Success is the Enemy of Future Success

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

1. Ideal condition, and

2. Target condition.

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars? True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

There is No Right Answer in Strategy
Content Follows Form or Acting Your Way to New Thinking
Value & Waste at the Imperial Grill
Value in an Age of Endless Innovation

Difference between Hansei and a Post-mortem

By Al Norval (bio)

Imagine a situation that has two possible outcomes:

1. The solution is delivered on time and on budget with very positive Customer feedback
2. The solution is delivered late, over budget and doesn’t meet the needs of the Customer

What typically happens?

In the first case we celebrate and pop the corks on bottles of champagne.

In the second case we call for a post-mortem, an exercise that is mostly fault finding and look for whose blame. Typically, we don’t look into process issues that caused the problems and ask Why? Result - no real learning and no improvements.

Even in the first case, with no review there is no shared learning. In this case the review should be on what went well and Why? What have we learned? What do we need to do to lock this learning into standards that can be used next time?

In both cases we want to ask the basic questions:

• What should be happening?
• What actually happened?
• Why are there differences?

This drill will help us improve even if the results are very good since sometimes the results were good because we got lucky. I don’t know of any leader who wants to rely on luck as a management technique since it has a habit of turning next time.

There are always things that go wrong and all processes have waste. Kaizen is the relentless drive to remove this waste and to strengthen the health of our processes. But before we can kaizen our processes, we need to use Hansei to truly reflect upon the situation, and upon the health of our processes. Hansei is used to truly Grasp the Situation and requires honest, deep reflection and thought, both when things go well and when they don’t. Design reviews, gate reviews and post launch reviews are opportunities for leaders to zoom out and assess the health of the underlying process and look for improvements. Hansei leading to kaizen.

Cheers

Al


In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

TPS and Agile
Beware INITIATIVES
Point, Flow & System Improvement
Andon – Putting Quality at the Forefront

Reflection - the Breakfast of Champions

By Pascal Dennis

Reflection entails. honest, humble acceptance of successes & failures, strengths & weaknesses.

Hansei, as the Japanese call it.

Reflection is the countermeasure to hubris, overweening pride & arrogance, that destroyer of people and organization.

Reflection is central to all great religions, in the form of prayer, meditation, and rumination.

In some traditions the acolyte leaves civilization and seeks reflection in solitude.

In my experience, reflection requires both solitude, as well as, the camaraderie of one's team.

Thus, questions like 'What have I learned?’ naturally lead to 'What did we learn?'

Reflection, of course, reflects the Adjust phase of Plan-Do-Check-Adjust cycle.

We close of the loop thereby, and lay the foundation for next year's PDCA loop.

A couple of points here:

To close the loop, we need to observe each PDCA phase.

Otherwise, we suffer the debilitating ailment I call Scatter - one group does the Plan, another Deploys the Plan, yet a third Checks the Plan.

Result: lousy results and little learning.

Scatter is at epidemic proportions, especially in large organizations.

So important activities need a deployment leader, ‘key thinker’, ‘chief engineer’ or equivalent to ‘wrap their arms around the problem’, observe each PDCA phase, and thereby harvest & share the learning.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: Success is the Enemy of Future Success

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

1. Ideal condition, and



2. Target condition.

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars?

True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Success is the Enemy of Future Success - Reprise

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

1. Ideal condition, and

2. Target condition.

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars?

True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Success is the Enemy of Future Success

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

1. Ideal condition, and

2. Target condition.

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars? True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Success is the Enemy of Future Success

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical Purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

1. Ideal condition, and

2. Target condition

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars?

True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Difference between Hansei and a Post-mortem

By Al Norval

Imagine a situation that has two possible outcomes:

1. The solution is delivered on time and on budget with very positive Customer feedback
2. The solution is delivered late, over budget and doesn’t meet the needs of the Customer

What typically happens?

In the first case we celebrate and pop the corks on bottles of champagne.

In the second case we call for a post-mortem, an exercise that is mostly fault finding and look for whose blame. Typically, we don’t look into process issues that caused the problems and ask Why? Result - no real learning and no improvements.

Even in the first case, with no review there is no shared learning. In this case the review should be on what went well and Why? What have we learned? What do we need to do to lock this learning into standards that can be used next time?

In both cases we want to ask the basic questions:

• What should be happening?
• What actually happened?
• Why are there differences?

This drill will help us improve even if the results are very good since sometimes the results were good because we got lucky. I don’t know of any leader who wants to rely on luck as a management technique since it has a habit of turning next time.

There are always things that go wrong and all processes have waste. Kaizen is the relentless drive to remove this waste and to strengthen the health of our processes. But before we can kaizen our processes, we need to use Hansei to truly reflect upon the situation, and upon the health of our processes. Hansei is used to truly Grasp the Situation and requires honest, deep reflection and thought, both when things go well and when they don’t. Design reviews, gate reviews and post launch reviews are opportunities for leaders to zoom out and assess the health of the underlying process and look for improvements. Hansei leading to kaizen.

Cheers

Why a Book of Stories?

By Pascal Dennis

My latest book, Reflections of a Business Nomad, has triggered thoughtful questions:

Why take a risk with something so different?

(Accepted thinking: Business readers won't read stories!)

Why a reflective book?

(Accepted thinking: Business readers want answers -- not questions!)

Isn't this kind of book, with its original artwork & design, expensive to produce?

(You won't make any money!)

Here's my response:

It's important to take risks.

My job is to push myself, (and you), out of our comfort zones.

Give without expecting a return.

I wrote Reflections out of pure enjoyment, without any expectation of a return.

When you send things out into the universe, I believe it repays you -- often with compound interest!

Challenge the norm.

Life is short -- challenge accepted thinking! Make a decision and follow through without fear of failure.

Respect people.

Are business readers incapable of reflecting deeply? Do they 'just want answers'?

I don't buy it. All my books are full of questions & reflection points, yet nobody has ever complained.

On the contrary, people form study groups.

Hansei -- self-reflection with humility & a commitment to improve -- is central to Japanese culture & to the Toyota Production System.

Hopefully, Reflections of a Business Nomad can help in some small way.

Pascal

Reflection - the Breakfast of Champions

By Pascal Dennis

Reflection entails. honest, humble acceptance of successes & failures, strengths & weaknesses.

Hansei, as the Japanese call it.

Reflection is the countermeasure to hubris, overweening pride & arrogance, that destroyer of people and organization.

Reflection is central to all great religions, in the form of prayer, meditation, and rumination.

In some traditions the acolyte leaves civilization and seeks reflection in solitude.

In my experience, reflection requires both solitude, as well as, the camaraderie of one's team.

Thus, questions like 'What have I learned?’ naturally lead to 'What did we learn?'

Reflection, of course, reflects the Adjust phase of Plan-Do-Check-Adjust cycle.

We close of the loop thereby, and lay the foundation for next year's PDCA loop.

A couple of points here:

To close the loop, we need to have been there for all phases of PDCA.

Otherwise, we suffer the debilitating ailment I call Scatter - one group does the Plan, another Deploys the Plan, yet a third Checks the Plan.

Result: lousy results and little learning.

Scatter is at epidemic proportions in large organizations - because they're so large & complex.

More to come.