VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change

FEATURE ARTICLESThe Thinking
Production System

Michael Balle, Godefroy
Beauvallet, Art Smalley,
Durward K. Sobek

Commentary

Roger Saillant

From Human Resources
to Human Relations
Bahattin Aydin

Commentary
Evrim Calkaver

EMERGING KNOWLEDGE

Distributing Leadership
Practices for Lean
Transformation
George RothCommentary
Bill Bellows

Space Flight Resources
Management

Peter Pruyn, Michael Sterling

BOOK EXCERPTThe Managerial
Moment of Truth
IstockPublished by The Society for Organizational Learningreflections.solonline.org
ISSN 1524-1734

Bruce Bodaken, Robert Fritz

PUBLISHER’S NOTE 7.2

A key premise of a learning community is that other people’s
experiences provide a source of insight and perspective that can better help
us achieve the results we desire. Typically, we assume that we can improve 		
our performance by copying the behavior that produces the accomplishments
we admire. But we need only look at the many frustrated attempts to repli-		cate the Toyota production system to know that while imitation may be thesincerest form of flattery, it does not reliably produce either results or learning. Why? And how can we redirect these well-intentioned efforts to gain 		
C. Sherry Immediato
the knowledge that we seek?
  In this issue of Reflections, we have assembled a group of articles that speak to the broader issueof performance improvement, and how we can effectively learn from others.
   “The Thinking Production System” by Michael Ballé, Godefroy Beauvallet, Art Smalley, andDurward K. Sobek directs our attention to the purposes that underlie the Toyota approach (TPS).
According to practitioners of TPS, implementing lean practices will only produce the desired results
if managerial aims are consistent with the methods. One practitioner describes the primary aim as
drawing out people’s capability and motivation. That’s a little different than driving out cost. The
authors hope that by framing the change to be implemented primarily as a “thinking” system, we 		
will appreciate that the work of management is about “frame control” and producing a supportive
context for new tools and methods. They offer illustrations of how frame control can be both taught
and learned. Plug Power CEO Roger Saillant shares his own experience as a practitioner in theaccompanying commentary.
  SoL research member George Roth has studied lean enterprises extensively. He observes that thegains associated with these efforts have been achieved by practices that are not emphasized in current
change management frameworks, and therefore might be overlooked by the frame-bound observer.
“Distributing Leadership Practices for Lean Transformation” describes in-depth one of the five capabilities – rethinking organizational boundaries, installing innovations in sets, pushing and pulling change,
seeking growth opportunities, and distributing leadership practices – that are effectively integrated increating lean systems. Long time lean practitioner Bill Bellows from Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne offers
a commentary on Roth’s findings.
  Feedback and reward systems have always presented a particular challenge in effectively implementing a performance-oriented culture. Bahattin Aydin and members of the Ulker Star Team have provided a case study of their experience in designing and implementing a performance feedback system.
“From Human Resources to Human Relations” documents the transformation of the company performance management system from bureaucratic paperwork to meaningful interaction. The case also
documents the team’s learning journey, including a systems thinking analysis of the design and implementation issues they faced. A consultant to this effort, Evrim Calkaver, a coordinator for SoL’s 		
local community in Turkey, authors a commentary.

ii Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

PUBLISHER’S NOTE continued   A second case study is offered by SoL member Peter Pruyn and Michael Sterling of the UnitedSpace Alliance. In “Space Flight Resource Management: Lessons Learned from Astronaut Team Learning” the authors’ intent is to document their specific case as well as to provide the reader with a toolbox with which to build their own team learning and group decision-making curriculum.
  This issue’s book excerpt is from The Managerial Moment of Truth. Bruce Bodaken, CEO of healthcare insurer Blue Shield of California, and Robert Fritz have been collaborating for a number of years todevelop a method to use the opportunities for performance improvement that surface every day. Using
the concept of creative tension, they reframe the conversations we have when we’ve gotten off track
relative to desired results. We feature the preface to this work.
  Many SoL members have noted how much Marilee Adams’ practical guidance on how to inquire
more deeply has helped them change their frames. Lee Salmon provides a review of Adams’ most recent
work, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life.
  Finally, we are delighted when readers write! Reflections from SoL research member Mary Ann
Allison describe a way to frame the teamwork underlying successful hastily configured networks(HFNs) described in our last issue.
We also want to alert you to the following recent publications by SoL members and friends:• Artful Leadership: Awakening the Commons of the Imagination by Michael Jones. Go to http://
www.pianoscapes.com for more information and to order copies of the book and accompanying
music CD. (Michael published an earlier article in Reflections when he was developing this 		book – see: Reflections Vol. 4, No. 3.)• Learning Organization Journey – A Success Story (Turkish) by Evrim Çalkavur. Go to http://www.
evrimcalkavur.com (See Evrim’s commentary in this issue.)• Three Deep Breaths by Thomas Crum. Go to http://www.aikiworks.com/. Thomas Crum’s work
has provided inspiration for many of the physical embodiment exercises used in SoL courses. His
latest work is an allegory offering simple practices for returning to one’s center.
Upcoming issues of Reflections will be organized around sustainability, systems thinking and 		
new developments in the theory and practice of organizational learning. We invite both your submissions and requests. And in the spirit of this issue, your suggestions about how we can better meet 		
your needs are always welcome and appreciated. We look forward to hearing from you.

C. Sherry Immediato
Managing Director, SoL

reflections.solonline.org

Write iii
n Immediato
Publisher’s NoteReaders

READERS WRITE 7.2

H a s t i ly f o r m e d n e t w o r k s a n d g r o u p s o f p u r p o s e
I’d like to thank authors Peter Denning and Tracy Huston for their powerfulwork on hastily formed networks (HFNs) in Reflections 7.1, and use this opportunity to connect theirfindings with several other Reflections articles and some of the things I have been observing and thinking about in my research on groups of purpose and systemic social change.
Two questions that HFNs raise for me are:• What defines and holds groups of people together and how has this changed over time?
• How visible and compelling are various types of goals or purposes around which groups
might form?
Before the Industrial Revolution, most people lived in small villages. Everyone knew everyone else.
People were born, lived, and died in a “ready-made” group or community; groups were defined by ageographic place. The land, shared customs, and the comparatively- simple hierarchical power of village
and family patriarchs held people together.
After the Industrial Revolution, villages grew larger and many people lived in cities. Even those who
didn’t live in cities moved more frequently. People didn’t know everyone else in their locale. Local geography no longer provided ready-made groups into which people were born, where becoming a groupmember was “automatic” and where everyone worked together “naturally.” People began to spend mostof their time and attention in new types of groups – bureaucracies – where group membership is granted by the organization in question. For example, business organized as bureaucracies make hiring decisions; if the business doesn’t hire you, you are not part of that group. Even if you live a country (and insome cases, even if your family has lived in that country for generations), if the government bureaucracy doesn’t recognize you as citizen, you are not part of that nation-state’s citizen group. Bureaucratic
groups are typically held together by complex top-down hierarchical power, which often comes in bothcarrot and stick form. Businesses pay salaries and offer learning and accomplishment (carrots) and firepeople who do not perform (stick). Countries extend protection, infrastructure, and rights (carrots)
while fining and jailing people who don’t obey their laws (stick).
While most of us still spend most of our time in bureaucratic groups, with increasing frequency, manyof us take part in a new type of group – not a village group bound by geography and simple hierarchy
nor a bureaucratic group bound by formal processes and complex hierarchy – but a group formed when
individuals recognize a shared commitment to a purpose. With no geography and little or no hierarchy
to hold the group together, these groups exists only as long as their individual members are committed
enough to the shared purpose to work together. (See Sandow and Allen, Reflections 6.2.) When thecommitment fades, so does the group. I call these groups groups of purpose. HFNs are one example;
SOL is another and quite different example. Some communities of practice are groups of purpose; others
are not. The difference lies in whether the group actually does something as a group in the world as
opposed to sharing information and learning which is applied individually.
The Information Revolution – as powerful as the Industrial Revolution – is triggering a systemicchange throughout society. As measured by the World Economic Forum at Davos, public trust in our
essential bureaucracies – national governments, the United Nations, and global companies – is low and■ Volume 7, Number 2
iv Reflections
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Readers Write iv

READERS WRITE continued

declining rapidly. This isn’t because these institutions, or the people in them, are inherently bad but
because the form of organization is not suited to this environment. At the SOL conference in Vienna
last year and reported in Reflections (Reflections 6.7), French sociologist Alain de Vulpian, described
how, in the process of developing a new society, “ordinary people are becoming more autonomous”(p. 82). As hierarchy looses its ability to hold groups together, families, business, and governments
naturally change.
We should expect to be – and are – seeing changes in group form. Bureaucracies were suited to theIndustrial Age; groups of purpose are emerging to function effectively in the Information Age where weare immersed in electronic communications and information and the situation changes minute by minute. In 1750 England, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to see in a small, dark spinning
factory the roots of global businesses. Based on more than twenty years of research which models socialchange over centuries, I feel confident in comparing HFNs, SOL, and other groups of purpose to those

Key Factors in Group Attention and Cohesion Arising from Various Types of PurposesType of Group
Purpose/ExampleHastily Formed
Network formed tomeet an emergency
The individuals
and organizations
who responded tothe 9/11 attacks
Self-organized
work groups
housed in abureaucracy

Characteristicsof Purpose

The Society for
Organizational
Learning

Visibilityof the Need
and/orPurposeTypically
Addressing
Maslow
Level

Highly visible
but perception often
incomplete

1
Sometimes 2

Shared purpose
is visible andimmediate – if
not always wellunderstood orarticulatedHigh(reduces
performance)

Often housedin organizational
goals; sharedunderstanding

Medium(makes callto action moredifficult tosustain; but tying
response to compensation andaccomplishment
helps)

Brought into
visibility byseeing theorganization’s
goals in thecontext ofcompetition

Generated byindividuals whocome together
around sharedpurpose; thepurpose is often
difficult to explain
to others

Low(makes callto action moredifficult tosustain)

Often difficult
to see orunderstandAn emergent
Nissan work group“creating thefuture we want”
Group withmedium to longterm intentions
not related to immediate
survival

Level of
Shock and HighStressreflections.solonline.org“The cavebear isattacking; wekill it or die.”Response
Time
RequiredTime Group
Performance
to be
Sustained

Immediate

Hours, days,
weeks

2
3
Sometimes 4

Weeks,
months,Years

Weeks.
months, years

34
Sometimes 5

Years

Years

Importantfor survivalof self
and/orothers“We are likethe frog who
slowly boils
to death inincreasingly
hot water.”Readers Write READERS WRITE continued

early Industrial factories and identifying them as early stages of the type of group which will come tocharacterize the Information Age.
Potentially immensely powerful but also sometimes very fragile, groups of purpose are held together
by shared purpose, which leads to my second question: How visible and compelling are various typesof goals or purposes around which groups might form?
To help us think about purposes, I invite two guests: a cave bear and a frog. Let’s start with the cavebear. We are all descended from those who were able to kill or get out of the way of an attacking cavebear. Our senses, our attention, and our ability to cooperate are finely honed to make sense of andrespond to immediate danger. We are very clear about the dangers of an angry cave bear. Even if our
response is not as fully perceptive, nuanced, and collaborative as it might once have been, those of us
who survive have embedded in our being an ability to recognize and collaborate to respond to immediate danger. The frog, on the other hand, is that proverbial frog described in so many training
programs that doesn’t have a nervous system which is good at noticing very gradual changes in temperature. As the story goes, a frog dropped into hot water will immediately jump out but, if induced
to sit in a pot of water which is heated very slowly, will not notice the changes and may very well beboiled to death.
For HFNs, often the shared purpose is like the cave bear – visible, immediate, and compelling – if
not always well understood or articulated. This visibility often carries with it a high level of shock which
reduces our ability to think clearly and a very limited time to reflect and organize thoughtfully. On theother hand, typically the group does not need to sustain itself over long periods of time.
On the other hand, SoL, for instance, is self-organized around a purpose which, while very compelling to a few people, is often difficult to explain to others. Unlike 9/11, where the need was clear andcompelling, many people either don’t see the need “to discover, integrate and implement theories andpractices for the interdependent development of people and their institutions” or, even if they do see theneed, do not place it high enough in their list of priorities. While SOL has the time to be thoughtful,engage in practice, and developing collaborative trust over time, it is more difficult to sustain focus on
goals or purposes which do not appear related to more immediate and pressing matters.
It seems to me that self-organized work groups at Nissan fall somewhere in between these two
examples. I’ve summarized some of my thinking in the following table and invite readers to send me
their comments, examples, and questions.
Mary Ann Allison
The Allison Group, LLC
Hofstra University
maa@allisongroup.com

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FEATURE 7.2

The Thinking Production System
Michael Ballé, Godefroy Beauvallet, Art Smalley, Durward K. Sobek

T

Michael Ballé

Godefroy Beauvallet

Art Smalley

Durward K. Sobek

oyota Motor Corporation no longer needs an introduction. The spectacular success of
Toyota in the last few years, combined with the no less spectacular problems of western
automakers, has propelled Toyota from an isolated curiosity within one industry to amodel of world-class design, development and manufacturing. Much of its success is attributed to its now fabled Toyota Production System (TPS), dubbed lean manufacturing (orsimply, “lean”) in Womack, Jones and Roos’ ground-breaking book, The Machine That
Changed the World.1 Since that time, TPS has been extensively studied with dozens of books
and articles describing the system and its tools and techniques, and promising significant
gains in efficiency, quality and on-time delivery. Numerous authors have described successfullean transformations2. Toyota itself has contributed significantly to the diffusion of its model,
because they need their local suppliers to perform at the same high level if they want to reproduce their success outside of Japan. Indeed, lean is now being applied across broad sectors of
the economy, from logistics to healthcare3 to building construction4 to services.5
And yet, though many corporate players have endeavored to “go lean,” few have succeeded beyond reaping the low-hanging fruits. Hajime Ohba, head of the Toyota SupplierSupport Center, recently commented, “Many firms have doubled productivity in the shortrun, but few have been able to evolve by continuing to apply the principles of TPS.”6
Similarly, in the authors’ experience, despite the increasing armies of internal and independent consultants en route to turning lean consultancy and training into an industry of its own,
truly lean enterprises as defined by Womack and Jones7 are rare.
In today’s environment of global competition and intense cost pressures, the low rate ofsuccessful lean transformation is worth investigation. At first, explanations about the difficulties of implementing lean in western companies were about culture. But, as Toyota transplants have shown that TPS can perform equally well in the U.S. or Europe as it does inJapan, the culturalist argument gave way to a “lack of leadership” thesis. But even that is notvery satisfying as, clearly, companies in the automotive industry and elsewhere have taken
lean very seriously. They’ve created lean-VPs, invested in lean offices staffed with lean officers, and driven their lean programs hard. Thus, the failure to realize the full promise of leandoes not seem to be due to lack of initiative or effort – something else is at work.
We believe deep frames pervade TPS that fundamentally alter how the system is understood and therefore how to proceed with implementation. “Frames,” or “frameworks” arethe mental constructs through which we see, interpret and act on the world. Furthermore, we
argue that if lean tools (such as kanban, SMED, 5S, TPM, poka-yoke, etc.) are applied without “frame control,” the results will be disappointing beyond gathering the obvious lowhanging fruit. If managers and program leaders fail to understand the frameworks underlying
TPS, they consequently miss the point of the tools and therefore fail to achieve the expected
results. The fact is, TPS masters continually harp on issues of frame control (making sure thereflections.solonline.org

Feature n Ballé, Beauvallet, Smalley, Sobek tools are applied in the right perspective), but few seem to pay much heed. The good news,
though, is frame control can be taught, and thereby significantly improve the effectiveness oflean programs. Indeed, the implementation implications of better understanding the framingof TPS are significant, and open the way for another approach to lean implementation.

Framing the Toyota Production System
Framing is a well-studied concept in social science. It can be described as implicitly selectingsome aspects of perceived reality as more salient than others, thus orienting problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and eventually action recommendation. Framing,
then, explains why the same events can be interpreted very differently depending on theobserver’s framework. Framing can be thought of as, literally, looking at as situation througha picture frame and focusing on some aspects, while completely missing others.
The lean movement has been responsible for changing some frames in the industrial world.
For instance, large inventories, which were once viewed as healthy assets that could be tappedwhen needed, are now generally seen as sources or symptoms of waste. Large batches produced to fulfill “economic order quantities” are increasingly unacceptable as a result of a newframework for seeing inventory. Toyota’s expertise in creating level flow of goods through a“pull” manufacturing system has changed the frame by demonstrating that the real issue was
reduction of inventory, rather than the management of it. For instance, an expensive Texas
Instrument (now Raytheon) automated warehouse was scrapped before reaching full production when it was realized that the real issue was to reduce inventories rather than build evermore efficient warehouses.8 In this case, reframing led TI executives to focus on the causes ofexcessive stock and how it should reduce inventories rather than building ever-more efficient
warehouses.
Today the true promise of lean can be realized through a shift in how executives frame thissystem. Most western efforts at implementing lean are about, in one way or another, applying
lean tools to every process in the company. This would seem logical enough to most western
thinkers. This approach eliminates waste, improves quality, and leads to greater profits overtime. Who can argue with this? But Toyota’s own TPS masters have a different take. As TPS
veteran Teruyuki Minoura9 explains, the “T” in TPS stands for “Thinking.” To him, TPS as
about creating “an environment where people have to think [which] brings with it wisdom,and this wisdom brings with it kaizen (continuous improvement).” Nampachi Hayashi,10 a
Toyota Executive Advisory Engineer and disciple of the legendary Taiichi Ohno, argued thatthe essence of TPS is developing within in each employee a “kaizen consciousness.” TPS
master Hajime Ohba, quoted earlier, attributes the difficulties of transferring lean to a failure
to apply TPS as a “system of training.” In other words, TPS masters view lean transformationfrom a different frame: changing the thought processes of every employee.
Going lean, then, is less about “leaning out” every business process or applying finely
tuned tools to achieve a certain lean aesthetic, and more about improving organizational
performance, seeing problems, solving them the “right” way, and in doing so continually
increasing the intellectual capacity and skill of all members of the organization. Why is thisimportant? As we explain in the following pages, the “apply lean tools to every process”
frame is inherently limited. Such an approach can spark real gains – yet these improvements
are often isolated, blind to the waste they cause elsewhere in the system, and invariably
doomed to wane when the key players move on or another fad sweeps the workplace. On the Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

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other hand, tapping and evolving the creativity of every employee, if properly cultivated anddirected, has unlimited potential. This enables the core principle of lean – kaizen – to takeroot at the genetic level so that learning becomes an organic process of operations. Realizing
the full promise of this thinking production system requires a shift to this learning frame.
We expose this fundamental difference in perspectives by identifying four deep frames thatpervade the TPS. It’s important to learn how to recast one’s understanding of commonly“understood” lean practices with the following frames: performance mindset, problem awareness, solving problems the “right” way, and developing people through problem-solving.

Improving Performance:
Quality, Cost and Lead-Time Reduction
Improving performance is the first goal of TPS, not implementing tools for the tools’ sake.
Improving performance is explicitly framed as:• Quality improvement through building in quality 100% at the process rather thaninspecting it in later.
• Improving customer service by reducing response time: how can I please my customers
by delivering to them exactly what they want, exactly when they want it, in the rightquantity at the highest quality and the lowest cost?

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Feature n Ballé, Beauvallet, Smalley, Sobek • Cost reduction through waste elimination: anything other than the minimum amountof equipment, materials, parts and working time absolutely essential to production are
merely surpluses that only raise cost.
Missing the deep “performance improvement” frame can lead to self-defeating outcomes.
For instance, one of the authors, who worked several years for Toyota in Japan and wastrained in the plant where Taiichi Ohno initially tested many of the TPS tools, agreed to help
a U.S. based company with the implementation of TPS principles in a low volume, high mix
machine intensive shop where others were having no real luck. After discussion and analysis
it was decided with management that improving on-time delivery, reducing inventory, andimproving productivity were key goals that mattered over the next year. Furthermore, fromhis observations and discussions, he determined that on-time delivery problems were due toan incorrect mix of components coming from the critical pacemaker machining processes.
Over the following weeks and months, the author advised the plant personnel in improving
set-up times, reducing batch sizes,
and reducing lost production timeon specific machines through crosstraining among other improvements.
As a result, plant employees discovered the main problems in each the
key areas, devised countermeasures,and implemented them on a trial
basis as necessary. A year later, themost problematic plant in the division was now shipping almost 100%
on-time with one third less inventory, and labor productivity was up
15% or more. As a result of the improved shipping performance, organic growth, and other key improvement
activities, sales were increased andprofits as measured by return onsales were up nearly six percentage
points from a year earlier.
The division managers and plantstaff expected to receive internal
accolades for their improved performance. Sadly, however, they were in
for a rude awakening. Despite its
recent performance improvements,
the plant scored among the lower
performers in the entire company ona standard lean survey audit thatmeasured adherence to tools. The
reasons cited were that the value
stream maps and tracking center did
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machines did not have standardized work charts, and the way visual control was implemented also was not the method the central function wanted, etc. In other words the corporate auditors had a very different frame than that of the plant and our author-consultant.
Despite the tremendous improvement in performance and customer satisfaction, the corporate “apply lean tools to every process” frame lead them to view the plant’s lean progress as
not up to snuff and deserving of a dressing down – which it disappointingly received.

