What is a Good Life?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Plato, Socrates and Aristotle asked this question 2,500 years ago. Both eastern and western philosophy is largely the search for an answer.

Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma, Harvard professor, and classic hyper-achiever is raising the same question.

(Quite a conversion, no? Master of the universe to philosopher. Good on you, Clayton.)

In a recent interview, Dr. Christensen remarks that he is struck by how badly the lives of his fellow hyper-achievers have turned out.

Messy divorces, estranged kids, and even, in some cases, fraud and imprisonment.

Can Lean principles help to answer this most important question? I believe it can.

Lean thinking is anchored in standards -- images of how things should be.

Values are standards. Integrity entails adherence to one's personal standards.

Those of you kind enough to read my books may have noted an emphasis on the Cardinal Virtues.

Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice, are, of course, standards of behavior.

Low-down, miserable, tricky, treacherous beings such as us have a hard time living up to them.

But we have to try, and in doing so we partially succeed -- and that makes all difference.

So what is a good life? I'd say a good life entails having good values, and trying to live up to them.

Thanks Dr C. for raising the question.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

All Systems Must Support Humanity – Including Lean
To Learn Corporate Strategy, Study the Military Masters
Reflections on Deploying Improvement Strategies
Hubris and Ethics

Ethics Enables Leadership

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Our Ethics blogs have generated plenty of good buzz -- thanks all!

A few more thoughts. Ethics enables Leadership - the way standardized work (STW) enables front line work.

STW reflects our current best and safest way of doing a given job. If we work to STW, we're confident we'll produce good quality & volume, with safety.

In a very real sense, STW protects us, giving us stability, continuity, confidence and freedom from anxiety.

Ethics entails standards of behavior which, if followed, provide very similar benefits.

The Cardinal Virtues, for example, provide constancy of purpose, mutual trust with team members and market partners, and reduce the risk of attack & prosecution.

Good Ethics provides predictability. Everybody in the organization can relax and focus on the job at hand.

It's much easier to achieve our Purpose, year after year. A pretty good return, no?

Ethics enables leadership. Good Ethics is good business. Say it three times aloud.

Now, it's damn high standard, especially for lowly sinners such as your faithful Business Nomad.

But we have to try.

Pascal




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

Leadership in Times of Crisis
More on Walt Disney
Walt Disney -- Lean Thinker
Do We Manage Our ‘Screens’ - Or Do Our Screens Manage Us? - Part 3

Pascal Dennis Bio

What is a Good Life?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Plato, Socrates and Aristotle asked this question 2,500 years ago. Both eastern and western philosophy is largely the search for an answer.

Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma, Harvard professor, and classic hyper-achiever is raising the same question.

(Quite a conversion, no? Master of the universe to philosopher. Good on you, Clayton.)

In a recent interview, Dr. Christensen remarks that he is struck by how badly the lives of his fellow hyper-achievers have turned out.

Messy divorces, estranged kids, and even, in some cases, fraud and imprisonment.

Can Lean principles help to answer this most important question? I believe it can.

Lean thinking is anchored in standards -- images of how things should be.

Values are standards. Integrity entails adherence to one's personal standards.

Those of you kind enough to read my books may have noted an emphasis on the Cardinal Virtues.

Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice, are, of course, standards of behavior.

Low-down, miserable, tricky, treacherous beings such as us have a hard time living up to them.

But we have to try, and in doing so we partially succeed -- and that makes all difference.

So what is a good life? I'd say a good life entails having good values, and trying to live up to them.

Thanks Dr C. for raising the question.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

To Learn Corporate Strategy, Study the Military Masters
Why is laughter important in business?
Practical Problem Solving – Proving Cause & Effect
Lean Means Don’t Be a Dumb-Ass

What is a Good Life?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Plato, Socrates and Aristotle asked this question 2,500 years ago. Both eastern and western philosophy is largely the search for an answer.

Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma, Harvard professor, and classic hyper-achiever is raising the same question.

(Quite a conversion, no? Master of the universe to philosopher. Good on you, Clayton.)

In a recent interview, Dr. Christensen remarks that he is struck by how badly the lives of his fellow hyper-achievers have turned out.

Messy divorces, estranged kids, and even, in some cases, fraud and imprisonment.

Can Lean principles help to answer this most important question? I believe it can.

Lean thinking is anchored in standards -- images of how things should be.

Values are standards. Integrity entails adherence to one's personal standards.

Those of you kind enough to read my books may have noted an emphasis on the Cardinal Virtues.

Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice, are, of course, standards of behavior.

Low-down, miserable, tricky, treacherous beings such as us have a hard time living up to them.

But we have to try, and in doing so we partially succeed -- and that makes all difference.

So what is a good life? I'd say a good life entails having good values, and trying to live up to them.

Thanks Dr C. for raising the question.

Best regards,

Pascal

How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?

By Pascal Dennis

Last time I shared the above question which a revered sensei posed long ago.

Thanks to Daniel Breston for asking, “So how have you answered the question?”

Here’s what I have learned.

To motivate people to pull together for a long time toward a shared Noble goal, and thereby achieve the extraordinary things:

1. Define a worthy Noble goal – and continually communicate it so people can relax about Purpose and work on the task at hand.


2. Define the ‘banks of the river’ (aka the ‘design space’, how we’ll play the game) and let the team figure out how to get to the sea.


3. Check in frequently and eliminate hassles for the team.


4. Do not launch any top-down ‘Initiatives’ – they are almost always worse than bad.


5. Define personal standards of behavior and try to live up to them

For me this means the Cardinal Virtues – Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice.

I hasten to add that, as a lazy tricky dysfunctional mortal being, I am not up to them. But I try anyhow.

