around 60 steps, I help them by questioning them when they want to include activities like checking and recording. From the 60, the only steps that should be classified as value steps are:
1. Receive the form.
2. Check the form for errors and completeness.
3. Issue a license.
4. Get it to the customer.

I then state that all the other steps are then not necessary, they are waste!
At this point, pause, and wait for this to sink in. The manager is usually shocked, perhaps confused, and thinking very hard. The next step is for one of us to say that
"if they are waste, then can we design them out? What would the new workflow look like if we design them out?"
The answer to this question is a flow that is far shorter than it is now. Taking this comment further, I quickly use the post-its to create a new flow, starting with the value steps, and then adding in the waste steps that the manager cannot see a way of avoiding (like the incoming post, and printing the completed license and putting it into an envelope.

The Purpose, this is the reason we have created the service to achieve, that then defines how the whole service should be designed.

Step 6 - The Learning and Insights

This is the first step that moves from traditional command & control management, to a outside-in perspective. If I have created the right learning setting, the realisation for the manager should be profound. They should now be able to start seeing:
1. Their service from the perspective of the customer, and the power of a customer defined purpose.
2. They now see that their current workflow is not so wonderful, but riddled with waste that the manager actually put in over time.
3. That they have command & control behaviours who can shift to a different way of managing.
4. The scope for improvement, which should be dramatic at this point in the learning journey.

Step 7 - Next Steps

The managers have seen the possibilities of how their service might operate as never before, and they desperately want to make the changes right now! But I ask them what they should really do next. We talk about helping their staff do this exercise, so that they can see it for themselves and that they can come up with the solutions together.

The design for the next step will be for the service manager to take this forward with their staff, using the techniques that I have shown them. And then to redesign the new flow using the principles of 'the liberated method'

My time taken:
Listening to demand — 6 hours
Setup — 1.5 hours
Time for familiarisation — 4 hours
Time for the managers — 3 hours
Reveal — 2 hours

Case study #2 - A manager who transformed her understanding of management in one afternoon

Starting position
It is with this problem in mind, that I had to find a way of allowing a local government manager to change her perception and focus on the true mission of the service. The situation was that our team had discovered that her staff were operating by following a standard approach to their work, talking to customers in a transactional way. She had no idea as to what was really happening.

     "I will defend my staff until my last breadth, in defence  of their flexible approach."

So, what was I to do?

This is what the manager did.

There was a citizen, Sandra, who had already 'known' to us. The problem was that she continually had rubbish in her garden, and her bins were overflowing. When she was confronted about this she became angry.

The manager went to visit Sandra, thinking this was an easy problem to resolve. She knocked on her door, and then got an earfull of abuse. However, she stayed there on the doorstep until Sandra had finished her rant.
Once Sandra stopped talking, The manager asked to be let in, so that she could hear more about her issues.

The manager listened, and engaged with the Sandra, with no judgement. She was learning about Sandra from her perspective.

Sandra was sitting on the sofa crying, and talking for at least 30 minutes.

This is a summary of what Sandra told the manager:
That she has two young children and one of them is in a wheelchair and is incontinent. So the child needs nappies. She herself, an adult, is also incontinent, and needs nappies. She finds this embarassing to talk about; especially to men. She is also a black woman and feels somewhat isolated in her neighbourhood.
We only gave her one bin to deal with this. 

The manager now found out why she had so much excess rubbish. And why she got angry. 
We gave her another bin.

Outcome

The manager came back to the office shocked, and said that neither her staff nor those of the other teams looked at things holistically. Our staff were simply increasingly threatening Sandra to have less rubbish, or else they would take enforcement action. Over time this had caused Sandra to become angry very quickly.

What was different

The manager came back to the office shocked, and said that neither her staff nor those of the other teams looked at things holistically. She realised that her staff were simply increasingly threatening Sandra to have less rubbish, and take enforcement action. Over time this had caused Sandra to become angry very quickly.

What was different

The solution that worked was to: 

Go and experience it for yourself. It would not have worked if someone had simply informed the manager of the problem. The nature of seeing it for yourself is oddly very powerful.

It worked so well, that the manager cannot stop talking about how wrong she was, and is now leading the change. We now cannot stop that manager from going out and finding out more! Its great.

My role & the manager

​This is about the journey of learning of the manager, it is not a method that I am attempting to force them to achieve. It is designed to awaken their curiosity, and therefore become interested in doing more, therefore it has to appeal to what matters to the manager. My role is to set the scene, and facilitate a learning environment. What is key, is that I try to uncover aspects of the work they are looking at, in ways that are new to them. The key method I use for this is to ask open questions that elicit enquiry and change of perception. 

​The primary activity is for the manager to understand what they are looking at, from a customers or persons perspective. And to then reflect back on how they now see the system, from that perspective. Outside in, understanding the mission or purpose. I use that to compare that to their previous internal policy based perspective. At this stage they should experience a clash – dissonance between the two perspectives. This is the part of the learning method. 
​
They are actually learning about how to perceive the system from the perspective of the person. This is almost always a huge shift for the manager, even thought they might have been involved in designing such services for years. This is the start of seeing the system differently, and therefore the shift in mindset that is required for them to then compare the two system paradigms, that I can then have conversations about. 
This table is an example of the two different perceptions that we may discus. 

Impact

​What actually happens in each session, if dependent on what they see, my engagement and questions that I use, and their perception of what they are seeing and learning. 
It works very well for about 40% or people I do this with. It works well with the next 30%. And then there are always some that are not able to switch their perception from an internal policy and rule focus, to one of the person. When I get someone who I cannot help in the way I hope, I try with alternative questions, or examples, and then I stop. This method might not be right for them, or they are not in a place that allows them to switch their perception.

Some background to the framework I use

This approach is based on normative learning. This learning is about people changing their perceptions based on direct experience. There are three main ways to change perception:

- Coersive
- Rational
- Normative
                  1969 Chin & Benne

Out of the three only normative has any real hope to change peoples thinking about how they percieve their understanding of their work and its design.

In wider circles, this is based on the concepts that are attributed to Toyota. They call this Gemba.

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