Problem Awareness: Developing a Kaizen Consciousness
The second deep frame of TPS is problem awareness, in which lean thinkers continually know
precisely where the system falls short of perfection and relentlessly pursue these “problems”
every day. In the words of Nampachi Hayashi: “the biggest problem is thinking you areokay.” A general, and understandable, human tendency is to blame circumstances when werun into difficulties. The TPS frame looks to take responsibility, challenge assumptions andconduct the famed “5 Why” exercise of asking “Why?” until the root cause of a problem
is uncovered. Steven Spear and H. Kent Bowen describe11 a harrowing session when a TPS
master asked a group working on tool change reduction why they had not achieved the fiveminute goal they had originally established, even though they had reduced the changeover
time by 50%. The group offered explanations to do with machine complexity, technical difficulties and equipment upgrade cost. The TPS sensei responded to these replies with morequestions, and pushed the group members to challenge their assumptions on the smallest
details. Spear and Bowen assert that the sensei was not suggesting the team had failed, butthat he was trying to get them to realize that they had not
fully explored all their improvement opportunities because
A general, and underthey had not questioned their assumptions deeply enough.
standable, human tendency
They thought they were okay because they had achieved the“easy” 50% reduction.
is to blame circumstances
Because confronting problems is a strongly embedded
when we run into difficulties.
frame of TPS, managers learn to avoid their natural urge to“work-around” a problem with a quick fix, and instead sort The TPS frame looks to takeout the fundamental issue. That’s why TPS masters say “No
responsibility, challenge
problem is a problem.” For example, one of the authors
assumptions and conduct
recently toured a 1,000-person Toyota engine plant in West
Virginia that manufactures over a half million small engines the famed “5 Why” exercise
and transmissions annually. The plant has won the prestiof asking “Why?” until thegious Harbor award for four years running in North America
as the most efficient engine plant in the U.S, which numbers
root cause of a problem
for inventory, scrap, defects, downtime and safety problems
is uncovered.
that stand up to, and in some cases exceeds, the operating
metrics of its sister plants in Japan. The overall design of the plant down to the minutest details
was well thought out. The workforce was bright, multi functional, and highly engaged.
Yet despite being perhaps the best Toyota engine plant in the world, management’s mindset was focused solely on further improvement opportunities. On each production line, therespective team leader pointed out the precise details of the top five quality problems, the top
ten downtime machines in terms of frequency and intensity, the most likely potential causes
for accidents in their area, not to mention the two top reasons for some real or perceived
minor decline in worker morale. Everyone was focused on exactly how to get another 10%

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Feature n Ballé, Beauvallet, Smalley, Sobek productivity improvement in the upcoming year. This mindset was problem awareness to thefifth degree.

Problem-Solving: Go and See,
Quick Experiments and Rigorous Results Checking
Thirdly, TPS also conveys a deep-frame for experiential problem-solving. As Ohno once
said12, “in a production plant operation, data are highly regarded – but I consider facts tobe even more important.” The difference is more than semantic: TPS considers facts to beevents that you have yourself witnessed at the real place, with the real parts and the real
people. Questions are not abstract exercises but real shop floor experiments that highlight the
problem and uncover the flaws through many iterations. Indeed, many of the most famous
TPS “tools” such as SMED, flow-and-layout, and others, are nothing but observation practices that permit a hands-on understanding of the issues, and therefore a concrete resolution.
Masters seek clear explanations instead of quick “solutions.”
One of us witnessed this frame early in his career as an engineering trainee at Toyota. A
particular grinding process was producing between 2-3% scrap, which was ten times the current “acceptable” amount for that type of machine. After studying various data at his desk
all morning without arriving at any insight as to the cause of the problem, he was asked byhis supervisor to go stand in front of the machine for an hour and then report back. Upondoing so the trainee felt no closer to solving the problem than he had in the morning. The
supervisor then suggested that the trainee draw out the grinding process in excruciating detailand then list all the potential things that could be affecting the quality of the part on a flip
chart. After about 15 things were listed and accepted as potential causes, the trainee was told
to devise a test for each of them, carry them out only one at a time, and report back his findings after each one. The tests involved grinding wheel speed changes, wheel in-feed changes,
dressing wheel changes, clamping changes, cycle time changes, coolant amount, and othervariables that each took a couple hours to ready and involved much begging of help fromeither the operator or maintenance.
The first eight experiments took two days to complete and did not resolve the problem but
did importantly clarify cause and effect of certain items in the trainee’s mind. The ninth
experiment on the morning of the third day finally yielded a breakthrough. The machine’s
coolant tank was badly contaminated with bacteria of some sort and fouling the concentricity of the solution. This minor issue was enough to cause the majority of the scrap problem
on the machine. The question then acquired a new focus: why hadn’t the coolant beenchecked on a proper interval as specified, and how had this machine been missed?
Furthermore, what had contaminated the coolant and how had this occurred?
After resolving the high scrap rate problem in the grinding problem above, the trainee
asked his supervisor how quickly he would have isolated the cause of the problem. The
supervisor’s reply: about ten minutes. He had solved a similar problem years ago and could
tell the contamination by smell. When asked why he did not share this insight up front andsaved the trainee several days of work, he remarked, “This way you learned one thing forsure that worked and eight other things that did not work. If I had told you the answer up
front you would have learned eight things less.” The trainee’s focus had been in fixing a quality problem. The Toyota manager’s goal was to teach the Toyota way of thinking while solving an actual problem, reflecting one of the deeper, essential frames of TPS, that of developing
people as the starting point for making things.

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Developing People Before Making Parts
Recalling his days as an Ohno disciple, Teruyuki Minoura muses, “I don’t think he was interested in my answer at all. I think he was just putting me through some kind of training to getme to learn how to think.” Hajime Ohba depicts TPS as fundamentally a system of training
where everyone solves problems under the guidance of a mentor. Kenji Miura, head of
Toyota’s Operations Management Consulting Division, on recent visit to a European plantchided the plant management, “Don’t have kaizen-men and observers.” This was a strong
way of saying that developing a “kaizen consciousness” was the responsibility of the management, not of staff “experts.” In fact, the TPS frames every manager’s job very strongly as:• Build the performance mindset•	Establish the standard method•	Track actual performance (make problems or abnormalities visible)•	Teach a basic way for analyzing work
• Develop employees through solving problems or improvement tasks
This difference in framing is extremely significant for lean implementation because thegoal is not likely to be the same. The endgame of a traditional lean program is a plant that“looks lean,” where the tools in the manual are being used and obvious wastes cannot be
seen. In contrast, the goal of the true TPS form is a shop floor where production processes
perform at a very high level, but also where every production worker routinely identifies
problems in their work routines and actively works on solving them; where supervisors andteam leaders coach their direct reports in problem-solving, but are also aware of the mostimportant problems plaguing their work area and are working hard at resolving problems of
their own, again under the close guidance of a coach; where line stoppages and gaps between
performance and goals are commonplace.
Certainly solving the problem at hand is important. But just as important, perhaps moreso, is the learning and skill development that takes place. In this sense, problem resolution is
the test or confirmation of the learning. Thus, TPS mentors ask structured questions thatforce the trainee to stay on track and reinforce the problem solving mindset:• What is the exact problem in question?
• What is the specific goal of your activity?

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Feature n Ballé, Beauvallet, Smalley, Sobek 

•
•
•
•

What is the root cause of the problem?
What action items are necessary to solve the problem?
How will you check the actual effect of the action items?
What remains to be addressed to achieve your goal?

In TPS, a problem or any deviation from a standard requires immediate attention. For asupervisor or manager, however, it is not only a matter of solving the problem; it is a matterof training and development as well. A true measure of a manager is said to be when he hands
over duties to a subordinate. If performance stays on track after the hand off, the manager
has done his job correctly. If performance falls, the manager is viewed by everyone as having
done a poor job in terms of employee development.

The Role Of The Tools
All of this talk of frames is not to say that the principles and tools of TPS are unimportant.
They have a key role to play in frame-control. Lean principles function to orient the thinker
in the right direction, such as the Just-in-time principle to reduce or eliminate the stagnation of material and information, or the Jidoka principle to build quality into the productby “stopping at the first defect.” The lean principles tell us which performance metrics areimportant (performance mindset frame control), help us identify problems (problem awareness frame control), provide direction in the appropriate countermeasures to move the operation forward with a learning approach (problem-solving frame control), and indicate what
concepts must be mastered and internalized as part of one’s skill development (developing
people frame control). Thus lean principles are important, but do not supplant the primary
frame. Rather, they guide organizational behaviors and priorities in ways that deepen thebasic frame.
The lean tools take on a whole new dimension from this new perspective. They becomemuch more than just mechanisms to implement the lean ideals, as important as that is. They
also become vehicles by which the deep frames are instilled. For instance, from the typicalframe, 5S is often seen as a straightforward housekeeping tool or practice (“everything has aplace and everything in its place,” etc.). However, with the new frame in mind, what was atool or practice for cleaner working environments becomes a way to develop an operator’s
knowledge and responsibility about their work cell. 5S becomes an ongoing practice to help
people think about how their workstation is laid out and arranged, and for them to act on
all the small things that can make it better, safer, more ergonomic, and easier to work in.
Companies that do not share this frame will hire external consultants or appoint a “5S manager” to make sure that the shop floor is clean all the time, not recognizing that the teams
must take ownership for their cells, by applying the tool themselves! Management in thesecompanies understands the part about cleaner environments, but they completely miss the“developing people” frame. Not surprisingly, like a fad diet without change in the fundamental behavior of the person, these “5S” drives fail time and time again. The tool is important,but must be applied with the proper frame in mind.
Value stream mapping is another useful tool for companies on the road to lean. From thetypical frame, the VSM helps the plant (or value stream) manager envision what the overallmaterial and information flow in the lean system should look like, identify the true valueadding activities, and determine the potential for production lead-time improvement.
However, from the new frame, VSM highlights specific kinds of problems (i.e., those related Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

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to stagnation of material and information flow), and where to focus their people’s problemsolving efforts to have the biggest impact on performance measures of significance to overallplant performance. From the traditional frame, VSM is useful; from the TPS frame, it ispowerful.
Certainly, workshops (or “kaizen events”) such as flow-and-layout manpower, Single
Minute Exchange of Die for lowering tool change-over time, or Quick Response Quality
Control are invaluable tools to kick-start the thinking process in any plant. But to gain sustained improvement over time, these efforts must be conducted with the right frame – touncover problems, challenge assumptions, resolve problems, and ultimately help shop floor
staff learn how to best use their existing equipment to produce better parts for the customer.
The act of improvement however in TPS can not be separated from that of people development. In TPS the Japanese phrase “mono zukuri wa hito zukuri” (making things by making
people) is a required way of life.

Management Implications
The framing debate has considerable managerial implications, both at the levels of day-today management and for the deployment of “lean” programs. Firstly, frame control becomes
essential, that is, the ability to keep the frame of reference focused on the right things: performance improvement, problem awareness, solving problems theright way, and developing people. This, in itself, is a major challenge
The framing debate hasfor any manager, whose days are typically consumed by fighting one
fire after another. Making sure that managers and supervisors surface considerable managerial
problems rather than go around them, and then treat them as devel- implications, both atopment opportunities for employees requires a deep commitment to
the levels of day-to-day
continuous improvement, and rigor in day-to-day applications. Truly,
many TPS tools properly applied will help, as their main purpose management and for theis to make problems appear at the right place, and the right time.
deployment of “lean”
Moreover, “frame control” also applies to the way programs for lean
programs.
transformation are conceived and deployed, on four main points:
focusing on performance in terms of customer delivery; using the tools
to back track to problem areas and find out what is really limiting performance; identify
problems one at a time, and develop the individual by asking them to solve these problems
rigorously; and establish a system of training in which every manager has a coach, works on
problem solving and coaches his own people in turn13; similarly, every front line employee
works on problem solving with the guidance of a coach.
The broader managerial challenge is to shift from using TPS principles to produce brilliant
products and processes, to applying TPS frames as a means of developing people. In Toyota,
implementing TPS is not just a staff issue but a line role, starting with the plant manager.
Indeed, within Toyota establishing work standards and fostering kaizen is a key supervisoryrole; and supervisors, not engineers, are accountable for both work instructions and line
performance in terms of productivity and quality. Consequently, deploying TPS through afirm is not about how many areas have been “kaizened” but how many plant managers, andthen supervisors and team leaders, have been trained by a sensei and can start training people
on their own.
Consider the case of Isao Kato who is a now a retired manager from Toyota’s training anddevelopment department in Japan. Internally for many years he was famous as Toyota’s inter-reflections.solonline.org

Feature n Ballé, Beauvallet, Smalley, Sobek Organizational Learning in the Toyota
Production System
Manufacturing operations are fundamentally social systems. Even the most automated facilities depend
critically upon people for operation. And where the role of the social system is critical, the importance 		of learning is paramount.
Takahiro Fujimoto, a world-renowned scholar on Toyota and the Japanese automotive industry, has
attributed Toyota’s phenomenal success to its highly advanced learning capability.16 Best-selling author
Jeffrey Liker similarly cites organizational learning as central to Toyota’s management principles.17 These
conclusions are not terribly surprising as the disciplines of organizational learning can be found within thebasic tenets of the TPS. For example, that Toyota expects everyone to learn their own job, and then once
mastered to learn other jobs on their team as well. This cross training is but one example of a company
dedicated to personal mastery. A second example is kaizen (or continuous improvement), the bedrock of
TPS. Any improvement requires skill in problem solving; but within TPS, merely fixing a problem is not goodenough. You must investigate to find the root cause, and implement countermeasures that prevent the
problem from recurring, i.e., double-loop learning.
In Toyota’s case problem-solving necessarily involves both individual and team effort with ideas, suggestions, and critique coming from anyone. In other words, team learning is central to kaizen. TPS keeps aconstant eye on the same targets (e.g., shorten production lead-time) and instills a common sense of
purpose or shared vision. Through continual learning and experimentation, mental models are challenged,
refined, and sometimes completely altered. Finally, TPS masters understand that individual actions often
have unintended consequences for the rest of the system. For example circumventing standard work
processes even though you may think “your way” is better is not an acceptable way to improve the system.
Additionally some tactics that may cause elements of the system to “under-perform” at a local level (e.g.,frequent product changeovers that reduce uptime and throughput) are employed if it means overall system
performance improves. In short, TPS masters are systems thinkers.
We have observed many organizations that view TPS as a collection of tools that remove wasted time,energy, and motion from organizational processes. But we think TPS should be seen equally as a thinking
production system. Without this mental model, a learning organization is unlikely to emerge no matter how
adeptly the tools are applied. The four frames we propose are often absent in lean transformations we’ve
observed, yet are central for any manufacturing firm whose leadership aspires to become a learningorganization.

nal master of standardized work, among other topics. Toyota did not attempt to train every
employee in the company in standardized work, as there are over 200,000 employees in thecompany. Instead, for each plant around the world, Mr. Kato would develop ten or so standardized work trainers who were acknowledged as good supervisors and potential competent
instructors. The ten people selected attended a two week special course on how to teachstandardized work. Upon successful completion of the course, they would return to theirhome plant and teach the ten hour (five days by two hours) course under the strict supervision of Mr. Kato. Once certified as competent instructors, they were responsible to teach all
their fellow supervisors standardized work as the need arose in the future. Mr. Kato worked
with production managers to make sure they followed up on the courses and made sure thelessons were applied. Beyond this level, however, standardized work was now a plant management responsibility – not a staff or training department issue. Virtually all off the job
training is handled in this cascaded fashion14 in Toyota. This is not an easy challenge andToyota itself is suffering from a dearth of experienced masters like Mr. Kato (and many others
on different topics) as it grows faster than its capacity to develop “masters.” Still, compared

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to traditional companies where management continues to manage by the numbers and firefight, and a few staff people are given the impossible mission to “apply lean” in all processes,
engaging the creative potential off every organizational asset seems a better recipe for sustained success.
How people frame problems has real consequences. Until this fundamental truth isacknowledged, and lean converts face up to the need of developing frame control in applying
the tools and techniques developed by Toyota, lean transformation will continue to be slow,
frustrating and ultimately unrewarding. If your frame is “apply lean tools and principles toevery process,” you will certainly gather the low hanging fruit, but the potential for your leantransformation will remain limited. On the other hand, if you frame lean transformation as“change the thought processes of every employee to develop kaizen consciousness,” thepotential is unbounded. In the present industrial context, the framing issue is not just of academic interest as a manner of explaining why paradigm shifts are so slow and painful. It isof critical importance for firms investing resources, time and efforts in a lean transformation
and who need to radically improve their performance if they want to compete with low costproviders, who, incidentally, are also improving their own operations at an incredible pace.
The TPS masters, the true lean experts and originators of lean, realize they’re not in the same
framework as the people they’re trying to coach, but, conversely, the frame of their audience
is so strong, their message is not heard!
In the end TPS is best viewed as a developed practice, not a theoretical philosophy or setof tools. Lean is not and probably never will be a codified body of knowledge. It’s the cumulative behavior and experience of the people who practice the system. And although its practice is demanding and difficult because it does not come naturally to our organizations or ourmentalities, TPS, the Thinking Production System is also profoundly empowering. In thewords of Michikazu Tanaka, a former managing director of Daihatsu Kogyo who wastrained by Taiichi Ohno: “In terms of results, [TPS] involves reducing work-in-process, raising productivity and lowering costs. But the real aim is to bring out the capabilities of eachindividual. The ultimate aim is to draw out people’s motivation.”15

A bo u t the A u thors

Michael Ballé
Dr. Michael Ballé, business consultant and author, is associate researcher at Télécom Paris andco-founder of the Project Lean Enterprise (www.lean.enst.fr). He has specialized in the social construction of learning environments in fields as diverse as manufacture, healthcare, and administrative services. He is co-author of The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround and of Managing with
Systems Thinking.
mballe@noos.fr
Godefroy Beauvallet
Godefroy Beauvallet is Deputy Manager of the department of Economics and Social Science ofEcole Nationale des Télécommunications in Paris, France. His works focus on the efficient use ofIT, sociology of science and technology, and the management of projects with heavy IT content.
He graduated from France’s Ecole Polytechnique.
godefroy.beauvallet@enst.fr

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Feature n Ballé, Beauvallet, Smalley, Sobek 11

Art Smalley
Art Smalley is an expert specializing in the area of world class methods for operational improvement
and has served numerous major companies around the world. Art was one of the first American’s
to work for Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan. Currently he is President of Art of Lean, Inc. helping
numerous Fortune 100 companies drive improvement.
artsmalley@verizon.net
Durward K. Sobek II
Durward K. Sobek II, is an Associate Professor of Industrial and Management Engineering at
Montana State University. He has Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Industrial and Operations Engineeringfrom the University of Michigan, and an A.B. degree in Engineering Sciences from DartmouthCollege.
dsobek@ie.montana.edu

Endnotes
1
2

J. Womack, D. Jones & D. Roos (1990) The Machine That Changed the World, Rawson Associates.
J. Womack & D. Jones (1996) Lean Thinking, Simon & Schuster; J. K. Liker (ed.) (1998) Becoming
Lean, Productivity Press.