6. See the humor in almost all things. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Manage with a ‘light touch’

See above.

7. Give people the benefit of the doubt. We’re all imperfect but most of us try to do the right thing

Remember Puck in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

People deserve a second chance.

8. Take a personal interest in each individual’s growth


9. Reflect regularly and frankly. Be honest with yourself and each team member.

Feedback is the proverbial ‘breakfast of champions’.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Time to Boycott the NFL (Part 2)?

By Pascal Dennis

My last post generated excellent feedback – thanks, all.

As I reflect, I fear the NFL is beyond redemption. In fact, a number of readers suggested I was easy on them.

I made no mention, our readers reminded me, of the NFL’s extortionary behavior toward communities hosting the Superbowl, or its blackmail with respect to publics funds for NFL stadiums(?!), or its tax-free status (?!?!).

(Did you know that the NFL is a ‘not-for-profit’ entity?)

Every statement, every action by the NFL exudes hubris – overbearing arrogance and pride. Euripides, Sophocles and Shakespeare teach us this cannot end well.

To regain people's respect and a measure of integrity, the NFL needs to:

• Dismiss the entire leadership team,
• Publicly accept responsibility for its failures, and
• Accept the consequences.

The latter would entail a period of grief and contrition. For example:

"We acknowledge that we've tried to bury the overwhelming evidence of brain and physical trauma in our players. We're deeply distressed that our game has crippled Earl Campbell, Tony Dorsett and so many others. We’re ashamed that we denied this for so long, and tried to avoid just compensation for the damage we have caused. We accept responsibility and will take concrete steps to improve our game and our behavior."

How likely is this to happen? (Snowballs in hell come to mind)

Don’t want to be misunderstood. We humans are tricky, lazy and dishonest (I am anyway).

That’s why the Cardinal Virtues are so important. Like all standards, they make problems visible, so we can try to be a little better.

Our excesses are blunted thereby, and the world becomes a somewhat better place, and that matters a great deal.

Should we not hold the world’s richest and most powerful sports league to these standards?

The NFL’s fall may take a decade. (We’re addicted to the product, are we not?)

But I’m not watching NFL football this weekend or next weekend, or the weekend after that.

I'm playing golf with my little boy.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Ethics Enables Leadership

By Pascal Dennis

Our Ethics blogs have generated plenty of good buzz -- thanks all!

A few more thoughts. Ethics enables Leadership - the way standardized work (STW) enables front line work.

STW reflects our current best and safest way of doing a given job. If we work to STW, we're confident we'll produce good quality & volume, with safety.

In a very real sense, STW protects us, giving us stability, continuity, confidence and freedom from anxiety.

Ethics entails standards of behavior which, if followed, provide very similar benefits.

The Cardinal Virtues, for example, provide constancy of purpose, mutual trust with team members and market partners, and reduce the risk of attack & prosecution.

Good Ethics provides predictability. Everybody in the organization can relax and focus on the job at hand.

It's much easier to achieve our Purpose, year after year. A pretty good return, no?

Ethics enables leadership. Good Ethics is good business. Say it three times aloud.

Now, it's damn high standard, especially for lowly sinners such as your faithful Business Nomad.

But we have to try.

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reflections on Leadership & Ethics

By Pascal Dennis

LPI Leadership & Ethics Series

Last time I gave y'all a home work assignment around the Cardinal Virtues -- Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice.

Today I'd like to zoom out..

How are Leadership & Ethics related? Why do they matter?

Some initial thoughts.

Can you have the former without the latter? Will people willingly follow swine for the long term?

Long-time readers will know where I stand.

The leader's job is to get business results -- by building capability & reinforcing values. (Tip of the hat to Peter Drucker.)

Thus, Ethics enables Leadership. Leaders represent what's best in us. We take part in their journey because we believe in what they stand for.

A bastard can be successful, rich, famous - but he's unlikely to be a leader, at least not for long.

(How bitter our disappointment, when a leader we admire turns out to be a fraud...)

What is Ethics? In my view, it's the study of right & wrong.

How do we know one from the other? By the application of Ethical standards.

The Cardinal Virtues are perhaps the best known example.

Temperance, Prudence, Courage, Justice -- all major religions & systems of philosophy contain them.

Lean practitioners will know that a standard is an image of "What Should be Happening" (WSBH).

Thereby, standards make problems visible. "Hey, we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing!"

Of course, we mere mortals are tricky, lazy, dishonest, and rarely live up to the Cardinal Virtues.

In business, following standards minimizes hassle & helps us achieve our goals. In life, doing so also helps reduce human suffering.

But by making the problem visible, they've done their job. At the very least, they blunt our excesses.

Leaders at all levels who lock them in are well on their way.

Next time, what to make of Martin Scorcese's latest -- The Wolf of Wall Street?

Best,

Pascal

LPI Leadership & Ethics Series - What is Courage? (Homework Contest)

By Pascal Dennis

HOMEWORK CONTEST - TOP THREE DRAWINGS WILL RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF PASCAL'S LATEST BOOK! (Details below)

In our recent Leadership & Ethics blog, I introduced the Cardinal Virtues.

Prudence, Temperance, Justice & Courage are enduring standards of ethical behavior recognized by all major religions & systems of philosophy.

Today I'd like to give you all some homework.

HOMEWORK CONTEST!

Here's your assignment.

Draw a picture in answer of the following:

What is Courage?

Have fun! Don't worry if you 'can't draw'.

Stick figures, arrows, circles are fine.

Please send your efforts to Holly Simmons at holly.simmons@leansystems.org

Deadline: January 31

Top three drawings will receive a free copy of Pascal's latest book.

Let's see what happens!

Best,

Pascal