Systems Thinking
21st Century Organizations
The Transformation: Giving Up Quick Fixes
The bad news is that Quick Fixes don’t work like they used to. They once worked in the slower, simpler world of 20th Century management.
But not only don’t they work in today’s rapidly changing, complex and unpredictable world, Quick Fixes usually make things worse. But being aware of Quick Fixes and everyone’s fondness for them is a superb place to start to change.
No one misses Quick Fixes more than we do at ManagementWisdom.com.
How We Kicked the Habit
Working with Drs. Deming and Ackoff we were relieved to discover there was a better solution. First, we had to acknowledge our Quick Fix addiction with its euphoria of instant gratification, the enchanting delusion that we were back in control, and the smug air of accomplishment.
We won’t bore you with our long recovery, but we will say that going cold turkey to the Long Term wasn’t easy at first. Now that we see and enjoy the almost incredible benefits of systems thinking, cooperation, and continual improvement, we are rarely tempted by the Quick Fix—and then only in major emergencies. Furthermore, because of our new Long-Term outlook and continuing transformation, these emergencies rarely happen anymore. It’s like they were somehow connected to the Quick Fixes and we got rid of both at the same time.
Not All At Once
The good news is that you don’t have to do it all at once. You don’t have to watch The Complete Deming Management Library and the Better Management for a Changing World videos like some non-stop film festival. In fact, that doesn’t work.
You and your organization can just take one video at a time. Watch it and then watch it over again; then go on to the next one. As you view the videos, talk about the content and your reactions to it; ask what’s new and how it might apply to what your organization is doing. (Note: you will see in the list of Deming Management Library titles that they are loosely organized into groups of tapes: i.e. The Prophet and Volumes 1 and 2 are The Introduction; Volumes 14 through 16 all deal with Profound Knowledge, and so forth.)
Go through the Library in the order that is best for addressing your most urgent problems (The ones that the Quick Fixes didn’t solve like leadership, teamwork, quality improvement, shrinking market share, and customer disaffection). See the Deming Library Index for a list of common concerns, management topics and relevant tapes. Steadily you and your colleagues will begin to see a new world—both at work and home.
Good Things
Unexpected good things happen when people begin to practice and internalize the new management Philosophy of continual improvement of processes and systems and give up their old hidden 19th Century factory assumptions.
(All of us in the industrialized world—though we aren’t aware of it—learned in the nursery, kitchen, school and workplace the principles of Scientific Management that made our consumer economy of cars and appliances and televisions possible. But these Scientific Management ideas, which were an incredible breakthrough at the time, were for mechanical or biological system companies or organizations. These ideas are the infrastructure for the New Management, but they don’t work in today’s world of what Dr. Ackoff calls "complex purposeful social systems" where the parts have choices.)
No More Blame
So as people begin to practice and understand the New Management, it will become apparent that blaming each other for problems is counter-productive, because most problems come from the system not an individual. And then people will begin to view problems as opportunities, and they will begin to think in terms of continual improvement.
Soon people will become aware of the power of high performance teamwork and how the team can become greater than the sum of its parts. Each team member can become better as he or she become more aware of biases, unwarranted assumptions, and personal agendas. This is what happens in a New Management environment that encourages creativity, innovation and joy in work. (You will recall that none of those were valued in the old factory.) In fact, it is this personal payoff that supplies the energy to keep the transformation going for a 20th Century mechanical system organization to become a continually improving 21st Century social system organization.
More Good Stuff
There’s a lot more good stuff. People begin to appreciate the differences that individuals from other backgrounds bring as it becomes clear that the dynamic social organization needs to see itself and its work from as many points of view as possible. The importance of suppliers and customers and their needs become apparent. It is difficult to believe but until the Quality Revolution of the 1980s no one paid attention to pleasing or delighting customers or tried to work with suppliers. Those are easy to adopt ideas of the New Management, but by themselves they will not turn an organization from the old 20th Century mechanical system organization into a 21st Century social system.
There’s more to learn. Besides giving up Quick Fixes, the next hardest thing is to realize there is much more to learn. In fact, you can never stop learning. But knowing that you need to learn more is an asset in the new system, where in the old it meant you didn’t know enough. Of course, there’s leadership and the vision thing and a lot of other stuff, but a good place to start is by saying good-bye to Quick Fixes.
And watch the videos.
(While your waiting for them to arrive, you might want to read The New World View.)
Note: What is a Quick Fix?
1. We know what needs to be done here if profits are down or we aren’t making budget or failing to reach sales or production quotas: Find somebody to pin it on. Deny him or her a raise. Let the word get out that new controls will be put in place
2. Did you see the book that was reviewed in "Hot Management Tips" last month? Apparently, the newest thing is software that tabulates number of non-official Emails, names and addresses of the senders and recipients. And the best feature is that the program calculates the statistics: total time in Email traffic by department unit and then shows us variances such as budget vs. actual and YTD vs. last year as a function of this waste factor. We will know just who is goofing off and then be able to nail those people to the wall.
3. Quick Fix Definitions:
o To depend primarily on experience, common sense, hunches, or past practices for the solution to a problem.
o To attempt to solve problems without data collected and analyzed to test a theory.
o To believe that methods used successfully by others will solve the problems of this organization.
o To focus problem solutions related to end product or service primarily on one or another unit of the organization.
o To believe that the solutions to most problems are immediately apparent.