3

S. Spear (2005) “Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today,” Harvard Business Review, September.

4

L. Koskela, G. Howell, G. Ballard & I. Tommelein (2003) “The Foundations of Lean Construction,” in:5

C. Swank (2003) “The Lean Service Machine,” Harvard Business Review, October.

6	

H. Ohba (2002) Communication to the “Making Things 21C” Conference, Nagoya, March, 7th.

7

J. Womack & D. Jones (1994) “From Lean Production to the Lean Enterprise,” Harvard Business

8	

NCMS Projet (2000) Product Development Process, Performance Measures & Methodology, Final

R. Best & G. de Valence (eds.) Design and Construction: Building in Value, Butterworth-Heinemann

Review, March-April.
Report of NCMS Project n°130120.
9	

T. Minoura (2003) Communication at the “2003 Automotive Parts System Solution Fair,” Tokyo,
June, 18th.

10 N. Hayashi (2002) Communication to the “Making Things 21C” Conference, Nagoya, March, 7th.
11 S. Spear & H. K. Bowen (1999) “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,” Harvard
Business Review, September-October.
12 T. Ohno (1988) Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, Productivity Press
13 S. Spear (2004) “Learning to Lead at Toyota,” Harvard Business Review, May.
14 The origins of the cascading training model can be traced back to the “Training Within Industry”
program in the US, as exported to Japan by McArthur’s Occupation Authority. For further information,see: J. Huntzinger (2002) “The Roots of Lean,” Target 18(1); and D. Dinero (2005) Training Within
Industry: the Foundation of Lean, Productivity Press.
15

S. Hino, (2006) Inside the Mind of Toyota, Productivity Press

16	 T. Fujimoto (1999) The Evolution of a Manufacturing System at Toyota, Oxford University Press,
New York.
17

J. Liker (2004) The Toyota Way, McGraw-Hill, New York.

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commentary

Commentary
By Roger Saillant

Roger Saillant

I became involved with the Society of Organi-

When we analyzed the advantage of Toyota,

zational Learning for two reasons. The first

we believed that we could account for about

was that my launch plant manager in Hungary

65% of their cost advantage through “hardgave me a copy of The Fifth Discipline to readpractices” like lean, Kanban, and newer equip-

and it resonated strongly with my own think-ment under tight statistical process control.

ing. The second was that Bob Womac, my

The other 35% seemed “soft” – or they werethen boss and the General Manager of the

keeping secrets from us. Along the way weElectrical and Fuel Handling Division in thelearned that they had a suggestion program

Ford Motor Company, had been to a meeting

which was based on the old Ford suggestion

with Peter Senge and upon returning declared

program, a formal, structured system for filter-that “we would become a learning organiza-

ing new ideas from employees, using monetarytion.” Bob had become a huge proponent of

incentives. Toyota had copied the program in

the idea because Peter had shown him a graphthe 1950’s and then improved on it. Toyota’sthat illustrated the rate of learning at Toyotasuggestion program had many “soft” elements

was greater than at the Ford Motor Company.

which emotionally engaged Toyota workers at

In fact, it was clear from the conceptual graphevery level, got everyone “thinking” creatively,that within less than ten years Toyota would

and led to the results discussed in “Thepass Ford in market share and they have.

Thinking Production System.”

About ten years previous to the idea of the

I believe that Messrs Balle’ et al have captured

learning organization, I was a manager in thethe power behind the thinking at Toyota. The

engine engi-neering planning department at

Toyota workers approach their work with theFord. We were evaluating how Toyota andidea of making it a practice, a disciplined effort

Honda manufactured their engines and emis-

to move attribute (subjective) data to variablesionized (calibrated) their engine systems in(measurable) data in all they see. The ability

a repeatable fashion at such low costs. Ford

to practice this approach mirrors our ability tosent teams of engineers and manufacturing

move from novices to masters in our profes-

experts to Japan to study their factories.

sional lives. The movement through the various

Toyota has enormous respect for Ford Motor
Company and Mr. Ford’s manufacturing strategies and they were open to visits as a formof respect. These teams reported back thatstages of development toward mastery is allabout learning how to think with better discipline and more skill each day – an ongoingprocess that is never complete.

the “Toyota Produc-ion System” was at the

I believe that the book Presence (Sol, 2004)

heart of their success. This system allowed

offers insights that are touched upon in thisthem to improve their processes continuously

article. The idea of “frameworks” and “frame

which, in turn, lowered their costs.

control” is consistent with the “U model”

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Commentary ■ Saillant 13

thatforms the underlying theory of the book,the supervisor was focused on the practiceand explains to me why Toyota is successfulof becoming a thinker. The Toyota managers

and why Ford struggles. The U process lays

know how to recognize the status of people’sout a developmental path for learning which

thinking, where they are in the “U,” and movecan change “frameworks” or mental models,them toward letting go, then to letting come,thus achieving lean transformation by, as

and ultimately to institutionalizing. The Ford

Balle et al point out, changing thought

folks (representing a majority of American man-processes.

agement today) are still not “seeing their seeing”

The description of the “Master” supervisor andthe “novice” trainee illustrates several deep
ideas that are generalizeable beyond Toyota

and therefore are hung up before they start theprocess. The old adage that the “hard stuff” isreally the “soft stuff” remains true for us all.

and beyond the manufacturing floor. As noted,

Roger Saillant

the trainee was focused on the problem while

Roger_Saillant@plugpower.com

14 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

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Distributing Leadership Practices
for Lean Transformation
1

George RothMany organizations have achieved impressive results in various aspects of their businessthrough lean transformation. Few firms, however, sustain those initial results, and many struggle to bring the results down to a bottom-line impact. This article links research literature onchange management with lean case studies and presents a form of distributed leadership thatfacilitates lean transformation. Distributing leadership practices is one of five capabilities identified for successful lean enterprise change (see Table 1). A working paper that discusses all
five capabilities in depth can be obtained by request from reflections@solonline.org.

Understanding what leaders do in successful enterprise change requires a consideration of the scope ofthat change. Daniel Jones, coauthor of numerous
books on lean production and chair of the Lean
Enterprise Academy, observes an important relationship between leaders and change. The transition tolean enterprise requires kaikaku – a shift in the fundamental logic and layout of organizations – alongwith kaizen – activities aimed at continually improving operations and eliminating waste. Althoughcompanies make kaikaku changes and promote kaizen, “if the logic in the heads of management has notchanged along with the physical operations thenthings will easily slide backwards” (Jones, 2005).
The kaikaku redesign of the core value-creating processes, Jones notes, is too important for leaders todelegate. Leaders cannot delegate their lean involvement because their engagement is what enables themto examine and change the logic in their heads. Thatchange or transformation in the leaders’ logic isessential to the transformation of the enterprise.
The history of the term lean helps clear up theconfusion that often surrounds what it means to belean. Lean was coined as a term to describe what was
best represented by the Toyota Production System –reflections.solonline.org

factories producing a vast variety of automobiles
with half the human effort, half the manufacturing
space, half the investment in tooling, half the engineering hours, and half the new product development time of mass production factories (Womack,
Jones, and Roos, 1990). The term lean is based on
the view of a whole system; it is much more than theset of practices broadly implemented by many managers who then identify their company as lean.
Lean is not a program or an outcome, nor does it
reside at an executive level or within the workforce.
Lean is a way of operating that spans from executive
strategy setting for developing people and managing
business growth to the commitment of the workforce to continuous improvement. Although lean has
come to be defined primarily by the use of highly
visible tools, they are only the surface artifacts of adeeper culture. Many companies today make use oflean tools; however, leaders should not mistake thoseartifacts with the deeper changes that lean implies.
Spear and Bowen (1999) have noted that despite extensive study, companies are unable to replicate thesuccess of Toyota because they confuse the tools andpractices with the system itself.
The management challenge for successfully becom-

EKF ■ Roth 15

ing lean goes beyond the extensive use of lean methods to the transformation of a business system. It ismuch easier to add on to existing ways of working
and thinking than it is to make fundamental changes.
Top leaders, excited by the lean results that they haveseen, often add a layer of lean tools to their organization’s existing practices. These efforts become, atbest, a partial implementation that produces only
limited improvements. Successful lean transformation always involves changes in organizational structure and in an organization’s culture, which relies onchanging people’s assumptions. Schein’s (1992) definition of organizational culture links people’s underlying assumptions with their expressed values andbeliefs, and with the visible artifacts of an organization. The culture of an organization emanates frombeliefs that its leaders promote and the historical challenges that they have faced.
Differences in enterprise design are a function ofmanagers’ fundamental assumptions about their environment and their organization’s people. To lean practitioners, the word enterprise has a specific meaning:
It is the collection of organizations that make up a
product or service value stream. Leaders in lean enterprises seek cooperative relationships between theirorganization and its environment, looking for opportunities to communicate and develop relationships.
Managers in mass production organizations, in contrast, see environmental factors and stakeholders aslargely external and immutable, and therefore tend
to hold them at arm’s length. It is the differing
assumptions of leaders and their design choices thatcreate these contrasting forms.
The challenge for leaders in lean transformation
involves the magnitude, wholeness, and depth ofchanges needed. The magnitude of change encompasses the many differences in the characteristics ofmass production organizations and lean enterprises.
The wholeness of the change has to do with switching between configurations, in moving from one organizational logic, archetype, or gestalt to another(MacDuffie, 1995). The depth of the change deals
with the basic assumptions that are the root of organizational culture. Each dimension of change on its

16 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Table 1: Five Capabilities for Lean Enterprise Change
1. Rethinking organizational boundaries• View own organization as a part of acontiguous value stream
extend the domain to environmental relationships
2. Installing innovation sets
• Build upon complementarities of practices
extend the scope to include sets of changes
as coherent programs
3. Pushing and pulling change• Set in place structures and processes thatenable virtuous learning
extend the methods to integrate the two change
approaches
4. Seeking growth opportunities• Project a positive vision for continual renewal
extend the strategy to growth and development
5. Distributing leadership practices• Recognize interdependent roles in a systemof leadershipextend leadership to all levels of the enterpriseown implies a significant shift. Taken together, the setof changes points to an enormous abyss over whichleaders must guide their organizations. Successful
leaders realize the expanse of this gulf and know that
small steps will not allow the organization to crossthat chasm. Doing so requires a great leap.

Organizational Effectivenessand Occupational Communities
As leaders guide their organizations through changes
in structure and culture, they also need to support
the many small steps of continuous improvement
efforts. The ways in which firms improve theiroperations are embedded in their organizational
structure. Managers within different functions havedeveloped improvement methods that are largely
unique to their areas.
There are three broad courses of action forreflections.solonline.org

improving organizational effectiveness – accessing
external resources, bettering internal systems, andadopting efficient technologies (see Table 2). External
resource improvement approaches include strategicplanning, financial engineering, marketing, lobbying, and developing partnerships or strategic relationships with other firms or external stakeholders.
Technical approaches seek to improve service andquality or reduce defects and costs through the useof analytic methods or information technologies.
Reengineering, Six Sigma quality, and industrial engineering are examples of technical approaches. Internal systems improvement approaches include teambuilding, high-performance work systems, conflict
management, and other organizational development
initiatives. Internal systems efforts aim to improvethe motivation and well-being of people to advance theoverall organizational performance (Jones, 1997).
Each of these organizational effectivenessapproaches is associated with specific positions, job
functions, roles, and ultimately professions. Given
that specialization, people in different areas andfunctions base their improvement efforts on what

are largely their own, independently developed anduniquely practiced principles, tools, and methods.
Executive leadership, which includes the organization’s top managers and their staff, works strategically to improve access to resources and markets.
Line leadership, which includes senior and middle
managers responsible for divisions, plants, offices
and programs, has operational responsibility for thecreation and delivery of products and services. Lineleadership’s improvement methods include efforts
that result in greater coordination and collaboration
at their level. Finally, technical approaches, which
are carried out by people with specific expertise,include the use of technologies and analytic methods
to improve operational functioning and efficiencies.
The generic names of improvement tools andmethods associated with organizational effectivenessapproaches are listed in Table 3. Many of these tools
are developed and used just within the set of people
in the roles listed in the table. Strategic marketing islargely an approach that executives use, for example,
whereas team-building efforts involve customer service groups, and Six Sigma quality efforts are carried

Table 2: Approaches to Improving Organizational Effectiveness (adapted from Jones, 1997, p.28)
Approach

Description

Goals to Set to Measure Effectiveness

External
Resource

Evaluates the organization’s ability tosecure, manage, and control scarceand valued skills and resources• Lower costs of inputs• Obtain high-quality inputs of raw materials
and employees• Increase market share• Increase stock price• Gain support of stakeholders suchas goverment or environmentalists

Internal
Systems

Evaluates the organization’s ability
to be innovative and function quickly
and responsively• Cut decision-making time
• Increase rate of product innovation• Increase coordination and motivationof employees• Reuce conflict• Reduce time to market

Technical

Evaluates the organization’s ability
to convert skills and good resources
into goods and services efficiently• Increase product quality• Reduce number of defects• Reduce production costs• Improve customer service• Reduce delivery time to customer

reflections.solonline.org

EKF ■ Roth 17

out by industrial engineers. Each occupation has its
preferred tools – engineering students learn operations
research and design experiments, while management
students learn strength-weakness-opportunity-threat(SWOT) analysis and leadership skills. What people
learn in universities extends to professional associations and on-the-job experiences – people in different positions practice approaches specific to theirfunction. That organizational focus on using specialized methods helps to build deep knowledge in functional areas.
But whereas managers may organize their firms
into units around tasks for rational or administrative
reasons, the people in these units conceive of theirwork more collegially in “occupational communities.” These communities are made up of “a group ofpeople who consider themselves to be engaged in thesame sort of work; whose identity is drawn from thework; who share with one another a set of values,
norms and perspectives that apply to but extend

18 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

beyond work-related matters; and whose social relationships meld work and leisure” (Van Maanen andBarley, 1984, p. 287).
Occupational communities provide a frame ofreference for why people behave as they do in organizations. Because an organization’s formal conceptions of work can overlook what it really takes to geta job done, managers’ efforts to have people adhere
to espoused practices can undermine the actual practices that organizational members develop. The actual
practices are what enable improvement and determine the success or failure of an organization. Using
Lave and Wenger’s (1991) practice-based theory oflearning, Brown and Duguid propose “communities
of practice” as important structures for learning. To
understand performance and learning in organizations, “it is necessary to focus on the formation andchange of the communities in which work takes place”(Brown and Duguid, 1991, p. 41).

reflections.solonline.org

Barriers to Learning in
Organizations
Participation in occupational communities or communities of practice creates social structures thatfacilitate interaction and learning and help members
to develop practical skills. But, because organizations are usually structured by function or department, it can be difficult for them to develop knowledge
across units. For example, organizations may utilize
very good engineering tools for designing products,
or very good accounting tools for capturing costs
and allocating expenses. Departments within organizations are often skilled at applying tools, but theyfrequently do so only within the boundaries of their
responsibilities. The shared experience of a functional group or occupational community that cuts
across artificial structures can facilitate an organization’s internal learning processes.
Schein (1996) found that organizations had trouble learning and improving because of consistent

failures to communicate across the subcultures of
their occupational communities. Organizations as awhole develop unique cultures that arise from theirmembers’ shared experiences; however, the sameprocess operates within different units of large organization, creating variations in the overall culture, or
subcultures. Several particular subcultures were so
consistent across large organizations that Schein
described them as three distinct “cultures of management” (see Table 4). The three subcultures – theculture of engineers, the culture of CEOs, and theculture of operators – exist in all large organizations.
They do not understand each other very well, andthey often work at cross-purposes. Many organizations fail, or remain only marginally competitive, notbecause of resistance to change, but because of afundamental inability to reconcile the differences insubculture assumptions. “Until executives, engineers
and operators discover that they use different languages
and make different assumptions about what is im-

Table 3: Linkage of Organizational Effectiveness Approaches to Leadership Roles,
Occupational Community and Improvement Methods
Approach

Leadership Role &Occupational Community

Improvement Tools & Methods

AccessingExternal
Resources

Executive leadershipand staff functions toleadership, chief financial
officer, chief operating
officer, strategic humanresources, legal counsel• Planning (SWOT)• Financial engineering• Legal restructuring• Leadership• Managerial accounting•	Strategic marketing• Mergers and alliances

BetteringInternal
Systems

Line leadership; geographic, division, andplant management;
responsibility for plants
and factories•	Team building•	Cross-training/ multi-skilling• High-performance work systems• Employee involvement•	Conflict management,
negotiations• Gain sharing•	Open book management• Budgeting and control•	Supplier management•	Kaizen improvement

Adopting
EfficientTechnologies

Technical leadership,
engineering management,internal consultants andexperts, black belts• IT systems– MRP, EDI, CRM, etc.
• Reengineering•	TQM, TPM• Value engineering•	Operations research• Activity-based costing•	Theory of constraints• Lean producton•	Six Sigma Quality• Cellular manufacturing• Design of experiments

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EKF ■ Roth 19

portant, and until they learn to treat the other cultures as valid and normal, organizational learning
efforts will fail,” according to Schein (1996, p. 18).

Leadership for Learning AcrossOrganizations
Studies of change-associated organizational learning
initiatives found that deep cultural changes required
an alignment of “leadership roles.” Leadership in

this sense is not confined to a position in the hierarchy, but is seen as a capacity to engage “a humancommunity to shape its future and specifically tosustain the significant process of change required to
do so” (Senge et al., 1999, p. 16). By this definition,organizations have many leaders at various organizational levels who play critical roles in initiating
and sustaining learning and change. When the threeleadership roles important to learning – the executive,
local line, and network leaders – are operating

Table 4: The Three Cultures of Management (developed from Schein, 1996)
The Culturesof Management

CEO
Subculture

Operator Subculture

Engineering Subculture

Colloquialisms

The line, middle managers,
management, or the boss

Experts, geeks, technocrats, or analysts

Executives, top leaders,
Mahogany Row, or the
big boss

Scope

Local

GlobalGlobalOrientation

Making the system work,
people, local community,
based on core technology

Technological eleganceof design, abstract andefficient solutions, people
are a source of noise

Financial growth and viability, people are a cost to be
managed, manage throughimpersonal systems androutines

Examples of Basic
Assumptions•	Success of enterprisedepends upon people’sknowledge, skills, learning abilities, and commitment• Required knowledge andskills are “local” andbased on the organization’s core technology•	Operators need to learn
and deal with surprisesin the production process•	Operators must be partof a collaborative teamin which communication,
openness, mutual trust,and commitment arevalued• We are proactive andoptimistic; our ideal ismastering nature• We are stimulated bypuzzles and problems• We are pragmatic perfectionists who prefer solutions independent offickle people• An ideal world is madeup of elegant machines
and processes that workwith precision and do notneed human intervention• We are oriented toward
safety over design• We prefer linear, simple
cause-and-effect, quantitative thinking• Financial survival andgrowth must be our focus• We are in a perpetuallycompetitive and hostileenvironment• We need to appear
in control and be indispensable• We must rely on ourown judgment because
subordinates do notgive reliable data
• Hierarchy helps tomaintain control• We take risks only
in ways that maintaincontrol• Large organizations
require rules, routines,
and rituals• Challenge and achievement, not relationships,
define success

20 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

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together, organizations create a distributed leadershipsystem that enables them to transform themselves.
Perceptive executives do not rely on the power of
their position to enforce change because that subtly
reinforces the view that management is the source ofproblems – and solutions. When people in the organization hold the assumption that only executives
can cause significant change, they have disempowered themselves. Executives need to hold realistic
views of the limits of their powers, realizing thatpeople in large organizations have become cynicalabout “flavor of the month” management fads
(Senge et al., 1999, p. 13). Executives are removed
from the organization’s direct value-producing process, and, although accountable for overall corporate
performance, they have little ability to directly influence actual work processes. They are, however, vitalin setting a vision and creating the environment, support, and resources for learning, improvement, andchange. What executives can do is walk their talk,and influence others by their involvement, commitment, credibility, and sincerity.
All corporate change must eventually become
local. The programs, resources, encouragement, ororders coming through an organization affect thethinking and behavior of people doing work. Localline leaders, the managers accountable for resultswith authority to undertake changes, need to be
involved in any change that is to be meaningful andsustained. These local line leaders may have responsibility spanning from a department to a large facility or factory. Given their accountability for results,
and the history of corporate initiatives, these managers often become skeptical of executive-driven programs. Too often, they have had to take on activities
from these programs and still deliver bottom-line
results. Local line leaders are knowledgeable onentrenched and vexing problems, and they are vitalto transformation because only they can undertakeorganizational experiments and test the practical
impact of new approaches. Without local line leaders’involvement and commitment, organizations struggle
to initiate, and are unable to sustain, change programs.
In these studies, which examined the broad diffu-

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sion of learning and change in organizations, there
were no examples of success “without the enthusiastic participation of effective internal networkers”(Senge et al., 1999, p. 17). People in the role of “network leader” help to close the gap between visionand implementation. Network leaders pull together
the vision, support, and resources of executives toaddress the needs of local line leaders. Their limitation – a lack of positional or formal authority – istheir strength. It is possible for network leadershiproles to be played by people with formal authority,
but they would not be invoking their authority in thatrole. Instead, network leaders, who are often fromexecutive staff, business improvement personnel, or
corporate training groups, move around the organizational freely and largely unnoticed. They enroll
people in improvement efforts because of the strengthof their conviction and clarity of their ideas.
American companies often do not value network
leadership because it is informal and exists outside
official corporate influence mechanisms. In contrast,
studies of Japanese management methods show how
highly the Japanese depend on informal authority.
One of the essential characteristics of lean enterpriseis the role of managers as leaders and mentors, using
direct but casual methods for diffusing improvements. In Spear’s (2004) account of training at
Toyota, he describes a new leader’s process of helping his subordinates achieve their improvement
goals, and learning that he should not make thechanges that achieve these goals for them. Thisknowledge can not be simply gained in a classroom;
it must be experienced in the workplace.

A System of Distributed
Leadership
Organizational transformation offers a paradox: No
significant change occurs unless the top drives it, andno significant change occurs if the top drives it. Without top management buy-in, organizations cannot
sustain change efforts. Conversely, top managementbuy-in is a poor substitute for genuine commitment
spread throughout the organization.

