Trust – Page 2 – HCSE Blog

08/06/2013

Middle-Aware

[Dring Dring]

<Bob> Hi Leslie, how are you today?

<Leslie> Really good thanks. We are making progress and it is really exciting to see tangible and measurable improvement in safety, delivery, quality and financial stability.

<Bob> That is good to hear. So what topic shall we explore today?

<Leslie> I would like to return to the topic of engagement.

<Bob> OK. I am sensing that you have a specific Niggle that you would like to share.

<Leslie> Yes. Specifically it is engaging the Board.

<Bob> Ah ha. I wondered when we would get to that. Can you describe your Niggle?

<Leslie> Well, the feeling is fear and that follows from the risk of being identified as a trouble-maker which follows from exposing gaps in knowledge and understanding of seniors.

<Bob> Well put. This is an expected hurdle that all Improvement Scientists have to learn to leap reliably. What is the barrier that you see?

<Leslie> That I do not know how to do it and I have seen a lot of people try and commit career-suicide – like moths on a flame.

<Bob> OK – so it is a real fear based on real evidence. What methods did the “toasted moths” try?

<Leslie> Some got angry and blasted off angry send-to-all emails. They just succeeded in identifying themselves as “terrorists” and were dismissed – politically and actually. Others channeled their passion more effectively by heroic acts that held the system together for a while – and they succeeded in burning themselves out. The end result was the same: toasted!

<Bob> So with your understanding of design principles what does that say?

<Leslie> That the design of their engagement process is wrong.

<Bob> Wrong?

<Leslie> I mean “not fit for purpose”.

<Bob> And the difference is?

<Leslie> “Wrong” is a subjective judgement, “not fit for purpose” is an objective assessment.

<Bob> Yes. We need to be careful with words. So what is the “purpose”?

<Leslie> An organisation that is capable of consistently delivering improvement on all dimensions, safety, delivery, quality and affordability.

<Bob> Which requires?

<Leslie> All the parts working in synergy to a common purpose.

<Bob> So what are the parts?

<Leslie> The departments.

<Bob> They are the stages that the streams cross – they are parts of system structure. I am thinking more broadly.

<Leslie> The workers, the managers and the executives?

<Bob> Yes. And how is that usually perceived?

<Leslie> As a power hierarchy.

<Bob> And do physical systems have power hierarchies?

<Leslie> No … they have components with different and complementary roles.

<Bob> So does that help?

<Leslie> Yes! To achieve synergy each component has to know its complementary role and be competent to do it.

<Bob> And each must understand the roles of the others, respect the difference, and develop trust in their competence.

<Leslie> And the concepts of understanding, respect and trust appears again.

<Bob> Indeed. They are always there in one form or another.

<Leslie> So as learning and improvement is a challenge then engagement is respectful challenge …

<Bob> … uh huh …

<Leslie> … and each part is different so requires a different form of respectful challenge?

<Bob> Yes. And with three parts there are six relationships between them – so six different ways of one part respectfully challenging another. Six different designs that have the same purpose but a different context.

<Leslie> Ah ha! And if we do not use the context-dependent-fit-for-purpose-respectful-challenge-design we do not achieve our purpose?

<Bob> Correct. The principles of design are generic.

<Leslie> So what are the six designs?

<Bob> Let us explore three of them. First the context of a manager respectfully challenging a worker to improve.

<Leslie> That would require some form of training. Either the manager trains the worker or employs someone else to.

<Bob> Yes – and when might a manager delegate training?

<Leslie> When they do not have time to or do not know how to.

<Bob> Yes. So how would the flaw in that design be avoided?

<Leslie> By the manager maintaining their own know-how by doing enough training themselves and delegating the rest.

<Bob> Yup. Well done. OK let us consider a manager respectfully challenging other managers to improve.

<Leslie> I see what you mean. That is a completely different dynamic. The closest I can think of is a coaching arrangement.

<Bob> Yes. Coaching is quite different from training. It is more of a two-way relationship and I prefer to refer to it as “informal co-coaching” because both respectfully challenge each other in different ways; both share knowledge; and both learn and develop.

<Leslie> And that is what you are doing now?

<Bob> Yes. The only difference is that we have agreed a formal coaching contract. So what about a worker respectfully challenging a manager or a manager respectfully challenging an executive?

<Leslie>That is a very different dynamic. It is not training and it is not coaching.

<Bob> What other options are there?

<Leslie>Not formal coaching! An executive is not going to ask a middle manager to coach them!

<Bob> You are right on both counts – so what is the essence of informal coaching?

<Leslie> An informal coach provides a different perspective and will say what they see if asked and will ask questions that help to illustrate alternative perspectives and offer evidence of alternative options. This is just well-structured, judgement-free feedback.

