Reflections on True North

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Strategy begins with our strategic & philosophical Purpose, also known as True North.

True North comprises:

1. a "Hard" goal, usually entailing critical end-of-pipe measures, e.g. Revenue, EBIT, fatalities, and,
2. a "Broad-brush" goal (hoshin), a few words defining our purpose, vision, commitment

I encourage leaders to draw a picture of where we want to be, how we’ll get there, and how we will go about our business.

The business chessboard is foggy, multi-dimensional, and unpredictable. Why bother to define a distant, uncertain future?

Because doing so forces us out of the rut of our current thinking. We engage dormant neural pathways thereby, and begin to see the clear blue sky of what's possible.

True North is also the ‘tie-breaker’, to which we turn for guidance at critical moments. “Is this who we are? Is this where we’re going and how’ll we get there?”

True North will tell us. For example, imagine we are a designer & manufacturer of high-end lighting solving challenging technical problems in high-margin niche markets. Our hoshin is Speed Style Invention. Now suppose a major automotive company, say Toyota, approached us and said, “We’d like you to manufacture lighting for our next Lexus model.”

How would we respond? The answer is clear, no? “We’ll have to decline, with great respect, because that’s not what we do, that’s not who we are.”

Our annual plans will be simple & modular one-pagers that express our hypotheses. We’re often wrong, but we adjust quickly. Life never goes according to plan. Clear hypotheses & modular plans enable the rapid PDCA cycles that’ll dispel the fog & get us closer and closer to True North.

Strategy Deployment is messy, humbling, intuitive, a marriage between the Right & Left brain, between intuition & logic, art & science.

I'm reminded of Jack Nicklaus, perhaps the greatest golfer ever, whose swing routine always entailed imagining the perfect shot.

Or of Michelangelo seeing the perfect sculpture in the marble block.

Have a good summer, all,

Pascal



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

Frontiers - Lean & IT
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
On Big Data
Why Lean Outside the Factory?

"How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?"

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

An elderly Japanese asked me this question a long time ago and it has stayed with me. How, indeed, do we motivate people to do extraordinary things?

There are many schools of thought. The carrot & stick is perhaps the oldest. "Do as I say or I'll do bad things to you!" There's no denying it works – to a point.

But the carrot & stick is a classic ‘push’ system. Is there any pull? Does it motivate creative work, breakthrough work?

Did Steve Jobs motivate his designers to want to create the IPod, IPhone, IPad by threatening them continually? No doubt there was an element of fear. "Don’t want Steve hollering at me again!"

But there was much more. Transcendent achievement requires connection to a deeper purpose – to a ‘Noble Goal’.

Jobs' celebrated hoshin (motto) is a good example. Let's put a ding in the universe.

Subtext: Let’s kick butt & take names! Let’s shoot the moon! Let’s give it everything we’ve got! And why? Because we’re human & we only live once. So let’s let the universe know we were here, that we lived to the fullest and left our mark.

Despite his idiosyncrasies, Jobs touched the heart. His 2005 Stanford commencement speech gets me every time.

‘Something for the head, something for the heart’, I’ve suggested Getting the Right Things Done.

And so, to motivate a team to strive for the transcendent, define and commit to a Noble Goal. Our hoshin here at Lean Pathways is Laughs, Learning & Lucre! – which reflects our purpose & priorities.

We often get it wrong. But by articulating our Purpose clearly, we can see abnormalities and are usually able to get back to a good condition.

Next time: How do we sustain our activities in the face of hurtles, hassles and hammerheads?

Best regards,

Pascal




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

What is a Good Life?
To Learn Corporate Strategy, Study the Military Masters
Why is laughter important in business?
Practical Problem Solving – Proving Cause & Effect

Reflections on True North

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

A New Year, and a new strategic cycle. Strategy begins with our strategic & philosophical Purpose, also known as True North.

True North comprises:

1. a "Hard" goal, usually entailing critical end-of-pipe measures, e.g. Revenue, EBIT, fatalities, and,
2. a "Broad-brush" goal (hoshin), a few words defining our purpose, vision, commitment

I encourage leaders to draw a picture of where we want to be, how we’ll get there, and how we will go about our business.

The business chessboard is foggy, multi-dimensional, and unpredictable. Why bother to define a distant, uncertain future?