EKF ■ Roth 21

The solution to this paradox of transformation
lies in the distinction between commitment and compliance. The hierarchical authority needed to “drivechange from the top” favors compliant behaviors,
which undermines the commitment and local leadership needed at multiple organizational levels to sustain change. Organizational transformation requiresthat a variety of roles work together to enable changes:
a three-part system of distributed leadership.
The three leadership roles for learning (Senge,
1995; Senge et al.,1999) overlap with the three cultures of management (Schein, 1996). There is adirect link between CEO culture and executive leadership roles and between operator culture and line
leadership roles. This overlap is created because theCEO culture, by virtue of position and responsibilities, naturally exhibits the characteristics of executive leadership roles.
The third pairing is not quite so direct. However,there may be a link between an engineering culture
and network leadership roles. Although network
leaders might come from engineering cultures, they
are effective in their network leadership roles precisely because they function outside other occupational communities and without formal influence.
Network leaders bridge occupational communities,
and firms cannot effectively sustain organizationwide changes without learning across these communities. Senge (1995) calls network leaders “internal
community builders” because of their important role
in working outside the organization’s system of formal authority. Network leaders bring together people who are predisposed to experimentation andchange, and hold them together through a sharedvision for improvement. Studies of learning efforts
within organizations found that common values were
the glue that binds such groups, noting that they
were really “communities of commitment” (Senge andFigure 1: System of Distributed Leadershipstrategies, goals, philosophies(espoused beliefs and justifications)Executive Subculture

ValuesOperating Subculture

stories people tell, visible organizational
behavior, processes, and structure 		(hard to decipher)

Engineering Subculture

Artifacts

Network Leaders
Basic
Assumptions

unconscious beliefs, habits,
perceptions, thoughts, andfeelings

22 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Mental Models
Ultimate source of values and actions

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Kofman, 1999). Without the commitment that thesegroups develop from working together, organizations would be unable to sustain their learning efforts.
The organizational learning and culture researchfindings provide insights into the leadership needed
to sustain lean changes. Learning and change aresustained through a system of distributed leadersin which network leaders bring executive, line, andengineering occupational communities together. The
col-lective efforts of multiple leaders enable learningand improve performance across organizations. One
depic-tion of distributed leadership is the system thatis formed by overlaying the three cultures of management, connected by network leadership, on thethree levels at which organizational culture is manifested (see Figure 1). In the background are featuresof the cultures, including artifacts, and values, andunderlying basic assumptions. The three cultures ofmanagement together make up the organizational
culture. The operator subculture, which is locally
based, most strongly identifies with and is central tothe organization’s culture. The executive and engineering subcultures are more global, and are linked
to external communities as part of their professional
identities.
Organizations will not learn effectively until theyrecognize and confront the implications of different
organizationl cultures. “To create alignment among
the three cultures, then, is not a case of deciding
which one has the right viewpoint, but of creating
enough mutual understanding among them to evolve
solutions that will be understood and implemented,”according to Schein (1996, p. 17). In a system of
distributed leadership, leaders in all these roles areaware of each other and their strengths and differences, and they align so that efforts provide cumulative results. When this system of leadership is working,what seems like an incremental change process(often part of a lean, Six Sigma, or continuous improvement program) can become more dramatic astime goes by. Judged over time – one year, two years,
five years – the accumulation of many little changes
results in a radical transformation.

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Distributed Leadership to Bridge
Organizational Boundaries
Network leaders draw people together to initiate
and maintain continuous improvement efforts, connecting needs and opportunities with available
resources. They create bridges across the three cultures of management (see Figure 1) and do so informally, using their passion, power of persuasion, andinfluence skills. They do not rely on formal power,
but work with managers who are predisposed toleading improvement efforts. If network leaders failto gain the support of, influence, or inspire line managers in their improvement experiments, the use of
authority to make local managers do something they
do not want to do would sow the seeds of discontent
and failure. When local leaders are not themselves
motivated and personally committed to changes, theresult is unintended consequences, inauthentic behaviors, backsliding, and unrelenting resistance. The
foundation for continuous improvement is the motivation and engagement of line leaders – something
for which there are no substitutes. If network leaders
gain too much power, they will be tempted to usethat power at times to coerce or manipulate leaders
into efforts whose outcome they are not committed
to achieving. Network leaders support other leaders’formal performance responsibilities while appealing
to their innate desires to learn and improve.
Cultural boundaries between occupational communities can inhibit the success of improvement
activities within organizations. Engaging people byusing the relationships within occupational communities can help to overcome organizational boundaries. The linkage between occupational communities
can be highly effective in supporting new learning,facilitating the diffusion of new practices, and accelerating changes. For instance, CEOs and other members of the executive culture envision themselves aspart of a larger financial community, responsible forthe organization’s fiscal health and preoccupied withboards, investors, and the stock market. Only people
within that occupational community of their organization share their concerns and world views, but

EKF ■ Roth 23

they are similar to the concerns and world views ofCEOs in other organizations. Therefore, CEOs fromdifferent firms will find that they have much in common, and those commonalities will help them tounderstand each other. That common world viewfacilitates their collective learning and change.
Several examples illustrate the power of connections across organizations through the CEO subcultures. Tower Automotive, a fabricator of metal parts,
supplied domestic automobile companies. Executives
were “accustomed to seeing a Big Three buyer only
once every five years” (MacDuffie and Helper, 1999,
p. 166). When Honda was interested in working
with Tower, the president and members of the boardof Honda of America visited the company, making astrong impression. This and subsequent visits led to

new business, supply of tooling, and Honda’s BP
team coming to work with and make process
improvements at Tower. The business with Honda
increased greatly, as did the learning for process
improvements that Honda discussed with Tower.
When Boeing realized that it needed to make dramatic and continuing cost cuts, which its suppliers
needed to match, Boeing executives held sessions tomeet with the executives from its suppliers. Clay
Jones, then a vice president and now the CEO of
Rockwell Collins, clearly remembers attending oneof those sessions. The Boeing executives showed him
why Boeing’s survival depended upon immediate
cost reductions and the ability to cut its costs 5 percent annually thereafter. Boeing needed its suppliers,
including Rockwell Collins, to make similar cuts if

Engineering Subculture

Operating Subculture

Operating Subculture

Executive Subculture

Executive Subculture

Artifacts

stories people tell, visible organizational
behavior, processes, and structure 		(hard to decipher)

24 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Valuesstrategies, goals,
philosophies (espoused
beliefs and justifications)

Mental Models

Network Leaders

Mental Models

Engineering Subculture

Network Leaders

Figure 2: System of Distributed Leadership Linking Two Firms

Basic Assumptions
unconscious beliefs, habits,
perceptions, thoughts, andfeelings

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they wanted to keep Boeing’s business. Boeing wasusing lean production methods to make these
improvements, and it was ready to share what it hadlearned to help Rockwell Collins. This executive-toexecutive exchange impressed Clay Jones, and helped
him to embrace, conceptualize, and lead Rockwell
Collins’s lean initiative.
Engineers’ subculture also extends beyond theirworkplace. Having received their education outside
the organization, engineers tend to identify themselves on a global basis with others in their discipline. Their outside professional ties are often
stronger than their affiliation with the people in theirorganization. In working across organizations, the connection between engineering cultures, where people
are like-minded, facilitates learning and change.
When Honda worked with Tower Automotive, its
engineers visited multiple times per week, and immersed themselves in Tower’s technical problems.
For example, they provided steel from Honda’s Japanese supplier, proved that it was easy to work with,and worked with Tower’s US steel supplier on steel andprocess improvements (MacDuffie and Helper, 1999).
To function more effectively as enterprises, firms
use occupational community linkages to bridge organizational boundaries. Rather than have the leanexperts from an industrial engineering subculture in
the large company work with executives in supplierorganizations, the executives in the large company
are more effective in their communication withexecutives from supplier firms. Executives acrossfirms have similar training and experiences, can better understand one another, and can speak directly tothe implications of proposed changes. The natureand substance of communication across subsculturesis unique to those communities.
The insight from occupational communities
explains the value that firms gain when they bringnot just executives and experts, but also middle managers and workers, on benchmarking trips. The
middle managers and workers can learn from theircounterparts in other organizations, and bring backnot only knowledge, but also enthusiasm, for changes that they have seen. People can learn and makereflections.solonline.org

changes more easily across organizations when theylink with peers from their occupational community(see Figure 2). The shared experience, common perspective, and similar world views within an occupational community enables a faster exchange ofknowledge across organizations.
Network leadership plays an important role inorchestrating connections within occupational communities across organizations. Not only do theywork “top down” by working with executives to set
context, they also work “bottom up” to share anddevelop practices and lessons learned. Managers in
network leadership roles not only benefit from connecting with peers, but also can work with othernetwork leaders to facilitate the many connections
that help to make broad, sweeping changes acrossthe organizations working together in a value stream.
At MIT’s Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) laboratory,
managers can readily meet their occupational community peers from other organizations. In thesemeetings, people do not just learn from their peers
and MIT researchers, but also make connections anddevelop relationships with people in other government and industry organizations. Network leaders
use these relationships to help make other connections and facilitate improvement efforts across theirenterprises. For instance, the “Lean Now” projects
initiated through LAI brought together continuous
improvement experts from these programs: Raytheon’s R6S, United Technology Corporation’s ACE,
Lockheed Martin’s LM21, Boeing’s Lean Offices,
Northrop Grumman’s Lean, and Rockwell Collins’s
Lean Electronics. Together, these experts developed acommon training curriculum and common lean
improvement project methodology. Peers from thevarious companies worked together to deliver the
Lean Now training and project methodology in making process improvements in the Air Force and othergovernment enterprises. The first three projects –improving the F/A-22 test process, the F-16 contract
closeout process, and the Global Hawk evolutionaryacquisition process – benefited both the government
site and the industry peers who worked together. The
government sites reported improvements; individual

EKF ■ Roth 25

experts learned methodologies from other organizations and improved their skills (Rebentisch andJobo, 2004).

Successful Lean Enterprise
ChangeWhen performance gets significantly out of step withexpectations, leaders shift from ongoing improvement efforts to turnaround or transformation initiatives – the difference between many small steps andone great leap. They identify and resolve problems
by mobilizing activities for diagnosis and inquiry,
identifying thorny issues, and setting in place new
structures and behaviors. They all build upon asequence of identifying a path to improvement
before planning changes. Womack and Jones (1996)
propose a specific “roadmap” (see Table 5) for transforming lean enterprises. This framework consists of
24 steps taken over five years to make the “leanleap.” The framework is consistent with generalchange approaches, providing detail relative to leanconcepts and their deployment.
The challenge for enterprise leaders is to help
people see the alignment of their interests with thoseof their enterprise, which often involves a shift inbasic assumptions, and hence perspective. Whenleaders can establish a system that operates this way,
they have achieved a “system [that] actually stimulates workers and managers to engage in the kind ofexperimentation widely recognized as the cornerstone of a learning organization. That is what distinguishes Toyota from all the other companies” (Bowen
and Spear, 1999, p. 99).

Closing the “Knowing-Doing” Gap
Research by Pfeffer and Sutton on why some companies perform much better than others identified a“knowing-doing” gap, or the gap between what anTable 5: Time Frame for Lean Leap (from Womack and Jones, 1996, p.270)
Phase

Specific StepsTime Frame

Get started

•
•
•
•
•
•

First six months

Create a neworganization• Reorganize by product family•	Create a lean function• Devise a policy for excess people• Remove anchor-draggers• Instill a “perfection” mind-set

Six months through year two

Install businesssystems

•
•
•
•
•
•

Years three and fourComplete thetransformation• Apply these steps to your suppliers/customers• Develop global strategy•	Transition from top-down to bottom-up improvement

26 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Find a change agent
Get lean knowledge
Find a lever
Map value streams
Begin kaikaku
Expand your scope

Introduce lean aaccounting
Relate pay to firm performance
Implement transparency
Initiate policy deployment
Introduce lean learning
Find right-sized tools

By end of year fivereflections.solonline.org

organization “knows” and how it acts or behaves.
The differences between businesses do not derivefrom one company having smarter and more capable
people, but from the management practices of thefirms and their abilities to either “create or reduce
the knowing-doing gap” (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2000,p.
6). Other firms may come to study the successfulcompanies’ approach, but fail to be as successful.
The authors’ examples – Southwest Airlines, Toyota,
and Honda – turn out to be companies that exhibit
enterprise structure and behavior. They note that“there are a number of studies within single industries demonstrating superior ways of managing people and organizing work. Yet although these superior
management practices are reasonably well known,
diffusion proceeds slowly and fitfully, and backsliding is common” (p. 7). Industry examples in apparel
manufacturing, automobile assembly, food plants,
restaurant chains, and computer and semiconductor
manufacturing all illustrate the frustration of successful people, work, and organizational practices
not diffusing. Pfeffer and Sutton found ready agreement on these challenges, and the concept of theknowing-doing gap made sense to American managers. When the researchers discussed it with Asian
managers, however (both authors teach at Stanford
Business School), the concept perplexed them. Asian
managers found it “hard to understand how someone could ‘know’ and not ‘do’” (2000, p. 26). The
Asian managers operate in systems where they develop knowledge by doing, embedded in their work
practices. The authors again used examples fromToyota and Honda, illustrating the importance inthose cultures of:having people actually see quality defects
directly . . . and go to another part of the plant. . . [having a] philosophy that when a person
sees a quality problem, s/he is more likely toanalyze it systemically, to communicate theproblem more accurately to others, and to be
more motivated to find a preventative remedy(quoted from MacDuffie, 1997, p. 42).

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This approach is about more than techniques andpractices; it is a philosophy and perspective about
people, process, quality, and continuous improvement, as illustrated by another Toyota example:
On the surface, TPS appears simple . . . many
plants have put in an andon cord that you canpull to stop the assembly line if there is problem. A 5-year-old can pull the cord. But it takes
a lot of effort to drive the right philosophies
down to the plant floor. A lot of people don’t
want to give the needed authority to the people
on the line who deserve it (quoted from Taylor,
1997, p. 102).
Not only are the successful companies the leadersin their industries and good at doing what theyknow, but they are also capable in helping their partners – from suppliers through customers in theirvalue stream – do what they know too. In working
with suppliers,“some manufacturers ask, ‘How can I club you
into submission?’” says Byron Pond, CEO of
Arvin Industries . . . “Toyota asks, ‘How can I
help you be better?’” To prepare Arvin to be a
supplier, two Toyota engineers spent sevenmonths in Arvin’s Indiana plant, improving
processes, materials management, and quality
in preparation for a Toyota contract – eventhough the plant was then making parts for acompetitor. “Toyota is an amazing company,”says Pond (quoted from Taylor, 1997, p. 102).
Honda’s BP program has resulted in productivity
increases that averaged 50 percent at 53 suppliers(MacDuffie and Helper, 1997). To achieve thesegains, a team from Honda worked with these suppliers on largely small, simple, commonsensical improvements. “The genius of the Honda system wasin its implementation, not in particularly novel orcomplicated technical ideas,” conclude Pfeffer andSutton (2000, p. 15).

EKF ■ Roth 27

Conclusion

References

The gains associated with lean enterprises, such as
Honda, have been achieved by practices that are notemphasized in current change management frameworks. These enterprises manage change through the
integration of five capabilities – rethinking organizational boundaries, installing innovation sets, pushingand pulling change, seeking growth opportunities,
and distributing leadership practices. As a set, thesecapabilities create a virtuous and self-sustaining
improvement system within and across organizations. These five capabilities extend the domain,
scope, methods, strategy, and leadership of change
efforts from single organizations to multi-organization enterprises. Top leaders’ involvement in thesechanges is particularly important. These leaders areactive in the development and distribution of leadership practices within and across organizations,which helps develop the other four enterprise change
capabilities.
Successful leaders of lean enterprises are those
who recognize their interdependent roles in a systemof leadership, and extend leadership to all levels of
the enterprise. Change begins by recognizing the different subcultures and occupational communities
within the organization and linking together organizational effectiveness approaches and improvement
methodologies through leadership roles and occupational communities. In addition to promoting
improvement and change in their own organizations,leaders draw upon occupational community affiliations to bridge boundaries across organizations anddiffuse improvement and change. Linking leadershiproles and occupational communities creates mechanisms to align people’s interests throughout affiliatedorganizations. These links further distribute leadership and facilitate “learning by doing” across theentire enterprise in creating a system of continuous
improvement.

Brown, J. S. and P. Duguid (1991) “Organizational Learning
and Communities-of-practice: toward a unified view ofworking, learning, and innovation,” Organization Science,Vol. 2, pgs. 40-57.
Jones, G. (1997) Organizational Theory: Text and Cases,
2nd Edition. New York: Prentice Hall.
Lave, J. and E. Wenger (1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation /Jean New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Macduffie, J. P.

(1995) “Human resource bundles andmanufacturing performance: Organizational logic andflexible production systems in the world auto industry”
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48: 197-221.
MacDuffie, J. P.

and S. Helper (1999) “Creating Lean

Suppliers: Diffusing Lean Production through the supply
chain” in Liker, J, M. Fruin, and P. Adler (eds) Remade in
America: transplanting and transforming Japanese management systems New York: Oxford University Press.
Pfeffer, J. and R. Sutton (2000) The knowing-doing gap:
how smart companies turn knowledge into action,
Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press
Rebentisch, E. and R. Jobo (2004) “Lean Now-Using a
Research Community to Understand Change in the
Acquisition Enterprise” Defense Acquisition Journal,
pages 147-157.
Schein, E. (1992) Organizational Culture and Leadership,Vol. II San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schein, E. (1996) “Three Cultures of Management: The Key
to Organizational Learning” Sloan Management Review
Fall, pgs. 9 – 20.
Senge, P. (1995) “Leading learning organizations” in M.
Goldsmith, F. Hesselbein, and R. Beckhard (eds.) The
Leader of the Future San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Senge, P. and F. Kofman (1994) “Communities ofCommitment: The heart of learning organizations”
Organization Dynamics pages 5-23.
Senge, P., A. Kleiner, C. Roberts, G. Roth, R. Ross, and B.
Smith (1999), The Dance of Change: The Challenges to
Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations, New
York: Doubleday/Currency.
Spear, S. and K. Bowen (1999) “Decoding the DNA of the
Toyota Production System” Harvard Business Review,
September-October, pgs. 97-106.

28 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

reflections.solonline.org

Spear. S. (2004) “Learning to Lead at Toyota” Harvard
Business Review, May, pgs. 78-86.
Van Maanen, J. & Barley, S. R. (1984) “Occupational
Communities: Culture and Control in Organizations.” In
B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research in

A bo u t the A u thor

George RothGeorge Roth is a Principal Research Associate at
the Sloan School of Management and heads up theOrganizational Behavior. Vol. 6. Greenwich, Conn.: JAIEnterprise Change Research Area at MIT’s Lean Aero-

Press.

space Initiative. His co-authored books include: To the

Womack, J., D. Jones and D. Roos (1990) The Machinethat Changed the World, New York: MacMillan.
Womack, J. and D. Jones, (1996) Lean thinking: banish

Desert and Back: The Story of one of the Most Dramatic
Business Transformations on Record (Jossey-Bass), The
Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustain Momentum

waste and create wealth in your corporation New York:in Learning Organizations (Doubleday/Currency), Car

Free Press.

Launch: Managing the Human Side of Change and 		
Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation

Endnote(both with Oxford University Press). He holds a Ph.D. 		

1 This material is based on research sponsored by the Air

in Organizational Studies, an MBA in marketing andForce Research Laboratory (under agreement number

finance, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering. Dr.

FA8650-05-2-5706) and a consortium of other govern-

Roth is a founding member of SoL.

ment and aerospace industry members. The U.S. gov-

groth@mit.edu

ernment is authorized to reproduce and distributereprints for governmental purposes notwithstanding any
copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions
contained herein are those of the author and should not
be interpreted as necessarily representing the official
policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of
Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S. government, orother Lean Aerospace Initiative consortium members.

reflections.solonline.org

EKF ■ Roth 29

commentary

Commentary
By Bill Bellows
The novel concept of distributed leadership,

work will be essential to unlocking the poten-

as described by George Roth, offers a badly

tial of lean.

needed open pathway for progress within
the many organi-zations in pursuit of “lean”
practices. For those like me, who have been
engaged in similar efforts to improve organizational performance (from TQM to LearningBill Bellows

Organizations to Six Sigma Quality), the results
are of little surprise – organizations which (toquote the author) “often add a layer of lean
tools on top of their organization’s existing
practices,” leading to “a partial implementation that produces only limited improvements.”

Moving past the opening paragraphs of thisarticle, the author’s explanations of “barriers
to learning in organizations” and “cultures ofmanagement” are extremely consistent withwhat I have witnessed, from first-hand accounts
and a seemingly endless stream of anecdotes
from “change agent” colleagues around theworld over the past 20 years. While our starting points are different, we have arrived at asimilar conclusion as the author regarding
the dire need for a transformation in thinking,To paraphrase Dr. Russell Ackoff, what thestarting with individuals and extended toauthor finds missing is an awareness of theorganizations.

vital role of a transformation in thinking withinthese otherwise self-limiting organizations.
Lacking such a transformation in the “logic in
their heads,” organizations are most certain tomiss out on the widespread benefits of lean,as first documented by Womack, Jones, andRoos in their 1990 bestseller, The Machinethat Changed the World. To follow the herd oflean-seeking organizations and rely on tools
alone is to achieve a reformation in how work
is done, without rethinking it first, also to borrow a concept from Dr. Ackoff.

