The Control Tower – Learning to See What Is

Pascal Dennis, co-author of Harnessing Digital Disruption

See what is - Pema Chodron

Last time I talked about the cognitive biases that afflict human beings and hinder our ability to see. I used the Electromagnetic spectrum as a metaphor, explaining that we only see a tiny portion of what’s there. I suggested visual management, humility, diversity and going to see for yourself as possible countermeasures to our inherent near-sightedness.

How do you build all this into your management systems & daily routines? I’d like to talk about perhaps the most useful management system: the Control Tower (aka Big Room, Cockpit or ‘Obeya’). This is a large room in analogue and/or digital space that expresses ‘What is Actually Happening’ (WAH) and ‘What Should Be Happening’ WSBH with simple, clear visual systems. Typically, the Control Tower has three ‘walls’:

• What’s our Aspiration & Winning Logic?
• What is happening right now versus what should be happening?
• What are our biggest blockers & what are we doing about them?

In earlier articles I described the four levels of visual management. We need to apply these ideas to tell compelling stories for our key audiences. Typically, our audiences include:

• Our team
• Those who report to us
• Other teams whose support we need, and sometimes
• The Board

Each audience has specific questions it wants answered.

We need to define our Rules of Engagement in advance, and senior leaders are responsible for setting the tone. Here are a few sample rules:

• Talk less - seek to listen and understand.
• Leave your rank at the door
• No HiPPOs or ZEBRAs¹
• Data trumps ‘blah blah blah’
• Encourage broad engagement. Ideally, everybody should speak (with brevity & focus)

We also need to define our Control Tower’s ‘Operating Rhythm’ comprising the Purpose, Process, Expected Outcome, Inputs & Timing. Each session should have a meeting owner and a meeting observer who provides objective feedback: (‘How well did we follow our Rules of Engagement and Operating Rhythm?’)

The Control Tower is a form of theater that reflects our values, standards and culture. We’re telling a true & meaningful story to audiences that are deeply invested and whose help we need to succeed. We’re also expressing who we are, and what we believe in.

As in any good drama, leave the boring parts out. Keep report outs short & focused. ‘Target, actual, please explain’ is an excellent mantra, reinforcing the virtue of simplicity and clarity. ‘Blah, blah, blah’ usually means we don’t know what we’re talking about.

Senior leaders must set the tone by reinforcing standards of behavior. One of my formative experiences was an inept presentation to senior leaders I deeply admired. The President looked at me and simply said, ‘Please do not come here unprepared again, Pascal-san.’

The ensuing silence was painful, but I got the message: Why are you wasting everybody’s time? You know our standards. We expect much more from you. I resolved to do everything within my power to improve. That’s the power of the Control Tower, standards, and strong, ethical leadership.


^{1. Highest Paid Person’s Opinion; Zero Expertise But Really Arrogant↩}

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org




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

The Hardest Thing - Seeing What Is
Fundamentals of OpEx/Lean, Part 2
Fundamentals of OpEx/Lean, Part 1
Canada's Innovation Makeover: Singapore’s Cheat Sheet

If It’s Not Simple, It's…

Pascal Dennis, author of Getting the Right Things Done

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, "any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he's doing is a charlatan." This principle is especially true in Strategy execution, where human leadership & charisma cannot be replaced. In fact, it is my strong belief that in the age of AI, these will comprise the essential, irreplaceable app.

AI agents will eventually be able to handle many jobs, but can they define, deploy & execute Strategy? Can AI agents define Purpose in a transcendent way, such that gifted team members embrace it, and put their differences aside for a great goal? Can AI agents motivate a team to sustain its heart & fighting spirit in the face of inevitable setbacks, to keep going in spite of everything? (To be sure, the teams of the future will comprise both human and AI agents.)

"What are we trying to achieve? “How will we win - what is the logic?" In Strategy sessions, I`m a proverbial broken record. We've been taught that complexity is profound. In fact, complexity is a crude state. Simplicity marks the end of a process of refining.

The late great physicist, Richard Feynman, looked and talked like a New York City cabbie. His Caltech freshmen lectures in Physics, and all his books are classics for their simplicity & humor. How did Feynman achieve that level of clarity? Through slow, patient reflection, by turning a problem over and over in his mind until a 'simple' explanation suggested itself. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and is a process of refinement.

© 2025 Lean Pathways Inc.

In our frantic, time-starved age, that's where the shoe pinches, no? These days, who has time to turn a problem over and over in their mind? Who has the time, as Einstein did, to imagine himself riding a light beam - so as to makes sense of time and gravity and light?

Which invokes the second great law of strategy: Less is more. Knowing we'll be time-starved, please let's not over-fill our strategy plates, like teenagers at a buffet. "First we'll do this, then this and this and that over there. Oh, and then we'll..."

Design Thinking & Lean Experimentation, core Innovation methodologies, force you to simplify and clarify your offering. Once we’ve answered a series of core questions around the customer, we work our way up the ‘hockey stick’ by defining & validating a series of ‘minimal’ offerings.

Similarly, in strategy, we want to define, deploy & validate our 'minimum viable plan', monitoring what happens, and adjusting as the inevitable 'known, and unknown, unknowns' arise.

Breakthrough entails walking up the stairs in the fog, continually making & easy quick experiments, most of them yielding a negative result. If it’s not simple, it’s BS.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

PS To learn more about my Strategy Execution program, Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World, feel free to drop me a line.




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

Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds, Part 2
Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds
Innovation Does Not Begin with Technology
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World