Because doing so forces us out of the rut of our current thinking. We engage dormant neural pathways thereby, and begin to see the clear blue sky of what's possible.

True North is also the ‘tie-breaker’, to which we turn for guidance at critical moments. “Is this who we are? Is this where we’re going and how’ll we get there?”

True North will tell us. For example, imagine we are a designer & manufacturer of high-end lighting solving challenging technical problems in high-margin niche markets. Our hoshin is Speed Style Invention. Now suppose a major automotive company, say Toyota, approached us and said, “We’d like you to manufacture lighting for our next Lexus model.”

How would we respond? The answer is clear, no? “We’ll have to decline, with great respect, because that’s not what we do, that’s not who we are.”

Our annual plans will be simple & modular one-pagers that express our hypotheses. We’re often wrong, but we adjust quickly. Life never goes according to plan. Clear hypotheses & modular plans enable the rapid PDCA cycles that’ll dispel the fog & get us closer and closer to True North.

Strategy Deployment is messy, humbling, intuitive, a marriage between the Right & Left brain, between intuition & logic, art & science.

I'm reminded of Jack Nicklaus, perhaps the greatest golfer ever, whose swing routine always entailed imagining the perfect shot.

Or of Michelangelo seeing the perfect sculpture in the marble block.

Have a good year, all,

Pascal

"How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?"

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

An elderly Japanese asked me this question a long time ago and it has stayed with me. How, indeed, do we motivate people to do extraordinary things?

There are many schools of thought. The carrot & stick is perhaps the oldest. "Do as I say or I'll do bad things to you!" There's no denying it works – to a point.

But the carrot & stick is a classic ‘push’ system. Is there any pull? Does it motivate creative work, breakthrough work?

Did Steve Jobs motivate his designers to want to create the IPod, IPhone, IPad by threatening them continually? No doubt there was an element of fear. "Don’t want Steve hollering at me again!"

But there was much more. Transcendent achievement requires connection to a deeper purpose – to a ‘Noble Goal’.

Jobs' celebrated hoshin (motto) is a good example. Let's put a ding in the universe.

Subtext: Let’s kick butt & take names! Let’s shoot the moon! Let’s give it everything we’ve got! And why? Because we’re human & we only live once. So let’s let the universe know we were here, that we lived to the fullest and left our mark.

Despite his idiosyncrasies, Jobs touched the heart. His 2005 Stanford commencement speech gets me every time.

‘Something for the head, something for the heart’, I’ve suggested Getting the Right Things Done.

And so, to motivate a team to strive for the transcendent, define and commit to a Noble Goal. Our hoshin here at Lean Pathways is Laughs, Learning & Lucre! – which reflects our purpose & priorities.

We often get it wrong. But by articulating our Purpose clearly, we can see abnormalities and are usually able to get back to a good condition.

Next time: How do we sustain our activities in the face of hurtles, hassles and hammerheads?

Best regards,

Pascal

Change & the Light Touch

By Pascal Dennis

Change is hard; change hurts.

Yet, in an ever-changing world, change is necessary.

Adapt or Die would be a reasonable hoshin in most companies.

Change is nobody's constituency, whereas the status quo is everyone's.

It's remarkable, really, that organizations are able to change at all.

Lean Pathways transformation approach is based on fifteen years of empirical science.

(In other words, we've learned what works through trial & error, in the form of rapid PDCA cycles.)

The Remedy and Getting the Right Things Done give some idea what it feels like.

Sooner or later, and usually between years 1 & 2, the existing culture's anti-bodies counterattack.

We've found that the Light Touch is essential then, and throughout the change process.

The Light Touch is central to our practice and informed by the following reflections:

• Most of the problem is in the system, not the people
• Most people are decent & hard-working and want do what's right,
• Change is hardest for middle management
• Humour helps the medicine go down
• People learn best when they're laughing

Lean Pathways doodles & humour (such as it is) are humble expressions of this philosophy.

Of course, maintaining the Light Touch in the face of hostility requires sound technique.

(Lean fundamentals needs to be rooted in your unconscious mind.)

The Light Touch has helped to turn many a sour Grumbler into an 'Okay-I'll-try' Watcher - and some into 'This-could-work!' Rowers.

Perhaps most important, the Light Touch expresses fundamental decency & respect for people.

(Absent these, you can't sustain a damned thing.)

Change is hard; change hurts.

Remember the Light Touch

Best,

Pascal