My personal path leading to the obstacles
to organizational development followed myintroduction to the management theory of Dr.
W. Edwards Deming and his frequent castigation of the “prevailing system of management,”
which he credited with managing the partsof an organization as if they were both interchangeable and independent. To do so in aschool system would be to foster individualand collecting thinking that would attribute thegrade on an exam to the student, not to theentire education system, which includes not

The insights provided in this article are anjust the student, but also the teacher, fellow

invaluable reminder to “change agents” thatstudents, and parents, to keep the list brief.

new tools alone will not propel an organization

To do so within an industrial setting would beto achieve the advantages of the few exemplar

to seek out the sole cause of a defect or amodels of lean. They also serve as a reminder,

cost overrun. In linking back to the need for

if not an eye-opening introduction, that trans-a transformation in thinking, I have found thatformation leadership can be distributed acrossorganizations which maintain the belief thatthe organization. Surely, such a model of teammeasurements, such as grades, defects, or cost

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overruns, are caused locally by “root causes,”of distributed leadership. Yes, transformation

will be the same organizations which follow

takes longer, but what is the long-term value ofan implementation plan for lean which is char-investing in the tools of lean without engaging

acterized by an emphasis on “tool implemen-

the entire enterprise in the thinking of lean?

tation,” absent the need for seeing the system

In the words of Dr. Ackoff, let’s not confuseof causes which result in the measures wea reformation with a transformation.

collect to manage organizations.
In my efforts to foster a thinking transformation within Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, I see

Bill Bellows
william.bellows@pwr.utc.com
www.in2in.org

a number of striking parallels to the practicereflections.solonline.org■ Bellows
Feature n Ballé, Beauvallet,
Smalley,
Sobek 31
Commentary

The Ulker Star Team:

From Human Resources to Human Relations
Bahattin Aydin
with Ulker Star Team members Dogan Demircan, Ahmet Ince,
Aysegul Takimoglu, Muge Aka, Can Demir, Alper Kantar, and Rafet Cirakoglu

Ulker began in 1944 as a small cookie-making company in the heart of Istanbul. Today, Ulker is one of
the largest Turkish holding companies, with US$6.6 billion in sales and more than 21,000 employees.
The core business remains cookies and chocolates, and the company has diversified to offer more than
1,800 products. It has also become vertically integrated, producing its own manufacturing machinery,
packaging, and raw materials. Long an exporter in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and surrounding
areas, more recently, Ulker has grown through acquisitions and joint ventures to comprise 58 companies
doing business in food, beverages, finance, computers, and electronics.
Bahattin Aydin

Ulker recently completed a three-year experiment with an organizational learning practice that started insmall facilitated teams. By the end of the third year, 750 people had participated in teams, 100 internalcoaches had been certified, and significant business objectives had been met and exceeded. Afterobserving the success of the grassroots teams, senior management embarked on a program that appliedorganizational learning methods to the re-visioning and realignment of the newly diversified company.

For many years, the performance management system at the Ulker Group companies –developed with much thought and consultation, and operating under the direction of
the human resources department – had two goals:•	To ensure the acknowledgment and alignment of the corporate vision throughout theorganization•	To ensure that all staff understood and operated according to the company’s organizational values

In order to achieve the first goal, we adopted a target-oriented management style. Everyone
was evaluated with respect to given job targets. This was meant to build the connection
between individual performance and corporate performance. Target-oriented management
began with the general manager stating the company targets and setting targets for department heads at the beginning of each year. Department heads in turn set targets for their seniorstaff, and this was repeated throughout the hierarchy. All the targets were to be SMART(Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Result-oriented, and Time-bound).
In order to achieve our second goal, we practiced competency-based performance management, evaluating people based on predefined competencies for their position. This type of
performance management outlines the basic attitudes and behaviors that all managers mustpossess. The attitudes and behaviors that had helped us achieve success in the past were the32 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

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ones we knew we must protect and continue in the future. Areas of individual development
and related development plans were determined through competency evaluation.
We had been trying to practice this system for four years, and had some difficulty putting
all the structures for it in place. At the same time, independent of this performance management system, many teams had formed within the context of learning organization practices,and those teams were making remarkable contributions to our organization. The appraisal
system we had in place was not evaluating the performance of those teams, even though theirsuccesses often solved problems that could be leveraged by the whole organization. Nor could
our appraisal system account for the work performed that was not covered in a job description, as when, for instance, a manager of one company within our group spent a significant
amount of time and energy coaching the team of another company in another city.
When we looked at all this, we knew we needed a system that would recognize the performance of those who were working on teams. The teams and their work were vital to all ofus, and we wanted to ensure their continuity. In order to eliminate the difficulties we were
facing and to build a practicable performance management system that would support our
teamwork, we established our own learning organization team and called it the “Ulker Star
Team.” It was composed of eight senior HR executives, our sponsor, Aziz Refig (the humanresources coordinator of the Ulker Group), and our coach, consultant Evrim Calkaver.

First, We Listened
The first thing we did as a learning organization team was to meet with the general managersof our companies and ask them what kind of a performance system they would like to have.
The responses we got both delighted and disturbed us, because they underlined our responsibility to create a system that would meet their expectations. These general managers felt thesystem should:
1.	Contribute to the overall performance of the company and carry us higher each year
2.	Enable us to share company goals with employees and delegate responsibility among
everyone
3.	Create a positive atmosphere; ; motivate
4. Help us see where we stand before the end of the year and take the necessary actions
5. Be easy to apply
6. Be a valuable management tool

We Adopted a Wider Perspective
Our team began in March 2005 by creating an analysis (a cause-and-effect map) of the current performance system, based on our own knowledge, and taking into consideration theinterviews we had done with management and staff regarding the problems of the system.
The analysis showed the following to be the major factors causing problems in the application of the system:• Although we believed our system was well designed, it had not been completely adopted by employees, and performance appraisal was still thought to be an “administrative”
task. Monitoring of performance management was mostly expected of the humanresources department. The lack of general employee support was hindering the application of the system and causing delays.

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Feature ■ Aydin 33

•	The performance appraisal system couldn’t become a “natural management tool.” It
was seen as a tool that only enabled the measuring of performance, and was effective
only as such.
•	The system was based mostly on paperwork, and was naturally perceived as having acomplicated, confusing, and displeasing structure.
•	The application of the system necessitated a long period of training. Consequently,
expanding the system into other companies was a long and slow process.
• Although we had a target-oriented and competency-oriented system, our employees had
doubts about the objectivity of the measurement of competencies. We were concerned
as to whether the system, instead of supporting the working relationships of managers
and their subordinates, might be having adverse effects on them.
• We had difficulty seeing and demonstrating clearly how important a role the system
played in supporting the improvement of performance. This was because:–	Our performance system did not measure team performance, which is vital for
improving performance. It evaluated only individual performance.
–	The common targets that we all shared were not defined in the system.
–	Our performance system did not take into consideration who was supporting whom
to reach the targets, nor did it support such relationships.
–	The performance interviews resulted mostly in negative feedback. This did nothing
to motivate employees. The interviews also felt to the employees as though they weretaking an exam.
•	Through the learning organization team practices, we realized that forming a team withpeople from different departments was vital for the success of that team. Successful
performance depended on informal relations between employees, and such friendships
needed to be encouraged by the performance system. However, our system did not possess a structure consciously developed to support informal relations.
•	Finally, in the application phase of the performance system, we, as the human resources
department, had situated ourselves as a unit that monitored the schedule of the process
and the quality of practices, targets, and evaluations. This would sometimes cause controversies between us and company staff, who saw us as a perpetual control unit.
Furthermore, managers’ voluntary support of the system was deteriorating.
In the face of all these problems and expectations, our team sometimes felt hopeless andhelpless. In such a big organization, continuity was crucial; therefore, it was obvious that any
new action had to follow the structure already in place. We couldn’t destroy the system inorder to reconstruct. We had to create a structure that was based on what we had done up
till then. But we didn’t have any idea as to how we could accomplish that, nor were there any
opinions or suggestions. All we had was our team of eight, a coach, a sponsor, and a visionthat we had undertaken the responsibility to realize.

We Questioned Our Mental Models
The operating principles of learning organization team practices proved to be very enlightening for us. We were delighted to see how individuals in those teams came together to accom-

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Figure 1: Cause-and-Effect Map

Not believing in theimportance of theperformance system

Lack of a common
target/vision

Difficulty in setting
goals/Lack of targetsetting criteria

Performance interviews
superficial, disliked byboth interviewer andinterviewee

Incomplete/ineffective applicationof the performanceappraisal system

Performance appraisal
interviews resembling
examinations

Lack of correlation
between targets andcompetencies

Competencies
not defined clearly,
are subject to(mis)interpretation

Not being able toevaluate competencies
objectively

System is not
simple enough
System notsupporting teamwork
Too much(or overly involved)
paperwork
Ignoring the direct
impact of social networkon performanceplish things they hadn’t been able to do on their own. Because the teams provided a basis
for potential to transform into performance, individual performances also began to improve. We saw how employees devoted themselves to the team vision. Behavior such as laying
aside prejudices and trying to solve problems by focusing on observable data, using reflective conversation, and directing each other to constructive discussions made us very happy. We observed how easily and smoothly some of the team members’ rigid mental models
broke down, making way for new horizons, and in the course of all this, how they enjoyedthemselves.
Just when we were overwhelmed by the responsibility of realizing the vision and finding a
way to set things right, we came up with an idea: Since our own mental models were of little
use now, why not start by examining them? At this point, we benefited greatly from the guidance of our team coach. The first mental model we changed was this: Instead of designing awhole new system by ourselves to present to senior management, as we had believed weshould, we would try to collaborate with employees. If we could share our vision with thereflections.solonline.org

Feature ■ Aydin 35

employees, everyone – not just the eight people on the team – would begin to think of solutions. We thought, “The greater the number of people sharing a vision, the higher the
probability of realizing it.” We benefited the most from what we had feared the most.
Acting on this idea, we chose two pilot companies within Ulker, gathered our courage, andtold the employees and managers of these companies our problems – to which they responded by letting us know about additional problems within the system, as seen from their pointof view. We told them frankly that we had no idea how to solve those problems; that we wereasking for help, that we wanted them to join our team so we could all work together on
designing a new system. They responded in a courageous way. They accepted the prospect of
having their performances throughout that year evaluated within the system we were goingto build together. It was really going to be a “live and learn” experiment.

We “Lived and Designed” a New Performance System
in Collaboration
In regular meetings with the managers of our pilot companies, we analyzed our problems one
by one. The first problems we needed to deal with were the difficulty of setting targets andthe lack of a shared vision; the latter greatly triggered the first. Both in our learning organization team and in the operations with the pilot company managers, we saw that the greater
the number of people dealing with a problem and the stronger their social network (the more
support they received from others), the faster and easier it became to reach a solution. Letting
everyone have a say in setting the targets was also very important in reaching them. People
tended to assume responsibility for the targets they helped set.
The ideas and other opinions offered to us led us to plan workshops that would bringpeople together. What we meant by “workshop” was a platform for everyone to freely
express their opinions regarding the corporate vision, competency and core targets, and subtargets. These workshops would encourage people to support one another, to question theirmental models, to mirror and question one another, to learn from others’ achievements andmistakes, to appreciate one another, and to share. At the same time, they should create an
atmosphere where the participants could relax, have fun, and feel recognized and respected.
We designed our first workshop for performance appraisal planning at the beginning of
the year. In this workshop, breaking through our second major mental model, we tried not
to include human resources monitoring and managing of the process unless it was needed orrequested. We thought that the system should “belong” to those who were responsible forcorporate vision and performance. We assigned the leadership of the workshop to the general manager of the company, and monitoring of the practice to an employee/manager who
would volunteer to do this job. We called this person the “corporate performance coach.”This person was to coach others with the tools that would originate in this workshop. As forthe other managers, they were already responsible for the whole practice. Thus, we had managed to “insource” the performance planning task to our employees and managers.
Our first workshop experience was very satisfactory. In two days, we determined the corporate core targets, the department targets supporting these, and the individual job targets
supporting departmental ones. At the end of the workshop, each person had a single-pageform on which the core target, the target of his or her department, and the person’s own
individual target were written. The result was surprisingly successful. In one of the pilot
companies, the general manager hadn’t missed a minute of the two-day workshop, although

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he had intended to stay only for two hours. He got his return as targets that would ensure
the sharing of his vision by all the employees. One of our financial managers stated that herealized the need to set targets to support the corporate vision in areas that he had neverthought of before, thanks to the suggestions of sales managers in this workshop.
The solution had come with a surprisingly simple idea: “The execution of performance
management together with all the employees, by the real performers.” Though simple, theidea was effective, practicable, and useful.

The Target-Setting Workshop Had Three Segments
In the first segment, we asked managers to think not only of their own functions but of what
needed to be done for the whole company, and suggested that they think mostly about theirinfluence on each other’s actions and how to provide mutual support. The managers accomplished the following tasks under the leadership of the general manager:•	Sharing of the vision by the general manager in a circular session; sharing of managers’comments concerning the vision and core targets• Determination of the sub-targets that would lead the company toward the shared visionand particular core target

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Feature ■ Aydin 37

• Determination of the departments that would be concerned with each of the sub-targets• Determination of mutual targets that would necessitate teamwork (Learning Organization
Team Targets)• Definition of the crucial activities departments should undertake to support otherdepartments•	Ensuring that all the targets were SMART• Determination of the competencies
In the second segment, department heads accomplished the following tasks with theirdepartment staff:•	Sharing of the corporate vision, departmental targets, and mutual targets – those determined in the previous segment – by the department head; sharing of opinions of thestaff concerning those targets• Determination of the sub-targets that would lead to the achievement of departmental
targets•	Connecting of the sub-targets to individuals and determining together the shareddepartmental targets, if any• Definition of the crucial mutual support activities•	Ensuring that all the targets are SMART• Determination of departmental competencies
For this second segment of the workshop, our team also designed an easy-to-follow andamusing handbook.
In the third segment, all the managers and employees came together to review the targets
and then organized a party to celebrate their work of the past two days.
In both of our pilot companies, we accomplished what we had set out to do. We saw howsmoothly things began to run. All the ideas on the forms used in the workshops had comefrom the managers, who seemed to be even more excited than we were about our vision. They
had even designed some of the forms and structures themselves. One of the companies, after
finalizing the targets, sent them to us in a file. On the file was a message that read: “No needto review the targets because we already did; they are all SMART.” We should admit that ourmanagers had grown wiser than us in using the techniques. The other company sent us a
detailed and excellent SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysisof the system regarding the activities up to that point.

We Followed Up
When the workshops were completed, we had passed the target-setting phase and come tothe second critical phase. Companies were asking us how to monitor their progress toward
the targets they had set. We went on with our work, executing the performance management
process hand-in-hand with the employees. We had not designed a structure for the interviews
between managers and employees because we had no intention of monitoring those. All ourtargets had been designed to ensure relevance and mutual support. We believed that employees and managers would motivate and automatically control each other. The general manager of one of our companies was telling his staff this: “Let’s make sure that our every single
act supports our corporate vision. You can be sure that any activity that doesn’t serve ourvision will serve our competitors.”

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We thought it appropriate to do the follow-up on the developments collectively, again ina workshop. In this second workshop, we brought together all the managers under the leadership of the general manager once more, asking each department head to share departmental
activities concerning their targets and their achievements. In the course of this sharing, eachmanager needed to answer the following questions:• What are our achievements so far?
• What have we done to come to this point?
•	Could we have done anything differently?
•	In what way did we support each other?
• How did our activities support our corporate vision?
These questions enabled the sharing of success stories. Furthermore, they helped to give us
an insight into the causes of any failures or problems that were experienced. We took greatcare to choose questions that would encourage positive thinking. Our main objective was tothink together, not to question or judge. After this workshop, one of our managers commented, “If we hadn’t held this meeting, I would never have thought that my activities could
affect the performances of my colleagues to such an extent. It showed us once again that wecan be strong only if we think and act together as one body.”
We had thus completed another phase of our practices. Our pilot companies wanted tohave follow-up workshops every four months. We told them to do what they thought wasbest, after all, it was their system and they knew best what to do and how to do it.
We had now come to the final and most difficult phase of performance management: performance appraisal. Which scale were we to use for the evaluation of performances concerning the set targets? Who was to evaluate team target performances, and how? How would
the behavioral criteria for measuring competencies be determined? How were we to decide
the level of performance that merited reward? We needed a system of measurement thatwould simplify the assessment process and, most important, ensure objectivity.
We started with the problem that seemed easiest to solve. We would use a four-point scale:
1 for cases in which no effort was made to reach the target, 2 for cases in which the target
had not been fully reached despite the efforts made, and 3 for cases in which the target wasreached or almost reached. On this four-point scale, there was no point 4. Instead of point 4,
we employed a star symbol to be used only when the target had been surpassed and a successstory that had a direct and remarkable effect on the vision had been created. Any employees
surpassing the set target would merit a star, and their activities would be recognized andshared by the whole company.
We built our reward system on the belief that for something to be worthy of being set asa target, it had to represent an improvement in the situation. The maintenance of standards
cannot constitute a target. Therefore, it would be appropriate to reward the cases in which
we were sure that efforts to realize the ambitious targets had been made. Such efforts could
provide a basis on which future success would be built and, as such, they merited recognitionand encouragement. However, cases of “star” performance were held separately. Those werecases of exceptionally high degrees of success that needed to be highly rewarded. Exceptional
rewards for exceptional cases would also serve to support and encourage a continuous pursuit of high performance.
Team performances could not be measured by individual grading. A team meant morethan the total of its members. We wanted the general manager, who was usually the teamreflections.solonline.org

Feature ■ Aydin 39

sponsor, to evaluate team performances using a common grading system for everyone as awhole. The team visions were already clearly known and included measurable targets.
We were almost sure that the targets would be measured objectively. They were all related
to each other and to the vision. We had established a significant correlation between corporate performance and individual performances. As a collective evaluation of targets was madeevery four months, managers would evaluate them in light of those individual and collective
performances and how they contributed toward realizing the corporate vision. Our targets
were related to measurable and specific areas of practice. The rate of target achievement
would automatically determine the grade to be given to the target.
After settling the issue of measuring targets, we took up the harder task of measuring
competencies. Competencies are observable behaviors – the knowledge, skills, and attitudes
that lead to success. They are the values that enable us to discriminate between high and low
performances. Therefore, we needed observable behaviors in order to measure competencies.
It took quite a while to establish the behavioral indicators for the chosen competencies. These
indicators had to be solid, observable, and clear enough not to necessitate interpretation (sowe could avoid misinterpretation). After much consideration, our team determined at least
four behavioral indicators for each competency. We shared these indicators with the managers in our pilot companies and heard their opinions. To ensure that the indicators were comprehensible, we asked the employees to read them. Definition and refinement of these
indicators is ongoing as field studies progress.
At the end of the whole process, we saw clearly that solidarity and collaboration among
the employees of a company were vital to their performance. The employees were mostly
aware of the fact that their success in reaching their targets depended on others, on performing tasks to support each other, so they expected the system to help them in getting therequired support. For this reason, they put down the names of the units and persons whose
support they needed next to each target and made the network of relationships clear for
everyone. However, it is not always possible to foresee and define all kinds of support. The
network of an employee may include innumerable relationships. We realized that what weneeded to do was encourage solidarity among company staff.
To meet this goal, we did two things. First, we decided that teamwork and coaching would
be two competencies among the obligatory criteria of the performance system. Second, we
identified those employees whose names were mentioned most often within the social network of our company and ensured that they would be recognized and rewarded. In order to
identify them, we asked a single question of all our employees: “Who helped you the most in
performing your job?” The answers gave us the names of what came to be known as theUlker Stars of the Social Relations Network.

Epilogue
Our team is now working to expand this practice to other companies in the Ulker Group.
We were surprised and pleased to learn that the two pilot companies had, all by themselves,organized the target-setting workshops for 2006 and had identified all their targets. Our
system was working. When we asked the companies how they managed to do this, they
replied, “How could we operate without planning for the year and setting our targets?” Oursystem actually had become a “natural management tool.”
When we first started out, we thought we would be quite successful if we could expand
the program to six new companies in addition to our two companies in 2006. As of June,

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2006, however, this system is being practiced in 23 of our companies, all of which have volunteered to adopt it. This number represents a significant rate of expansion for a performancesystem. The concept of performance coaching has been one of the major factors in this fast
expansion. Managers from the two pilot companies volunteered to be performance coaches
in the next six companies. The other coaches we appointed were also volunteers. Only one
day of training was sufficient for them to start and monitor the system.
The major factors underlying our success are preferring to “live and learn” regardless of
our past knowledge and experience, choosing to act and learn “together” no matter what thetask to accomplish is, and trusting our employees. This system has obliged us to review ourroles as human resources managers.
Our system is not yet complete; it may even have some deficiencies. However, we are surethat the managers in our companies have really “owned” the system. This ownership ensures
their commitment to a continuous effort in developing and improving the system. We believethat we have built a “learning” structure instead of one that “knows.”