The Transformation: Giving Up Quick Fixes
The bad news is that Quick Fixes don’t work like they used to. They once worked in the slower, simpler world of 20th Century management.
But not only don’t they work in today’s rapidly changing, complex and unpredictable world, Quick Fixes usually make things worse. But being aware of Quick Fixes and everyone’s fondness for them is a superb place to start to change.
No one misses Quick Fixes more than we do at ManagementWisdom.com.
How We Kicked the Habit
Working with Drs. Deming and Ackoff we were relieved to discover there was a better solution. First, we had to acknowledge our Quick Fix addiction with its euphoria of instant gratification, the enchanting delusion that we were back in control, and the smug air of accomplishment.
We won’t bore you with our long recovery, but we will say that going cold turkey to the Long Term wasn’t easy at first. Now that we see and enjoy the almost incredible benefits of systems thinking, cooperation, and continual improvement, we are rarely tempted by the Quick Fix—and then only in major emergencies. Furthermore, because of our new Long-Term outlook and continuing transformation, these emergencies rarely happen anymore. It’s like they were somehow connected to the Quick Fixes and we got rid of both at the same time.
Not All At Once
The good news is that you don’t have to do it all at once. You don’t have to watch The Complete Deming Management Library and the Better Management for a Changing World videos like some non-stop film festival. In fact, that doesn’t work.
You and your organization can just take one video at a time. Watch it and then watch it over again; then go on to the next one. As you view the videos, talk about the content and your reactions to it; ask what’s new and how it might apply to what your organization is doing. (Note: you will see in the list of Deming Management Library titles that they are loosely organized into groups of tapes: i.e. The Prophet and Volumes 1 and 2 are The Introduction; Volumes 14 through 16 all deal with Profound Knowledge, and so forth.)
Go through the Library in the order that is best for addressing your most urgent problems (The ones that the Quick Fixes didn’t solve like leadership, teamwork, quality improvement, shrinking market share, and customer disaffection). See the Deming Library Index for a list of common concerns, management topics and relevant tapes. Steadily you and your colleagues will begin to see a new world—both at work and home.
Good Things
Unexpected good things happen when people begin to practice and internalize the new management Philosophy of continual improvement of processes and systems and give up their old hidden 19th Century factory assumptions.
(All of us in the industrialized world—though we aren’t aware of it—learned in the nursery, kitchen, school and workplace the principles of Scientific Management that made our consumer economy of cars and appliances and televisions possible. But these Scientific Management ideas, which were an incredible breakthrough at the time, were for mechanical or biological system companies or organizations. These ideas are the infrastructure for the New Management, but they don’t work in today’s world of what Dr. Ackoff calls "complex purposeful social systems" where the parts have choices.)
No More Blame
So as people begin to practice and understand the New Management, it will become apparent that blaming each other for problems is counter-productive, because most problems come from the system not an individual. And then people will begin to view problems as opportunities, and they will begin to think in terms of continual improvement.
Soon people will become aware of the power of high performance teamwork and how the team can become greater than the sum of its parts. Each team member can become better as he or she become more aware of biases, unwarranted assumptions, and personal agendas. This is what happens in a New Management environment that encourages creativity, innovation and joy in work. (You will recall that none of those were valued in the old factory.) In fact, it is this personal payoff that supplies the energy to keep the transformation going for a 20th Century mechanical system organization to become a continually improving 21st Century social system organization.
More Good Stuff
There’s a lot more good stuff. People begin to appreciate the differences that individuals from other backgrounds bring as it becomes clear that the dynamic social organization needs to see itself and its work from as many points of view as possible. The importance of suppliers and customers and their needs become apparent. It is difficult to believe but until the Quality Revolution of the 1980s no one paid attention to pleasing or delighting customers or tried to work with suppliers. Those are easy to adopt ideas of the New Management, but by themselves they will not turn an organization from the old 20th Century mechanical system organization into a 21st Century social system.
There’s more to learn. Besides giving up Quick Fixes, the next hardest thing is to realize there is much more to learn. In fact, you can never stop learning. But knowing that you need to learn more is an asset in the new system, where in the old it meant you didn’t know enough. Of course, there’s leadership and the vision thing and a lot of other stuff, but a good place to start is by saying good-bye to Quick Fixes.
And watch the videos.
(While your waiting for them to arrive, you might want to read The New World View.)
Note: What is a Quick Fix?
1. We know what needs to be done here if profits are down or we aren’t making budget or failing to reach sales or production quotas: Find somebody to pin it on. Deny him or her a raise. Let the word get out that new controls will be put in place
2. Did you see the book that was reviewed in "Hot Management Tips" last month? Apparently, the newest thing is software that tabulates number of non-official Emails, names and addresses of the senders and recipients. And the best feature is that the program calculates the statistics: total time in Email traffic by department unit and then shows us variances such as budget vs. actual and YTD vs. last year as a function of this waste factor. We will know just who is goofing off and then be able to nail those people to the wall.
3. Quick Fix Definitions:
o To depend primarily on experience, common sense, hunches, or past practices for the solution to a problem.
o To attempt to solve problems without data collected and analyzed to test a theory.
o To believe that methods used successfully by others will solve the problems of this organization.
o To focus problem solutions related to end product or service primarily on one or another unit of the organization.
o To believe that the solutions to most problems are immediately apparent.
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