<Bob> Yes. We do it all the time. And we are often “coached” by those much younger than ourselves who have a more modern perspective. Our children for instance.

<Leslie> So the judgement free feedback metaphor is the one that a manager can use to engage an executive.

<Bob> Yes. And look at it from the perspective of the executive – they want feedback that can help them made wiser strategic decisions. That is their role. Boards are always asking for customer feedback, staff feedback and performance feedback. They want to know the Nuggets, the Niggles, the Nice Ifs and the NoNos. They just do not ask for it like that.

<Leslie> So they are no different from the rest of us?

<Bob> Not in respect of an insatiable appetite for unfiltered and undistorted feedback. What is different is their role. They are responsible for the strategic decisions – the ones that affect us all – so we can help ourselves by helping them make those decisions. A well-designed feedback model is fit-for-that-purpose.

<Leslie> And an Improvement Scientist needs to be able to do all three – training, coaching and communicating in a collaborative informal style. Is that leadership?

<Bob> I call it “middle-aware”.

<Leslie> It makes complete sense to me. There is a lot of new stuff here and I will need to reflect on it. Thank you once again for showing me a different perspective on the problem.

<Bob> I enjoyed it too – talking it through helps me to learn to explain it better – and I look forward to hearing the conclusions from your reflections because I know I will learn from that too.

25/05/2013

Burn-and-Scrape

[Ring Ring]

<Bob> Hi Leslie how are you to today?

<Leslie> I am good thanks Bob and looking forward to today’s session. What is the topic?

<Bob> We will use your Niggle-o-Gram® to choose something. What is top of the list?

<Leslie> Let me see. We have done “Engagement” and “Productivity” so it looks like “Near-Misses” is next.

<Bob> OK. That is an excellent topic. What is the specific Niggle?

<Leslie> “We feel scared when we have a safety near-miss because we know that there is a catastrophe waiting to happen.”

<Bob> OK so the Purpose is to have a system that we can trust not to generate avoidable harm. Is that OK?

<Leslie> Yes – well put. When I ask myself the purpose question I got a “do” answer rather than a “have” one. The word trust is key too.

<Bob> OK – what is the current safety design used in your organisation?

<Leslie> We have a computer system for reporting near misses – but it does not deliver the purpose above. If the issue is ranked as low harm it is just counted, if medium harm then it may be mentioned in a report, and if serious harm then all hell breaks loose and there is a root cause investigation conducted by a committee that usually results in a new “you must do this extra check” policy.

<Bob> Ah! The Burn-and-Scrape model.

<Leslie>Pardon? What was that? Our Governance Department call it the Swiss Cheese model.

<Bob> Burn-and-Scrape is where we wait for something to go wrong – we burn the toast – and then we attempt to fix it – we scrape the burnt toast to make it look better. It still tastes burnt though and badly burnt toast is not salvageable.

<Leslie>Yes! That is exactly what happens all the time – most issues never get reported – we just “scrape the burnt toast” at all levels.

<Bob> One flaw with the Burn-and-Scrape design is that harm has to happen for the design to work.

It is all reactive.

Another design flaw is that it focuses attention on the serious harm first – avoidable mortality for example. Counting the extra body bags completely misses the purpose. Avoidable death means avoidably shortened lifetime. Avoidable non-fatal will also shorten lifetime – and it is even harder to measure. Just consider the cumulative effect of all that non-fatal life-shortening avoidable-but-ignored harm?

Most of the reasons that we live longer today is because we have removed a lot of lifetime shortening hazards – like infectious disease and severe malnutrition.

Take health care as an example – accurately measuring avoidable mortality in an inherently high-risk system is rather difficult. And to conclude “no action needed” from “no statistically significant difference in mortality between us and the global average” is invalid and it leads to a complacent delusion that what we have is good enough. When it comes to harm it is never “good enough”.

<Leslie> But we do not have the resources to investigate the thousands of cases of minor harm – we have to concentrate on the biggies.

<Bob> And do the near misses keep happening?

<Leslie> Yes – that is why they are top rank on the Niggle-o-Gram®.

<Bob> So the Burn-and-Scrape design is not fit-for-purpose.

<Leslie> So it seems. But what is the alternative? If there was one we would be using it – surely?

<Bob> Look back Leslie. How many of the Improvement Science methods that you have already learned are business-as-usual?

<Leslie> Good point. Almost none.

<Bob> And do they work?

<Leslie> You betcha!

<Bob> This is another example. It is possible to design systems to be safe – so the frequent near misses become rare events.

<Leslie> Is it? Wow! That know-how would be really useful to have. Can you teach me?

<Bob> Yes. First we need to explore what the benefits would be.

<Leslie> OK – well first there would be no avoidable serious harm and we could trust in the safety of our system – which is the purpose.