A bo u t the A u thor

Bahattin Aydin
Bahattin Aydin graduated from the Psychology department of Bogazici University and has beenworking in the Ülker HR Deparment as HR Manager of three Groups. He has lecutred at various HR
Certificate programs based on HR Planning, Performance Management and Career Planning. He has
also attended the Yildiz Teknik University HR Masters program as a guest lecturer.
bahattin.aydin@ulker.com.tr

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Feature ■ Aydin 41

commentary

Commentary
By Evrim Calkavur

Evrim Calkavur

The “Learning Organization Practice Teams”

once a month, and get together with con-process is based on my experiences sincesultant coaches at least once a month.

1998 building learning cultures in almost 20

Consultant coaches also attend at leastorganizations in Turkey, Egypt, and Malaysia.

15 of the team meetings and support the

It is currently being applied by more than 10

teams and sponsors to use the learningcompanies in Turkey. The Learning Organiza-organization concepts and tools. At the endtion Practice Teams transformation starts withof the third month, consultant coaches

small teams working to achieve bottom-line

organize a workshop at which learning

results, with sponsors (top-level managers)organization concepts and tools are shared

supporting the teams. Consultant coaches –with key personnel who have not joined the

I and three of my colleagues – assist in theteams. Sponsors share the company vision,

whole process and support the team mem-and teams describe their work and ask forbers, sponsors, and internal coaches in using

support. At the end of the sixth month,

the disciplines and tools of organizational

the teams present their projects andlearning. The entire process, outlined below,celebrate the results.

follows four phases over at least a two-year
period.

Spreading the Culture in the Organization
C. Phase 2 (six months): Volunteers from theLearning Organization PracticeTeam Phases

Phase 1 team are trained as candidate

Pilot Projects

Consultant coaches support the internal

A. Meetings with Top Management (sponsors):
Consultant coaches share with sponsors
the phases of the Learning Organizationcoaches by consultant coaches and teams
to work during the second six-month period.
coaches, teams, and sponsors withmonthly meetings.
D. Phase 3 (six months): Some of the Phase

Practice Teams process and the time that

2 team members are trained as candidate

sponsors (top management) need to devotecoaches by consultant coaches. New

to this project. After the commitment ofcandidate coaches are assigned to work

the top management to devote this timewith experienced coaches on newly formed

to the operation, on both personal andteams. Consultant coaches support thecorporate levels, the practice begins.

internal coaches, teams, and sponsors

B. Phase 1 (six months): Two pilot teams arewith monthly meetings.

established to work on substantial projects.

Sustainability

Those teams, after attending the Learning

E. Phase 4 (six months): Some of the experi-

Organization Practice Teams seminar, comeenced coaches are trained as master inter-

together twice a week for two-hour work

nal coaches by consultant coaches. Mastersessions. Sponsors visit the teams at least

internal coaches are trained to enable the42 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

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continuation of the system, to support thethat learning organization work, to be mostsponsors and other coaches, and to train

sustainable, needs to be better integrated

new coaches. Master internal coaches arewith human resources evaluative methods.

supported by consultant coaches throughout this phase. During this phase, performance appraisal systems, career planningsystems, and other systems should be
reviewed to make sure that they support
the learning culture being developed.

Since the Ulker Star Team noted in detail how
we built their performance improvement system, I will not cover the same story. Instead,
I will outline the aspects of the kind of performance improvement system that supports andsustains a learning culture in organizations.

My colleagues and I have been working

Though this differs somewhat from the systemwith the Ulker companies for more than threethat Ulker developed, it is an example of whatyears. I assisted the Ulker Star Team for a year

can work in many organizations.

in using a learning organization approach andtools to develop their performance appraisal
system. It was a different coaching experience for me. I attended more than 50 teammeetings in less than a year, and often feltthat I was in the roles of sponsor and teammember, as well as coach. For me, the Ulker
Star Team was not just a team, but the teamwith which to practice and develop the performance improvement model I had been

1. The focal point of the performance improvement system is the company’s shared visionand how to align everyone around it. It starts
with workshops in which top management,
middle management, line managers, andemployees participate. Vision is shared,
discussed, and understood, and all thetargets are aligned to the company vision.
2. Workshops are designed to create a spacecreating in my mind. Their experience with thefor conversation, ownership, and positive

Learning Organization Practice Teams process

feedback. The basis of the performance im-

is a solid example of the need to integrate

provement system is these workshops; it islearning organization applications into humannot the forms or written documents or pro-resources systems. This need is not unique tocedures. Organizational learning tools andUlker: Many organizations we have worked withconcepts are used in these workshops toencounter a similar moment, when it becomesencourage substantive discussions, to help

clear that the design of their current perfor-

participants see the bigger picture, and tomance appraisal system cannot support andhelp workers understand each other with thesustain organization-wide cultural transforma-

help of sponsors and Learning Organization

tion. It typically comes around Phase 3, when

Practice Team coaches.

teams have gone through predictable learn-

3. The work of the Learning Organization Prac-

ing pains and begun to celebrate and diffuse

tice Team members and coaches is recog-

their successes. Those successes rely on anized as a part of the company operations in

kind of cross-boundary teamwork that is rarely

the performance improvement system. Team

recognized in formal evaluations, even whenmembers and coaches are not given any

it is making significant contributions to theextra reward but they are also not punishedorganization. I had felt for several years

for their time and efforts.

reflections.solonline.org

n Writer 43■ Calkavur
FeatureCommentary

4.
Reflective workshops every three to four
Sustainability
months ensure that there is continuous
E. Phase 4 (six months): Some of the expericonversation among different departments
and levels of the organization about theshared vision, targets, how to support eachother, and how to reflect and learn together.
5. Sharing with, helping, and supporting eachother to reach the shared targets and theshared vision is one of the most important
aspects of the performance improvement
system. It creates space for social networksof performance to expand.
6. Ownership of the system is shifted fromhuman resources to company management.
Even the forms to be used are designed by
the company management, coaches, andhuman resources managers working
together. Only a few forms are used, so
there is no undue burden of paperwork.
Six months after the new performance improvement system was in place at Ulker, managers
and human resource personnel were asked toevaluate it. Their comments follow.
Managers• Acting together in setting the targets andevaluating the results has made it possible• I can see how my targets and efforts affectthe whole picture and it boosts my self-esteem.
• We have developed a synergy. While we workon reaching one target, our efforts have positive impacts on many other things as well.
• It wouldn’t have occurred to us to even workon some of the issues we have accomplishedthroughout this year if we hadn’t talked
about them and set targets. Now, we are
happy that we have.
• While evaluating this year’s targets, we
also set new ones for next year. This systemrein-forces itself without our continuousintervention.
• This system is perfectly compatible with
our “learning organization” practices.
• We have become one large team.
Human Resources Team• Instead of evaluating the performance,
we focused on improving the performance.
• We looked for and brought forward “positive”
instead of “negative” and “success” insteadof “failure.”• We supported a long-term point of viewfor us to see the whole picture.

instead of a short-term point of view.

• It has given us an insight on how we• Instead of complex systems which can’t be

influence each other.
• We are getting to know each other’s
problems, difficulties, and success stories.
• Instead of us following up on our employees
the way we used to do, now they arefollowing up on us.
• Reviewing the performance together has
increased objectivity.
• Sharing our targets with the generalmanager is highly motivating.

44 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

carried out without the human resources
department’s support, we focused on simple
and easy-to-apply systems that can run bymanagers and employees.
• We took “human relations” as a basis
instead of “human resources.”• Rather than knowing the answers, welearned together.
Evrim Calkavur
sugibi@sugibi.com

reflections.solonline.org

emerging knowledge forum

Space Flight Resource Management:
Lessons Learned from Astronaut Team LearningPeter W. Pruyn and Michael R. SterlingOver a period of six years, the Space Flight Training Division of the NASA Johnson Space Center
implemented a human factors training program for space shuttle astronauts. Building on concepts from airline Crew Resource Management programs as well as other industries, Space
Flight Resource Management (SFRM) has gradually become an accepted method for shuttle
astronaut team learning. By no means an easy journey, these six years present many organizational lessons for implementing team learning curriculums. This descriptive paper provides an
overview of the SFRM model as well as organizational lessons learned from nurturing its growth.
In addition, we explore potential applications to generic team learning and effective group deciPeter W. Pruyn

sion-making. By doing so, our intent is to provide readers with a toolbox they can use to build
their own team learning curriculum in any organization.1

Genesis“If everybody’s thinking alike,nobody’s thinking.”– General George S. Patton
Take a moment to think of a group decision in which
you participated that eventually turned out to beincorrect.
Most likely the decision you recalled did not
involve deploying a satellite. In late 1997 during theSTS-87 space shuttle mission, a satellite was deployed
without first being activated. Initial attempts to rescue the dormant satellite with the shuttle’s roboticarm left it spinning freely. A post-flight investigation
revealed that the incident was caused by a series ofhuman errors.
Earlier that same year, representatives of NASA’s
Space Flight Training Division proposed creating ahuman factors curriculum for astronaut crews basedon the Crew Resource Management training currently being conducted by commercial airlines. [Seesidebar “What is Crew Resource Management(CRM)?”] For the purposes of this paper, when wereflections.solonline.org
reflections.solonline.org

use the term “human factors” we are referring specifically to factors related to the dynamics of groupdecision making. The Chief of the Astronaut Office,Colonel Charlie Precourt, was a staunch proponentof this effort. Citing examples in Bryan Burrough’sbook Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis on Mir andspurred on by the STS-87 incident, Precourt believedthat CRM-type training for astronauts was something that was long overdue.
Our first step in this effort was to baseline current
industry efforts in similar environments. Startingwith the airline industry, our instructors visited
training departments and asked behind closed doors,“What did you do right and what did you do wrong
in the development of your CRM program?” In thisconfidential setting, lessons learned were sharedfreely. We gained insights not just into the technicalcontent of their curriculums, but, perhaps ultimately
more importantly, into the political and organizational issues that inevitably surround their implementation. It is remarkable how, when provided
with an appropriate context, troops in the trenches
will value the collective pool of knowledge far andabove prestige or economic motive. The airline

 Pawar
EKF ■ EKF
Pruyn,
Sterling
4545

industry was followed by visits with representativesof two nuclear power plants.
Based on this research and keeping in mind
NASA’s environment, we created a human performance model comprised of six “Performance
Elements.” To emphasize that these concepts apply
to far more than just crews who sit in cockpits, wechose the name Space Flight Resource Management
as opposed to Crew Resource Management. Threeclasses were then developed to teach the model toastronauts as well as their instructors: Overview,
Applied Methods, and Facilitation.

The SFRM Model“The nature of the brain is such that we see
what we have seen before, and what we havea name for. We are blind to things whichhave not been properly introduced.”– Wolfgang Langewiesche, Pilot/Author
The SFRM model is comprised of the six Performance
Elements arranged in a pyramid (See Figure 2: SFRM
Model Summary).
The first class, SFRM Overview, is designed toincrease students’ awareness of the role that humanfactors plays in group decision-making. This isaccomplished by introducing students to the SFRM
model thereby providing them with a shared humanfactors vocabulary. The class starts with the following definition of SFRM:
Space Flight Resource Management (SFRM) isthe exercise of skills that are designed to
improve the ability of personnel to minimize
the occurrence and effects of errors by establishing habit patterns that are reinforced byteam-centered self-critiques.
We emphasize in this definition that our goal is
not to eliminate error; as long as humans are
involved, some degree of error is inevitable. However,
we believe that teams trained with a combination oftechnical and human factors skills are better able to46 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

What Is Crew Resource
Management (CRM)?
In the 1970s, several well-documented airline
accidents were found to be caused by poor decisions
made by the crew. In response, during the 1980’s,
airlines began implementing human factors
curriculums for their flight crews. Such programs
were initially called Cockpit Resource Management,
implying that making accurate group decisions
requires effectively utilizing all available humanresources.
Since then, CRM has gone through several
evolutions. Initially utilizing psychological concepts
such as personality testing, the curriculum now
usually emphasizes practical techniques for
managing human error. The name has also evolved
from Cockpit to Crew Resource Management,emphasizing that not just those who sit in the
cockpit should be considered as contributing
members of the team (Helmreich, Merritt, andWilhelm, 1999). A more recent application of CRM
techniques has been in medical team training(Musson and Helmreich, 2004).
Dr. Robert L. Helmreich, a psychologist at the
University of Texas in Austin, is considered by many
to be the father of modern CRM. For more information on his group’s research see: http://homepage.
psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/HelmreichLAB/

minimize the occurrence of errors as well as mitigate
their effects. In addition, practicing regular teamdebriefs is key to establishing these skills as habits.
To provide a context for the usage of these skills,
the class introduces the concept of “windows ofawareness.” We define this as an identified phase ofa mission or event where the effective use of SFRM
skills is essential to ensure mission safety and success. Any real-time process that requires bringing theteam together to focus on an important task can beconsidered a window of awareness, for example
ascent or re-entry in the space shuttle, or a crisis suchas a fire.
The diagram below (Figure 1: Windows of Awareness) represents the life-cycle of a mission, from thereflections.solonline.org

design and planning phase, through the training
phase, to the operational phase of the flight itself.
With this diagram, we depict how windows ofawareness appear in the operational environment.
We emphasize that these windows are a downstream
consequence of previous decisions made either in the
managerial environment during the design and planning phase or as a result of choices made during thetraining phase. We note that the closer we get to theactual operational phase, the less time there is tomake decisions. The point is to encourage making
accurate decisions as far upstream of the operational
event as possible to prevent the operator from having to shoulder the consequences of poor decisions
when they will have the least time and resources toaddress them.
The performance elements are then defined in turn,starting at the bottom of the SFRM pyramid. Eachelement is further broken down into sub-elements
which represent specific skills (see Figure 2: SFRM
Model Summary which includes definitions for eachelement). For many students with primarily technicalbackgrounds, such cognitive skills are harder tograsp than technical or physical skills. It is true thatyou cannot, for example, pick up “overload recognition,” hold it in your hand, and look at it. NeverFigure 1: Windows of AwarenessTime to Make Decisions
Design/Planning
Phase
Training Phase

Operational Phase

Critical Phaseof Flight

Mission/End Event

reflections.solonline.org

theless, just like a physical skill, it can be defined,
demonstrated, learned, and we can get better at itwith practice.
Each performance element is made more concrete
using video clips from popular movies, such as
Apollo 13 or Crimson Tide. For example, to discuss
the command sub-element termed Team Member
Authority, a scene is used from Apollo 13. The clip
shows an Apollo Flight Controller in Mission Control
making the difficult recommendation to Flight
Director Gene Kranz to abort landing on the moon
based on the controller’s expert knowledge of his
systems. These videos then serve as a vehicle for classdiscussion. By watching scenes of teams exercising
SFRM skills, students gain the ability to identify
such skills for themselves. [For more details about
the performance elements as presented in the overview class, see the sidebar “A Discussion of the
SFRM Performance Elements.”]
Such classes are designed to be highly interactive
and require instructors to draw out as much classdiscussion as possible. The intent is to give students
the opportunity to begin to internalize such humanfactors skills by relating the examples presented topersonal experiences. To optimize such discussions,the ideal class size is considered to be approximately
twenty students. With a few exceptions, students
overwhelmingly enjoy such classes and feel they areoperationally relevant to their work.
The second class in the SFRM course flow is
SFRM Applied Methods. Ideally taken some months
after a student has had the Overview class, Applied
Methods has students practice applying the SFRM
model to critique real-world examples of local teamsin action. Having students critique other teams
serves as a warm-up for students learning to critiquetheir own teams.
The applied methods class defines an effective
team SFRM debrief as shown in Figure 2 (see thebox “SFRM Debrief Concepts”). Key concepts
include the goal of having a “team-centered” debrief.
That is, while instructors may be present to help
facilitate the debrief, the ultimate goal is to haveteam members critique themselves with as little help

■ Roth 47
EKF ■ Pruyn,
EKFSterlingFigure 2: SFRM Model Summary
S pace F light R esource M anagement

Performance Elements
Decision Making

Critical Element
Core Elements

Situational AwarenessCommunication

Workload Management
LeadershipFoundation
Elements

Command

SFRM Debrief Concepts:
1. Raise and initiate discussionof SFRM topics directly witheach other
2. Critically analyze the situationand discuss the impact that
SFRM skills had on the
scenario’s outcome
3. Develop and implement
strategies
4. Develop self-critiquing habits

The Six SFRM Performance Elements

Command:the exercise of
authority to ensure
mission objectives
are successfullycompleted.
Sub-Elements:• Commander’s
Authority• Crewmember’s
Authority• Responsibility• Accountability• Crew Coordination

Leadership:
the exercise ofskills and techniques to establish
a safe, efficientand effective
team.
Sub-Elements:• Crew Climate• Mentoring• Professionalism• Conflict
Resolution

Communication:
the process of exchanging information,ideas, and thoughts inan accurate and timely
manner so that themessage is clearlyreceived andunderstood.

Workload
Management:
the process ofevenly distributing
activities by planning, prioritizing,
and assigning tasks
to individual teammembers.

Sub-Elements:• Crew
Communication• Inquiry• Advocacy/
Assertiveness• Recognitionof Barriers

Sub-Elements:• Planning andPrioritizing• Overload
Recognition• Task Assignment

as possible. While there may be a natural tendency insuch debriefs to focus on what went wrong for thesake of avoiding repeating one’s failures, it should beemphasized that an effective debrief should also
explore what went right for the equally important
goal of being able to repeat one’s successes.
Just as aviation accident investigators go about
aviation accidents by reconstructing an aircraft, one
can frame an SFRM debrief as “reconstructing” theparts of a decision. The SFRM pyramid can be used
as a roadmap for leading such an investigation by
starting at the top of the pyramid and working
downwards. Figure 3: Team Debrief, illustrates afictional example of how this debrief techniquemight be applied in an organizational setting.

48 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Situational
Awareness:the continuous abilityof the team acting asa single entity to accurately perceive therelationship of themselves and their surroundings. Forecastingand executing tasks
must be based onthat perception.
Sub-Elements:• Monitor andAnticipate• Recognition of
Low Situational
Awareness

Decision Making:the process of determining and implementing the best course ofaction and critiquing
the outcome.
Sub-Elements:• Decision Making
Type: Unilateral vs.
Consultative• Problem Definition• Decision Making
Model: Listing
Options vs. Pattern
Recognition

When starting at the top of the pyramid with
“Decision Making,” we emphasize making a distinction between critiquing decisions versus critiquing
eventual outcomes. One can make a poor decisionand “get away with it” just as one can ultimately failin spite of having made what was the correct decision at the time. If you decide not to wear your seatbelt to work and arrive without having had an accident, that doesn’t mean that you made the right decision. Conversely, if you wear your seatbelt and don’t
have an accident, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t
wear it again the next day. Success hides failures;
failure hides successes (Catmull, 2004). Whether
launching a product or a spacecraft, decisions andoutcomes deserve distinct reflection.

reflections.solonline.org

The last class in the SFRM course flow isdesigned specifically to teach spaceflight training instructors to become SFRM observers anddebrief facilitators. The facilitation class isgiven only after an instructor has completed
both the Overview and Applied Methods class-es and has had the opportunity to observe
actual SFRM debriefs during simulation training sessions with real crews. The facilitation
class gives new instructors the opportunity topractice leading debriefs using other instructors
as simulated students.

