What is a Key Thinker?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Deployment leader, Pacemaker, Key Thinking Guy/Gal, Chief Engineer -- these are all synonyms for this critical role.

As a chemical engineer, I see the role as akin to an enzyme in a chemical reaction.

Some reactions are glacial & take forever to come to completion. But once you add the enzyme -- whoosh!

These are leaders who 'wrap their arms around the critical breakthrough zones' -- like Safety or Quality or Cost.

They go see, reflect, talk to people at all levels, and thereby grasp the situation.

As a result, our Key Thinker is able to formulate a hypothesis: "If we do A, B and C, then X will happen!"

Testable hypotheses gives us insight about the Black Box known as our business.

Keep doing it, and pretty soon (say, 3 or 4 years) you have profound knowledge.

("Do this -- don't do that! We tried it six years ago, and it was a mess, for these reasons.")

That's what profound knowledge looks like: stories, examples, nuance, finesse.

The best known example is, perhaps, Toyota's famous 'Heavyweight Chief Engineer'.

Famously, Chief Engineers have few direct reports, but are the most powerful person in the value stream (or, in the auto industry, Platform).

Key Thinkers are rare people with rare qualities:

Passionate about their zone, impatient with the status quo, ornery, yet able, at the end of the day, to forge a consensus.

They're a critical enabler in any transformation and a key strategic question is:

"How will we develop more Key Thinkers?"

Here's an example. Imagine you are senior leaders in a major hospital system. Your over-riding objective is "No Infections!"

How would we start? Perhaps we can agree that a committee won't do.

We'd need to start with a person with the qualities described above -- in other words, with a Key Thinker.

Best,

Pascal


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

Macro Value Stream Kaizen – Zoology
Poka-Yoke – Preventing Inadvertent Errors
Making the Invisible Visible in Design Projects
Two Pillars of the Lean Business System

Reprise - Scatter - a Symptom of Big Company Disease

By Pascal Dennis

By scatter, I mean the tendency large organizations have of disassembling the PDCA cycle - and giving different parts to different people.

One group develops the Plan, another deploys the Plan, yet another monitors the Plan.

Sometimes a fourth group is responsible for adjusting the plan.

More often, though, there is no adjustment. We just hope what's left of the Plan will quietly fade away.

The role of a Key Thinker (Deployment Leader, 'Control Department' at Toyota) is to "wrap their arms around" the problem -- and to shepherd it through the entire PDCA cycle.

Thus, you have a holistic understanding of what's happening - and a much better chance of making diagnoses & adjustments.

I see scatter is New Production Development, Marketing, Engineering and Strategic Planning in general.

We like to take things apart.

That's okay, so long as we put them back together.

And so long as one person is charged with seeing the whole chessboard, and grasping the unfolding story.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: What is a Key Thinker?

By Pascal Dennis

Deployment leader, Pacemaker, Key Thinking Guy/Gal, Chief Engineer -- these are all synonyms for this critical role.

As a chemical engineer, I see the role as akin to an enzyme in a chemical reaction.

Some reactions are glacial & take forever to come to completion. But once you add the enzyme -- whoosh!

These are leaders who 'wrap their arms around the critical breakthrough zones' -- like Safety or Quality or Cost.

They go see, reflect, talk to people at all levels, and thereby grasp the situation.

As a result, our Key Thinker is able to formulate a hypothesis: "If we do A, B and C, then X will happen!"

Testable hypotheses gives us insight about the Black Box known as our business.

Keep doing it, and pretty soon (say, 3 or 4 years) you have profound knowledge.

("Do this -- don't do that! We tried it six years ago, and it was a mess, for these reasons.")

That's what profound knowledge looks like: stories, examples, nuance, finesse.

The best known example is, perhaps, Toyota's famous 'Heavyweight Chief Engineer'.

Famously, Chief Engineers have few direct reports, but are the most powerful person in the value stream (or, in the auto industry, Platform).

Key Thinkers are rare people with rare qualities:

Passionate about their zone, impatient with the status quo, ornery, yet able, at the end of the day, to forge a consensus.

They're a critical enabler in any transformation, our conscience, and the eyes and ears of the CEO.

Thus, a key strategic question is:

"How will we develop more Key Thinkers?"

Moreover, the CEO and COO need to ask, "How will we support out Key Thinkers?"

Here's an example. Imagine you are senior leaders in a major hospital system. Your over-riding objective is "No Infections!"

How would we start? Perhaps we can agree that a committee won't do.

We'd need to start with a person with the qualities described above -- in other words, with a Key Thinker.

If we lacked such people, we’d have to develop them, and we’d have to think deeply about how we, as senior leaders, would support them.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

What is a Key Thinker?

By Pascal Dennis

Deployment leader, Pacemaker, Key Thinking Guy/Gal, Chief Engineer -- these are all synonyms for this critical role.

As a chemical engineer, I see the role as akin to an enzyme in a chemical reaction.

Some reactions are glacial & take forever to come to completion. But once you add the enzyme -- whoosh!

These are leaders who 'wrap their arms around the critical breakthrough zones' -- like Safety or Quality or Cost.

They go see, reflect, talk to people at all levels, and thereby grasp the situation.

As a result, our Key Thinker is able to formulate a hypothesis: "If we do A, B and C, then X will happen!"

Testable hypotheses gives us insight about the Black Box known as our business.

Keep doing it, and pretty soon (say, 3 or 4 years) you have profound knowledge.

("Do this -- don't do that! We tried it six years ago, and it was a mess, for these reasons.")

That's what profound knowledge looks like: stories, examples, nuance, finesse.

The best known example is, perhaps, Toyota's famous 'Heavyweight Chief Engineer'.

Famously, Chief Engineers have few direct reports, but are the most powerful person in the value stream (or, in the auto industry, Platform).

Key Thinkers are rare people with rare qualities:

Passionate about their zone, impatient with the status quo, ornery, yet able, at the end of the day, to forge a consensus.

They're a critical enabler in any transformation and a key strategic question is:

"How will we develop more Key Thinkers?"

Here's an example. Imagine you are senior leaders in a major hospital system. Your over-riding objective is "No Infections!"

How would we start? Perhaps we can agree that a committee won't do.

We'd need to start with a person with the qualities described above -- in other words, with a Key Thinker.

Best,

Pascal