A Discussion of the SFRM Performance Elements
The first element is “Command,” which we define as the exercise of official authority to achieve a
mission (United Airlines, 1998). SFRM also emphasizes the sub-element of team member authority. Team
member authority represents the authority of team members based on technical expertise or physicallocation in support of the designated commander’s overall authority.
Command is contrasted with the second performanceelement of leadership. We discuss leadership in terms of“people skills to get the job done.” This perspective on
leadership does not focus on heroic notions of articulating
a vision, inspiring, or the ability to influence. Our point isthat leadership is separate and distinct from command.
Command is assignable to a single team member. In contrast, any team member can provide leadership at any time
simply by exercising certain skills. One can make an analogy
to an athletic team: just because there is one team captain,
doesn’t mean that she is always the one who is “pushing
the ball forward.” Furthermore, just because someone is agood commander, doesn’t always mean that he is a good
leader.
Command and leadership are grouped at the bottom of the
pyramid and labeled as “foundation elements.” For teamwork to be successful in the long run, it must be based ona solid foundation of command and leadership. Conversely,
if a team’s performance is erratic, it may well be caused
by problems in either of these two areas.
The next two performance elements are communication andworkload management. Effective communication is emphasized as a dialogue, not a monologue. Effective workload
management is not just avoiding team members being overloaded. Equally important is avoiding team-members being
under-utilized and the associated potential for complacencythat comes with boredom. Successful workload management is therefore a continuous, iterative process.
Communication and workload management are placed on
the same level of the pyramid to imply a symbiotic relationship between the two. When you get overloaded, what happens to your ability to communicate? It decreases. Further-reflections.solonline.org

more, when someone is overloaded, chances are that
reducing their workload will require some purposeful communication: “You look overloaded. What can we help you with?”
Similarly, the best antidote for overload is continuous, proactive communication between all team members.
On top of communication and workload management lies
the fifth performance element, situational awareness (S.A.).
When a team has high situational awareness, they are not
only in touch with the reality of their situation, but they do
so with the purpose of creating foresight to anticipate futureneeds. It is important to contrast overall team situationalawareness with team member situational awareness. For
example, if only one member of a crew sees a warning lightbut then fails to communicate this fact to the rest of theteam, the team still has low situational awareness. This is
why we place situational awareness on top of communication and workload management: good team S.A. is dependent on good communication which in turn is influenced
by workload.
Communication, workload management, and situationalawareness are grouped together in the middle as the coreelements. As teams observe their own interactions, skills
associated with these three elements are usually themost visible.
Finally we reach what we designate as our critical element,
decision making. The quality of a decision is only as goodas the perception of reality upon which it is based, hence
its placement on top of S.A. SFRM stresses the notion ofcritiquing as an integral part of the decision-making process.
Teams that make decisions without systematically taking
time to debrief how well they performed are denying
themselves opportunities to learn.

■ Roth 49
EKF ■ Pruyn,
EKFSterlingFigure 3: Team Debrief Example
Relevant SFRM Element
Decision Making

Team Member 1:“Did we make the right decision to go ahead with the
project rollout?”

Team Member 2:“No, we should have delayed.”

Team Member 1:“Why did we make the wrong decision? Did we have an
accurate awareness of the situation?”

Team Member 2:“No, we didn’t realize that the latest test data showed
a potential design flaw.”

Team Member 1:“Why didn’t we hear about this?”

Team Member 3:“I knew, but I didn’t tell you guys in time.”

Team Member 1:“Why weren’t you able to communicate with the rest of
the team?”

Team Member 3:“I was distracted with logistics for the Board off-site andfell behind in looking at the test reports.”

Team Member 1:“Is there anything we could have done to unload you?”Command: Responsibility

Team Member 4:“I didn’t back him up at all when he was working logistics. I could have helped.”

Command: Crew
Coordination

Team Member 1:“O.K., so let’s clarify our roles and responsibilities inbacking each other up….”

Situational AwarenessCommunication

Workload Management

There are two typical pitfalls of crew debriefs that
instructors are trained to discourage. The first is thetendency for the conclusion of a debrief to be: “We’ll
do better next time.” While this is a good starting
point, instructors need to hold crews accountable tocontinue the debrief to devise a specific plan for precisely how they will do better next time. What specifically will they do differently? Another pitfall
occurs when one crew member, frequently the commander, “falls on his sword” by shouldering all theblame for a team failure. While such accountability
is also an admirable place to start, crews should
again be encouraged not to stop at the assignment of
blame but to take the additional step of developing ashared plan for avoiding the error in the future.

50 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Outcomes and Lessons Learned“It’s not so much that people mind changing;it’s that they mind being changed.”– Unknown
In the six years since its inception, SFRM has
become an accepted component of astronautcrew training and operations.
SFRM classes are now fully integrated into
astronaut training flows. New-hire astronauts
receive their first SFRM class as part of theirinitial classroom training and techniques are thencontinually reinforced during recurrent training.
More senior astronauts typically serve as men-reflections.solonline.org

tors throughout. When an astronaut is eventuallyassigned to a particular mission, the SFRM classsequence is repeated so that the newly forming crew
can solidify their own approach to SFRM for theduration of their training as well as the flight itself.
Meanwhile, SFRM is ingrained enough in the culturethat debriefs are part and parcel of training sessions.
Instructor teams have also begun to apply debrief
techniques to themselves.
A second target population was flight controllers,
the console operators who man the Mission Control
Center. A separate version of the Applied Methods
class was developed specifically for this audience,emphasizing their role in spaceflight examples as
opposed to crew roles. In addition, instructors werechosen to teach this class who have backgrounds in
Mission Control. These classes are now integrated
into flight controller certification flows, and, in general, are also extremely well received by students.
SFRM posters and cheat-sheets are now visible inhallways and control rooms. A recent simulation
training session debrief extended twenty minutes
simply because the Flight Control Team was asked
the surprisingly potent question, “How would you
rate your situational awareness over the course of
the session?” This prompted several discussions
about when team members didn’t know what theyshould have and why they did not.
As the SFRM program continues to gain credibility and visibility, the Spaceflight Training Division
has also begun fielding requests for informationfrom other departments interested in applying suchtechniques within their own organizations.
Naturally, we have learned multiple lessons fromthe implementation of the Space Flight Resource
Management curriculum. What follows is our “SFRM
debrief” of the SFRM program.
The first lesson is an awareness of what it takes toachieve sustainable cultural change in an organization. Astronauts, as a group, are not exactly pushovers, and achieving cultural change for such a
population is a non-trivial task. This lesson can besummarized as, “The class is the least importantpart.”

reflections.solonline.org

EKF ■ Roth 51

Organizations, over time, take on the personalities of those who lead them. Therefore, the mostimportant step in successful cultural change is gaining the support of the organization’s authority figure(see Figure 4: The SFRM Implementation Method).
In our case, the Chief of the Astronaut Office wassquarely in our corner, leaving no doubt that SFRM
was a priority for his organization. If the organization’s “commander” supports such an effort, overtime, so will the organization. Conversely, we feelthat the “bottom-up approach” of trying to lead
cultural change from below—while possible—isabout as much fun as trying to push a beached whale
uphill with a rope.
The second step is having the target population
take the classes as outlined above. Such classes seemto be most effective when they are placed at the startof significant events, for example just at the beginning of new-hire training or the start of assignedcrew training.
The third step is practice. Teams need regular,organizationally sanctioned opportunities to prebrief, exercise, and debrief SFRM skills. At NASA,
we have the luxury of crews training 98% of thetime and flying only 2% of the time. This allows
every crew training session, typically one or moreeach week, to be that opportunity to practice selfcritiquing. Initially, instructors will need to bepresent to help facilitate and provide focus forthe debriefs. Hence our instructors take the same
SFRM classes as our crews and observe each training session. Over time, however, the goal is to makethe instructors less and less needed, all in preparation for the day when the crews will be in orbit andon their own.
The fourth step is the ultimate goal: having SFRM
skills become habit. Over time, teams no longer
explicitly think of “doing SFRM,” they just end up
practicing good SFRM in the natural course of doing
their jobs. At that point, SFRM has become integral
to the organization’s culture, an essential part of“how we do things around here.”
We will reiterate that of these four steps, theclasses are the least important. Some organizations

52 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Figure 4: The SFRM Implementation Method:“The class is the least important part.”
Target Population: The Astronaut Corps
Step #1: Authority

Chief Astronaut

Step #2: Class

Overview,
Applied Methods.
For Instructors: Facilitation

Step #3: PracticeWho:Commander & Crew

When:

Every Training Session

Facilitators:

Instructors

Step #4: Skills Become Habit

tend to regard classroom training as an “inoculation” for organizational problems. In reality, it’s notwhat students do in the classroom that’s important;it’s what they do after they leave the classroom thatreally matters. Reinforcement of concepts outside of
the classroom comes from one thing and one thing
only: commitment. It’s like dieting. It’s not what you
do once or twice; it’s what you do every day thatmakes a difference. Successful cultural change
requires a long-term organizational, as well as personal, commitment that must start at the top. It
would even be possible for a strong leader to implement such a program without any classroom activities, as long as they led by example and facilitatedpractice for all team members over the long term.
Having said that, the classroom activities do
accelerate assimilation of such concepts to a larger
population. This brings us to our next lesson learned:
do it right the first time.
We were under pressure to teach our first classes
sooner rather than later. We succumbed to this pressure and conducted some of our first classes using
weaker fictional team examples rather than morecredible, real-world, NASA examples. The initial
feedback reflected this. In retrospect, we should nothave compromised quality for the sake of schedule.
Such cultural change cannot always afford a second
chance. Class evaluation forms and discussions withreflections.solonline.org

our students continue to provide us with ways toimprove our classes and techniques.
Another early breakthrough was simply telling
the target population our expectations. We toldcrews directly that SFRM would now be a priority
for their training and that we expected them todebrief on a regular basis. It worked. While this may
be obvious in retrospect, it was not at the time.
Crews, reinforced by prompting from instructors,
began to focus more on SFRM concepts throughout
their training. The placement of classes at the beginning of training flows reinforces these expectations.
Some other lessons initially garnered from ourvisits to airlines were also revalidated. First, we kept
the curriculum relevant to the student population.
For astronauts, this means staying operationally relevant. Class examples are, as much as possible, frommanned spaceflight. In addition, we avoid humanfactors jargon as much as possible. The most obscureterm in the SFRM model might be Situational Awareness. The last thing a technical audience needs is tobe buried in what they consider “psycho-babble.”
Along with that, we have avoided personality testing or role-playing exercises, so-called “parlor
games,” in our classes. Personality testing seemed to
be a trend in earlier versions of CRM that sometimes
left pilots thinking, “O.K., now I know that the guy
next to me is a jerk, but what do I do about it?”
SFRM emphasizes applied skills that anyone canlearn and practice. We chose video examples overrole playing because they focus the class on specificskill usage while encouraging students to think in a
debrief mindset. It’s easier to learn how to debrief by
first observing others than by observing oneself.
The implementation of SFRM was not without its
critics. Some older astronauts who had alreadyflown many times reacted defensively. One quotethat typified this response was, “No one is going totell me how to run my cockpit.” Another concern
expressed was that SFRM was going to be somethingthat would force people “to talk about their feelings.” Such concerns can be addressed by emphasizing that, no, SFRM is not about telling any
Commander how to run their cockpit; it is merely areflections.solonline.org

toolbox for group decision-making. Teams can stillchoose to work in different ways, but teams that
operate with a shared human factors vocabulary
have the added advantage of being able to problem
solve in this area.
Those who have been at the organization the longest, who have developed their “own way of doing
things,” may be the most resistant to change.
Particularly in the beginning, it will be unreasonable
to convince everyone in a classroom that SFRM
works. However, time is on your side. The stark reality is that these older skeptics will also probably be
the first to retire. This leaves you to focus on the
newer and newest employees, who are, after all, theorganization’s future.
Our experience is that people are more acceptingof change if it is introduced gradually over timerather than all at once. We propose that implementing such change is akin to trying to cook a group offrogs. If you drop the frogs in a pot of boiling water,
they will try to jump out. However, if you place themin tepid water and then gradually turn up the heat,
they will never jump out.
Finally, we must agree with Musson and Helmreich(2004) regarding the dubious value of numeric metrics to evaluate the success of such efforts. In ourown organization, the use of metrics is so ingrainedthat there is a tendency not to believe something
unless it can be reduced to a number. Unfortunately,
the development of accurate metrics for such aneffort will likely require an enormous expenditure ofadditional resources. We feel such resources are better invested in refining the product itself.
For the skeptics, we propose the following analogy. Does one track metrics for the quality of family
relationships? Do parents maintain bar charts depicting dips in their teenager’s morale? No? Why not?
Because one doesn’t need numbers to successfully
manage human relationships, and that’s exactly
what SFRM is: tools for managing relationships.
You know when your spouse is angry at you, and if
you don’t, having a number probably wouldn’t help
anyway. A goal of SFRM is minimizing and mitigating the effects of human error. At its best, precise■ Roth 53
EKF ■ Pruyn,
EKFSterlingSFRM is therefore a non-event. What does one standto gain from measuring something that’s not happening? SFRM observation skills as well as the teams
themselves will let you know whether you are having
a positive impact or not.

Future Directions“If you want to keep getting what you’re getting,keep on doing what you’re doing.”– Dale Carnegie
Our work, and our learning, is never done. There aremany other populations, in and outside of NASA, towhich we feel SFRM skills are applicable, and wecontinue to learn lessons from exploring each.
In addition to the operational environment, wefeel there is enormous potential for applying SFRM
principles to managerial teams. The Columbia
Accident Investigation Board Report reached similar
conclusions, and NASA’s Safety organization has
developed a similar curriculum for shuttle program
management. Some managers, however, may not feelthat tools for real-time decision-making in a cockpit
can be generalizable to managerial decision-making
in a conference room. This leads to the skepticaldefense, “That’s something for pilots.”
There is a select group of individuals, however,which we feel provide the best validation for our
hypothesis: senior astronauts who have learned
SFRM in the cockpit and who now hold management positions within NASA. When you watch suchindividuals run a meeting, you can see them applying
SFRM principles in the daily course of doing theirjobs. For example, they may take the time to prebrief a project or special event. They apply SFRM
skills during the conduct of a meeting, for example
the effective use of Inquiry or choosing between
more consultative versus more unilateral decisionmaking. They may take the time with their peers todebrief an important decision and ask team members
to reflect on how the team could have done better,particularly when the team is confronted by a recent
blunder.
We propose that the same implementation model
can be applied to the managerial realm, or any teamenvironment, for that matter (see Figure 5: Further
Implementations). A critical issue will be establishinga regular, organizationally sanctioned opportunity
for debriefs. Normally, as soon as a long meeting isover, most participants head for the door. Executing
meaningful managerial debriefs will require a significant change in mindset, and, in the short run,more time. It should be emphasized, however, that in
the long run, effective managerial decision-making
will ultimately save time and resources. An example

Figure 5: Further Implementations
Target Population:

The Astronaut Corps

Any Organization

Step #1: Authority

Chief Astronaut

Head Authority Figure

Step #2: Class

Overview,
Applied Methods.
For Instructors: Facilitation

Overview,
Applied Methods.
For Instructors: Facilitation

Who:

Commander & Crew

Manager & Team

When:

Every Training Session

Every meeting?
Every major mistake?

Instructors

Instructors(?)

Step #3: Practice

Facilitators:

Step #4: Skills Become Habit

54 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

reflections.solonline.org

of an SFRM memory jogger for a managerial audience is shown in Figure 6: SFRM Badge for Managers.
Another perspective on applying human factors
to technical organizations relates to the notion ofsafety. Many technical organizations have a safety
organization, usually focusing on issues related toindustrial safety. In the pursuit of the distinct goal oforganizational safety, we feel that pursuing safety inmanagement as a goal in and of itself is a misnomer.
We feel the focus should not be on safety, but on
accurate decision making, from which safety is thena natural by-product. If you make safety the goal,
there is a tendency to reduce decision-making tomeeting a simple metric, for example making a pieceof steel tubing stronger by a factor of 1.3. However,focusing on meeting a numeric threshold can give

Figure 6: SFRM Badge for Managers

Space Flight Resource Management

Performance Elements
Decision Making

Critical Element
Core Elements

Situational AwarenessCommunication

Workload Management

SFRM to Ponder

Decision Making• Are we adequately critiquing decisions vs. outcomes?
• Are we valuing fact over opinion yet addressing“gut feel”?
• Which is worse: the consequences of delaying
this decision to collect more information, or theconsequences of making the wrong decision?
• Would our discussion have been any different
if a loved one’s safety hung in the balance?

LeadershipFoundation
Elements

Command

Windows of AwarenessTime to Make Decisions
Design/Planning
Phase
Training Phase

Operational Phase

Critical Phaseof Flight

Mission/End Event

Situational Awareness• Are we actively seeking out dis-confirming evidence?
• Do we all agree on what we will be doing next?
Workload Management• Is any team member present showing signs ofoverload?
• Is someone’s consistent absence a symptom of
overload?
Communication• If I didn’t understand something, did I seek
clarification?
• Have I spent more time listening than talking?
• Do I know what the quietest person on the teamis thinking?
Leadership• Is there a climate of openness?
• Are dissenting opinions encouraged?
• Are conflicts resolved with mutual respect intact?
• Do you know that each team member feels valued?
Command• Are team member roles and responsibilities clearly
defined?
• Do all team members have authority commensuratewith their responsibilities?
• Is it clear who is in command?

reflections.solonline.org■ Roth 55
EKF ■ Pruyn,
EKFSterlingone a false sense of security when the actual context
presents other, more significant issues that should betaken into consideration. Even if data is the primarybasis upon which a decision is made, ultimately decisions are not based on data; they are based on interpretations of the data. As long as human beings are
the ones doing the interpreting, knowledge of humanfactors can help make the decision more accurate.

References and Further Reading
Beaty, David. The Naked Pilot: The Human Factor in Aircraft
Accidents. Shrewsbury: Motorbooks, March 1996.
Burrough, Bryan. Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis on Mir.
New York: Harper Collins, 1998.
Catmull, Ed. “Crisis in Production,” Digital Arts & Graphics
Week Lectures, April 20, 2004, Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York.
Gehman, Harold W. et al. Columbia Accident Investigation

Conclusion“Success is going from failure to failure without lossof enthusiasm.”– Winston Churchill
The implementation of the Space Flight Resource
Management curriculum for space shuttle training
began by adapting proven concepts from similarindustries to NASA’s organizational culture. Crucial
elements of this effort have included a firm commitment from the appropriate authority figure, asequence of classes that were relevant to the target
population, and an understanding that these classes
would mean nothing unless reinforced by regular
opportunities to practice. The final ingredient has
been time. No less than six years have elapsed to
evolve these classroom concepts into shared habit
patterns among the astronaut corps. Interest in
SFRM is now also spreading to other organizations
within NASA.
Endnote
1 These materials are sponsored by the National
Aeronatucis and Space Administration under Contract
NAS9-20000. The U.S. Government retains a paid-up,
nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in suchmaterials to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and to perform publicly anddisplay publicly, by or on behalf of the U.S. Government. All other rights are reserved by United Space
Alliance, LLC.

56 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

Board Report, Vol 1. Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office, 2003.
Helmreich, R.L., Merritt, A.C., & Wilhelm, J.A. “The evolution of Crew Resource Management training in commercial aviation,” International Journal of Aviation Psychology,
1999, Volume 9, Number 1, 19-32.
Musson, David M. & Helmreich, Robert L. “Team Training
and Resource Management in Healthcare: Current
Issues and Future Directions,” Harvard Health Policy
Review, Spring 2004, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 2535.
Rogers, David G. “NASA’s Space Flight Resource Management Program: a Successful Human Factors Performance
Error Management Program,” Space Operations 2002
Conference, 9-12 October 2002, Houston, Texas.
United Airlines, Command/Leadership/Resource Management Reference Manual, Copyright 1998.
United Space Alliance, Space Flight Resource Management
Reference Manual, Houston, Texas, March, 10, 2003.

A bo u t the A u thors

Peter W. Pruyn was a space shuttle Guidance, Flight
Control & Propulsion Instructor at the Johnson Space
Center in Houston from 2000–2004. Prior to working at
NASA, he was a teacher, curriculum developer, and crosscultural trainer for the U.S. Peace Corps. He is also an
Airline Transport certificated pilot. Mr. Pruyn studied Computer Science, Computer Graphics, and Organizational
Behavior at Cornell University. A research member offounding Sol, he lives and works in Cambridge, MA.
pwp4@cornell.edu

reflections.solonline.org

Michael R. Sterling, United Space Alliance, is managerof the Training Leads Section of the Space Flight Training
Division at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He has
worked in engineering, training, and management for themanned space flight program for the past 23 years andled the development effort of the SFRM Program. Mr.
Sterling studied Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M
University. He lives and works in Houston, TX.
michael.r.sterling@nasa.gov.

Acknowledgements
More parties than we can list contributed to the development of the SFRM program as well as this paper. Among
those individuals and organizations who participated in
the early conversations that were the genesis of SFRM
include: Dr. Robert Helmreich of the University of Texas,
United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines,
Delta Airlines, Dr. Al Holland of the Johnson Space Center,
Comair, PSA Airlines, airNova, DHL Worldwide Express,
Alaska Airlines, David Hopkins of the Ameren Union
Electric Callaway Plant, and Doug Harrington of Team
Formation. Employees who did the hard work include
Jeff Foster, John Bauer, Thérèse Huning, and Steve Dillonof United Space Alliance and David Rogers, Brad Miller,
Rhonda Kempton and Derone Jenkins-Todd of Barrios
Technology. Special thanks to Donna BlankmannAlexander and Leah Price.

reflections.solonline.org■ Roth 57
EKF ■ Pruyn,
EKFSterlingB ook E xcerpt

The Managerial
Moment of Truth

The Managerial Momentof Truth

Bruce Bodaken

Robert Fritz

The Managerial Moment of Truth provides an elegant method that could
have a profound impact on organizational cultures that struggle with thequestion: How do we speak the truth toone another in ways that work? The
four elements are acknowledging present reality; examining people’s thinking
about how it got to be that way; creating a plan for what needs to change;and establishing a feedback system totrack improvement against that plan.
As Peter Senge states in the Foreword,“this is not a book with just a bunch of‘good ideas.’ It is a call to a simple buttransformative practice, one vital tobuilding an organization truly worthy ofpeople’s highest commitment.”

PrefaceTruth is a tricky subject inany context. People rightly
ask, what is the truth? How
do we know? Are we really talking about truth or opinion? Isn’t
it dangerous to tell people thetruth? Can they take it? Might weharm people by telling them thetruth?

58 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

These are good questions,and that’s why we want toclearly define the areas weare addressing before asking
you to dive into a bookentitled The Managerial
Moment of Truth.
What do we mean bytruth in this book? How can
we learn to see and thencommunicate what is true, and do
so in ways that are positive, productive, practical, helpful, andeffective?
Before answering these important questions, let us make thisclaim: truth is one of the mostimportant competitive advantages
there is in building a business. Truthis the most vital element an organization has in fostering collective
learning. When we are able toexplore and then tell each otherthe truth, we can improve our performance, both individually andcollectively.
Imagine trying to build an organization without the ability to telleach other the truth. We would not
be able to correct mistakes, learn
from past performances, adjust our
processes, and better understandthe reality in which we are engaged.
In fact, a glaring statistic is thatover 50% of businesses fail within
their first three years. The reason
they fail is that they don’t knowwhat is going on in reality, which
may include their financial position, their impact on the marketplace, the nature of their custom-ers’ real motivations, and other

Bruce Bodaken, Robert Fritz
Free Press, 2006

key factors. Had they known thetruth, they would have had a far
greater chance of success. Without
perceiving reality, it is next to
impossible to succeed because

invariably decisions are made in a
vacuum.
Some would argue that humanbeings are incapable of objectivity
because of the nature of perception,
which they see as idiosyncratic. We
can only understand the world

through our senses, which wethen interpret. We are left with
opinion at best, and, therefore, no
one is right or wrong.
These ideas are interesting, andyet they don’t hold up to scrutiny.
If we look to the aural realm of amusical pitch we can see howsimilar human perception is
because not only can we hear the
pitch that is sounding, we can see
it on an oscilloscope. If two musicians are playing out of tune withreflections.solonline.org

each other, most people could
hear the dissonance. Yet even if
they were tone deaf, they could
see the actual waveform the dissonance creates on an oscilloscope. In a discipline like music,
people don’t talk about “my pitch(truth), and your pitch (truth)
when they have to play together.
There is an objective reality they
can understand, and because ofthat objectivity, over one hundred
people can play together in a symphony orchestra, and play in tune
with each other.
In this book we talk about
truth (small t) as objective, factual, and observable. A due date
was made on time or it wasn’t.
The performance was adequate or
it wasn’t. The numbers are thenumbers.
We also talk about areas thatare not so clear cut, questions that
may be subject to differing opinions such as acceptable levels of
quality, personal alignment withina team, ones capabilities, skills, or
attitude. What is important is thespirit of inquiry we adopt. We see
the process as one of pursuing, as
best we can, the actual reality
under consideration.
We are not content with simply
sharing impressions or opinions.
With what rigor do we seek tounderstand reality, even if what
we find contradicts our pet theories, our years of experience, ouroutlook, philosophy or worldviews? Our personal notions notwithstanding, what is the actual
reality and how do we know it?
The managerial moment of
truth approach is one of mutual exploration and learning. Together,reflections.solonline.org

we are backing up and studying
reality. “Are you seeing what I’mseeing? Am I seeing what you areseeing? And where we are seeing reality differently from eachother, how are we to understand
why we are seeing it differently?”
Rather than fight it out as to who
is right and who is wrong, together, we are dedicating ourselves toobserving reality and trying tobetter understand what we areseeing.
The old chestnut of The Blind
Men and the Elephant suggeststhat we can’t explore reality, only
piece together differing opinions,
all of which are valid.
In case you haven’t heard theoriginal story for a while here it
is: Four blind men encountered anelephant. They began to reach out
to touch the elephant to understand its shape. One blind man,
who happen to have found the elephants tail said, “An elephant islike a rope!” “No,” said anotherwho happened to have put his arms
around the legs, “an elephant islike a tree truck.” “Nonsense,”
said another who happened tohave found the elephant’s trunk,“the elephant is like a hose.” Stillanother one of the men touched
the elephant’s tusks. “The elephant is like large teeth.”
But when we think about it,
shouldn’t we rename the story
The Stupid Blind Men and the
Elephant? After all, these people
were arguing about each person’s
perception, but they weren’t asking each other how it came topass that they had such vastly different ideas about the object they
were examining. The story ismeant to tell us that everyone hasa piece of the truth so, eventhough we may have vastly different ideas, they all reflect an aspectof reality. Perhaps. But an elephant is more than something likea rope, a tree trunk, a hose, andbig teeth. These are but elementsthat are seen from a fragmented
and limited point of view. I may
have wheels, doors, seats, and anengine, and yet I may not have acar. To understand that we areconsidering a car, we need to see
the gestalt – the parts in relationship to the whole.
Let’s change the story to The
Smart Blind Men and the Elephant.
In this story, one of the blind men
says, “An elephant seems like atree trunk,” and his friends say,
“Okay, keep feeling around andthen report what it’s like.” Overtime, the team would be able todescribe what an elephant is likeby sharing their insights and thenfurther exploring the parts of theelephant that haven’t yet encountered, given that the elephant wasin a cooperative mood that day.
In management, truth-telling
too often has come to mean simply sharing opinions. This is notwhat truth-telling means in thisbook. Trading opinions doesn’t
usually lead to greater understanding. What’s missing is thediscipline to understand the foundation of various opinions. We dothat by measuring conclusions
against reality. When we are objective, we don’t only pick thefacts that support our opinions to
the exclusion of facts that don’t.
We are able to look at everything
and allow ourselves to change ourBook Excerpt ■ Bodaken, Fritz 59

minds, alter our impressions, andabandon outdated ideas for ones
that fit the facts.
Most of us have been taught tostudy reality in relationship to ourtheories, experiences, concepts,
ideals, and so on. The thoughtprocess then is one of comparison. We compare reality against
our ideas about reality. Thisapproach limits our ability to see
those things that are inconsistent
with our previous notions. When
we think we know all the answers,
we don’t ask targeted questions
that enable us to explore new
territory. But, if we look anew,
without presuming we know theanswers to questions under consideration, we can discover new
insights and relationships, rethink
our assumptions, and go well beyond our basic suppositions. This
book explores ideas about how
we can look more carefully andsee reality for what it is. Seeing
reality objectively requires a large
degree of rigor. Within the context of the organization, it also
requires a process of collective
inquiry. How can we bring people
into the process? How can we
consistently be willing to look at
the hard facts? What would motivate us to strive for greater understanding, even when the exploration shines light on our own
failings? How can we become better at our jobs and profession?
How can we do that as a teamand a company?

Telling the truth
Unearthing the truth accurately is
one thing. Telling it is yet another

60 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

thing entirely. The classic line thatreflects many mangers reservations to call it like it is comesfrom the film A Few Good Men
when the Jack Nicholson character says, “You can’t handle thetruth.” The general impression
most of us have is that theunabashed truth is hurtful anddevastating. We have grown up ina society that agrees with the Jack
Nicholson character. Yet study
after study has shown quite an
opposite story – when there is achoice to know the unvarnishedtruth or not, people would rather
know than be in the dark.
Psychological studies consistently
show that those who are in command of the facts are healthierthan those who are not. One suchstudy demonstrated that teenage
pregnant girls who were flat out
rejected by their families weremore able to deal with their situation in a healthier and more productive way that those who, in
fact, were rejected, but were never
told that directly. The fact is, weneed to know where we standwith each other, not only teens introuble, but managers from every
level of the organization. Can people handle the truth? The resounding answer is YES!
Having said that, we need totalk about the real world. The
idea here is not just to tell thetruth, but have the telling of it beproductive, helpful, and lead to a
positive change in the future.
Telling the truth certainly involves
a recitation of facts. But there ismuch more to communication
than some clinical and cold statement of information. Motive

makes a difference. What are weafter? What do we want to accomplish? What type of relationshipdo we want with the people wework with? The book will explore
these critical questions extensively
and shed light on major distinctions that can make all the difference between long-term successor just a short-term improvement
followed by regressing into past
unproductive patterns.
We need to make a clear distinction between attempting tomanipulate a person, on the one
hand, and making a potentiallytough conversation as accessible
as we can make it, on the other.
The attempt to control the
inner experience another person
may have so as to get him to dowhat we want him to is the aim ofmanipulation. The underlying assumption here is that the person,left to his own devices, would notwant to accomplish the his goals.
And because of that, the manager
needs to make the person fall intoline. Whether through charm or
threats, the manager sees the job
as getting a person to do what hehasn’t freely chosen to do.
Mangers can’t build capacity
through a manipulative approach
because people react by becoming
less self-generating. At best they
can comply with directives. They
cannot truly align with the direction leadership has chosen. This
creates profound limitations togrowth, development and advancement for everyone.
If we think people can’t handle the truth, we soften it. That’s
a manipulation. Or we sneak in
the harsh facts between a series ofreflections.solonline.org

compliments. That’s a manipulation. Or we try to instill the fearof wrath to create a sense ofurgency. That, too, is a manipulation. Manipulation can work to
produce favorable results shortterm. Long-term the strategy
backfires. Manipulation is oneof the worse management approaches anyone can take because
it undermines a sense of relationship and credibility between the
manager and the person managed.
And yet, too often, managers
feel they have no other choice ifthey are to be true to their accountabilities. So, with the best ofintentions, they try to find what
the market will bear, and thenplay the game for all that it’sworth. The limitations to thisapproach are these: you can’t
build capacity over time, and you
can’t build real relationships withthe people you manage.
Manipulation harms relationships. This statement is true inevery type of relationship fromthe most intimate to the most professional. Rather than a sense ofauthentic relationship, people
develop counter strategies such as
don’t show all your cards, holdback some level of involvement,
don’t care, and avoid truthfulness. Under these circumstances
people pretend to have true relationships, but they are simply
playing the hand they feel was
dealt them. In an unfair game, no
one plays fairly.
Telling the truth means finding
a platform from which to tell it.
Not everyone takes in information the same way as everyoneelse. As managers, we need to bereflections.solonline.org

sensitive to how best to tell thetruth. For example, if we are talking to the chief financial officer,
we can easily run through theaccounts. But if we need to talkabout the numbers with someone
who is not steeped in accounting
disciplines, we may have to alter
what we say, how we explain it,

We want tomake the truth
understandable,
accessible, andcomprehensive.
how quickly we can move throughinformation, and so on. Ourchange in approach is not amanipulation. Instead, we are
varying our approach because weunderstand that this person cannot understand the financial content we are communicating aseasily as would one who is anexpert in such matters. When it
comes to truth-telling within theorganization, we want to be sensitive to how the person we aretalking to takes in information,
but we never want to soften thetruth. We want to make the truth
understandable, accessible, andcomprehensive. We want to joinwith the person in an explorationof how the situation is, how it got
to be that way, and how we cando better next time.
As mangers, we try to findways to better communicate tothose with whom we work. The
techniques in this book are notdesigned as pre-packaged routines

with which managers “process”
people. We will describe a particular process we encourage managers to use. But we encourage
each manager to apply the techniques in ways that are consistent
with the situations she faces. We
will present a four-step form, but
the form itself comes alive when amanager in the real world applies
it to a particular situation withreal people. This book presumes
that professional managers bringwith them critical judgment,
thoughtfulness, and practicality.
A manager will know how andwhen to use the techniques inreal life.
The musical form of the blues
has a fixed structure. Baseball has
a fixed structure. Other forms in
the arts and in sports have fixed
structures. Yet the forms are only
the frame for the unique, creative,
vital experience that people makeof these forms. The same is true
for the form we propose in thisbook. It is not designed to besome rigid tool that is used without regard to the actual people
and situations we face. Instead,
we offer the techniques in thebook to be adopted in the spirit ofwhat you bring to it – your own
intelligence, professionalism, good
sense, and humanity.
The written page doesn’t giveus the tonal context we would
need to fully understand the spirit
in which something is said. We
need to hear the sound of thevoices to understand the true feeling tone. The book contains dialogues in which there are harshfacts spoken. Often truth contains
unpleasant facts, instances of fail-Book Excerpt ■ Bodaken, Fritz 61

ures, disappointments, and confusion. While the words can seemharsh the tonality we would likeyour mind’s ear to hear is positive, helpful, objective, and supportive, even while being frank.
This book, if read without thesense of humanity we intend it tohave, can sound too severe attimes. We are not in favor of
abusing people by using the truth
as an excuse to beat them up.
We are in favor of telling people
the unvarnished truth in waysthat are accessible, kind, andsupportive.
We think it is not supportive to
distort reality just so people do
not have to feel badly about situations they have managed. Of
course we feel badly when we donot succeed. But feeling badly
comes with the territory of being
a professional who is reaching toaccomplish goals that are notalways within one’s means. It’s
appropriate to feel badly when
the situation calls for it. Yet, ourmotive for improving isn’t simply
to restore a feeling of equilibrium.
Rather, it is because we want to
do a better job, succeed for ourselves, the team, and the organization that we are willing to face
the truth, feel whatever we feel,and figure out what we can learn
to improve next time out.
The scope of the book includes
the individual, work teams, crossdisciplined teams, senior management, subcontractor relationships
and strategic alliances. How can
we use moments of truth to62 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

improve our performance, productivity, and creativity? How can
we work better together? What is
the role of the manager in thisprocess? How can the manger
enable others to change for the
better? These are the critical questions that this book addresses.
Instead of using the often awkward “his and her,” we will sometimes use his and sometimes her.
We are addressing both genders ineither case.
The book is aimed at managers
from the most senior levels in theorganization to those who workon the line. A manager may havea direct report who is also a manager. The use of the term manager
in the book is universal, and is
not intended to suggest a form ofmanagerial class system. In fact, it
is our suggestion that managerial
moments of truth can be initiatedtop-down, laterally, down-up,
and across functions.
It is our intention to bring anapproach to the manager and theorganization that can revolutionize how we work together, think
together, and create our future
together. The subject of truth,
particularly within the organization, is enormously challenging.
But it is also extraordinarily
worthwhile, positive, and practical. Today, organizations are facedwith sudden shifts in marketplacerealities, migrating economics,
and the lightning speed of globalization. The organizations thatare able to deal with these changing realities are the ones that havethe best prospect of survival. Thoseorganizations that cannot “handle
the truth” will be left in the dust.
Learning how to tell each otherthe truth, as hard a discipline as it
is within the organization, will
make all of the difference.
A bo u t the A u thors

Bruce Bodaken is Chairman,
President, and CEO of Blue Shield ofCalifornia, a 3.3 million-member notfor-profit health plan that serves thecommercial, individual, and government markets in California. In addition to his work at Blue Shield, Mr.
Bodaken serves on numerous professional and civic boards, including
the board of directors of the California Business Roundtable and the
University of California.
reflections@solonline.org
Robert Fritz has for more thantwenty years been developing thefield of structural dynamics throughhis work first in the area of thecreative process, and then in thearea of organizational, business, andmanagement issues. At least eighty
thousand people have participatedin courses Fritz has created. The
author of several books, including
the bestseller The Path of Least
Resistance, Fritz has helped numerous organizations put thestructural approach into practice.
Robert_Fritz@RobertFritz.com

reflections.solonline.org

B ook review

Change Your Questions,
Change Your Life
Reviewed by Lee Salmon

Lee Salmon

Ifound Marilee Adams’ latest
book, Change Your Questions,
Change Your Life, an important and practical read, having
previously made good use of her
first book, The Art of the Question. My eclectic background – as
OD specialist, executive coach,environmental scientist, and physicist – has long had me be a believerin the power of questions to shape
our thinking, our lives, and ourorganizations. We see that organizational approaches that focus on
creating deep change are directly
or indirectly centered in principles
of inquiry. I include in this category learning organizations, action
learning, appreciative inquiry, open
space, and dialogue models likethe World Café.
Change Your Questions is a fablethrough which we learn in an accessible way about the framing andprogramming power of questions.
While the story occurs in a businesssetting, its lessons are also directed
to our ability to think and relate
effectively everywhere in our lives,

reflections.solonline.org

including our personal relationships. Most striking is the focus not
only on the power of questions, butalso on the impact of our internal
questions and self-talk on our external communications, actions, andoutcomes.
Marilee calls this Question
Thinking. She provides models andmethods showing how deeply ourinternal questions impact thinking,behavior, relationships, and results.
The final chapter of the book, entitled “The Inquiring Leader,” hints
at further work she has developed,with distinctions she calls inquiring
leadership and inquiring organizations. What makes the book especially practical is the workbook at
the end providing instructions on
how to personally apply the seven
QuestionThinking tools.
Beyond the concept of Question
Thinking, the power of the bookrevolves around the Learner/Judger
mindset model and the recognition
that our internal questions consistently express which mental model
we are operating from. Marilee
claims that every one of us has
these two mindsets; the only issue
being which one we choose at any
given moment. Judger mindset iscritical, reactive, committed to being right, looks from its own perspective only, is win-lose, and narrows possibilities. Learner mindset
is open-minded, accepting, curious,
discerning, thoughtful, looks frommultiple perspectives, is win-win,and opens possibilities. A systems

Change Your Questions,
Change Your Life:
7 Powerful Tools for Life
and Works
Marille Adams, Ph.D.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers,
San Francisco, CA. 2004.

perspective is more natural andaccessible from the Learner mindset. Marilee sums up the use of thismodel by advising us to: “accept
Judger and practice Learner.”
Change Your Questions, ChangeYour Life provides a useful graphic,
the Choice Map, which illustrates
the distinct paths of Learner andJudger and the different worlds ofexperience, results, and possibilities
created by the choice of either one.
The Map also shows how to shift
from Judger to Learner by asking“Switching questions.” While theterms Learner and Judger describe
mindsets of an individual, one canalso postulate Learner or Judger
organizations and Learner or Judger
teams. The Choice Map then becomes a tool for working withboth. The QuestionThinking approach invites us to consider theintersection of individual thinking
and organizational thinking, ofindividual learning and organizational learning, of individual performance and organizational performance.
I find the Learner/Judger distinctions simple, elegant, and profound.
I use the Choice Map in a coachingcontext, for example, in raisingawareness when a leader claims towant to be inclusive and empowering, but whose behavior is criticalor dismissive. Clients find it easy tounderstand and use for increasing
their ability to observe where they
are and highlighting their choices.
The results they achieve often show

■ Bodaken,■ SalmonBook Excerpt
Book Review
Fritz 63

me that changing their questions
from Judger to Learner transforms
their thinking and behavior.
Juanita Brown and David Isaacs
say they have been using Marilee’s
work as a “key resource” for theWorld Cafe since its inception.
They’ve used her work on questioning to help shape successful Café
dialogues throughout the world, byshowing Café participants how toframe more powerful questions thatthen become the catalyst for richer
dialogues.
Myron Rogers, coauthor of A
Simpler Way, has this to say about
Change Your Questions, ChangeYour Life: “Marilee’s Learner/
Judger model is incredibly simple,
but can hold the complexity wedeal with as organizations and as
individuals. There are many tools
and models out there, but I consider
this tool to be fundamental. It provides simple ways to bring people
back to simple change and also

helps build an organizations capacity to change itself. I used the
Learner/Judger model with a company that had a culture of judgment. I could point out what was
happening in the room and ask howthat fit the Judger path, building
awareness and their ability to makedifferent choices. Focusing on theimportance of questions also gives
clients an explicit way to understand the importance of the processthat leads to outcomes (answers),
and places where they can intervene
to change the process (by changing
their questions). Both of Marilee’sbooks help me explain what I do
and give me a language to explain it
to others.”
For those of us committed to organizational transformation, Marilee’s QuestionThinking work raises
some provocative questions. One is,“How can we discern the questions
that organizations are asking andanswering (implicitly and explicitly)with their behavior – and what implications for deep change might
this suggest”? In my opinion, however, the big picture of this work
goes beyond the practical importance of questions for individuals
and organizations.
At a deep level, Marilee challenges us to take on inquiry as atransformative practice, as a way of
being that can fundamentally alter
who we are, how we relate and act,
and what world we choose to create. This is a pivotal point in history, when many have concerns abouta sustainable future. The power ofthe QuestionThinking perspective
is to recognize that needed changes
in institutions, government, andculture require new questions toopen new possibilities. A renewed
level of thinking and dialogue iscalled for, with the courage of freshquestions to light the way.

Lee Salmon is the practice leader for executive coaching, mentoring, and leadershipdevelopment with the Federal Consulting Group, where he works with leaders at the highest
levels of government. FCG is a government franchise within the Department of the Treasury,
serving as internal government consultants for organizational development and change. Lee
is also a scientist and physicist and participated in the second SoL global forum in Vienna.

Gordon.Salmon@bep.treas.gov
Marilee Adams
Marilee@InquiryInstitute.com

64 Reflections ■ Volume 7, Number 2

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The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change
Volume 7, Number 2

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