<Bob> Yes …. and?

<Leslie> And … all the effort, time and cost spent “scraping the burnt toast” would be released.

<Bob> Yes …. and?

<Leslie> The safer-by-design processes would be quicker and smoother, a more enjoyable experience for both customers and suppliers, and probably less expensive as well!

<Bob> Yes. So what does that all add up to?

<Leslie> A win-win-win-win outcome!

<Bob> Indeed. So a one-off investment of effort, time and money in learning Safety-by-Design methods would appear to be a wise business decision.

<Leslie> Yes indeed! When do we start?

<Bob> We have already started.

For a real-world example of this approach delivering a significant and sustained improvement in safety click here.

11/05/2013

“When the Student is ready …”

Improvement Science is not a new idea. The principles are enduring and can be traced back as far as recorded memory – for Millennia. This means that there is a deep well of ancient wisdom that we can draw from. Much of this wisdom is condensed into short sayings which capture a fundamental principle or essence.

One such saying is attributed to Zen Buddhism and goes “When the Student is ready the Teacher will appear.“

This captures the essence of a paradigm shift – a term made popular by Thomas S Kuhn in his seminal 1962 book – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It was written just over 50 years ago.

System-wide change takes time and the first stage is the gradual build up of dissatisfaction with the current paradigm. The usual reaction from the Guardians of the Status Quo is to silence the first voices of dissent, often brutally. As the pressure grows there are too many voices to silence individually so more repressive Policies and Policing are introduced. This works for a while but does not dissolve the drivers of dissatisfaction. The pressure builds and the cracks start to appear. This is a dangerous phase.

There are three ways out: repression, revolution, and evolution. The last one is the preferred option – and it requires effective leadership to achieve. Effective leaders are both Teachers and Students. Knowledge and understanding flow through them as they acquire Wisdom.

The first essence of the message is that the solutions to the problems are already known – but the reason they are not widely known and used is our natural affection for the familiar and our distrust of the unfamiliar. If we are comfortable then why change?

It is only when we are uncomfortable enough that we will start to look for ways to regain comfort – physical and psychological.

The second essence of the message is that to change we need to learn something and that means we have to become Students, and to seek the guidance of a Teacher. Someone who understands the problems, their root causes, the solutions, the benefits and most importantly – how to disseminate that knowledge and understanding. A Teacher that can show us how not just tell us what.

The third essence of the message is that the Students become Teachers themselves as they put into practice what they have learned and prove to themselves that it works, and it is workable. The new understanding flows along the Optimism-Skepticism gradient until the Tipping Point is reached. It is then unstoppable and the Paradigm flips. Often remarkably quickly.

The risk is that change means opportunity and there are many who can sniff out an opportunity to cash in on the change chaos. They are the purveyors of Snakeoil – and they prey on the dissatisfied and desperate.

So how does a Student know a True-Teacher from a Snakeoil Salesperson?

Simple – the genuine Teacher will be able to show a portfolio of successes and delighted ex-students; will be able to explain and demonstrate how they were both achieved; will be willing to share their knowledge; and will respectfully decline to teach someone who they feel is not yet ready to learn.

15/04/2013

Burn Your Bridges and Boats

There are many stories from history on the theme of famous leaders symbolically burning bridges and boats.

They do this because they know that when they have no way back to the past then they are forced to face the future.

When we have no run-away option we have to overcome the challenges that face us – and we surprise and delight ourselves when we learn what we were always capable of achieving!

Our fear of change coupled with a too-easy escape route leads to giving up when the going gets a bit too tough. We choose to fail.

Then we erode our confidence a bit more and are even less likely to try next time.

It is not our ability to succeed or the possibility of success that is the issue. The issue is that we continually create self-fulfilling-failure-prophesies. Or some of us do.

Fortunately there are a some tenacious, courageous and optimistic innovators who keep getting back on the horse. They are a bit angry – mainly at themselves.

And there is a Chinese proverb that says:

“Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.“

Burning the bridges and the boats can be the bravest and wisest decision that an effective leader can make. It broadcasts a powerful message. It says: “We are all in this together and I believe we can succeed“.

The NHS has just burned its bridges and boats.

The old wooden PCTs and SHAs have gone up in smoke – and the cash is now held by an innovative new design called Clinical Commissioning Groups.

This change was made final on 1st April 2013 (April Fool’s Day sneer the cynics) – and it is now essentially irreversible. We are all in it together.

What is most interesting to observe is how quiet it seems to have gone. We now have to sink or swim with the new system. And what seems to be happening is that people are getting on with it – and surprising themselves with what they can achieve.

Wasting time complaining reduces our chance of survival and the whiners have become a liability.

Which is good because we will see what is possible when our leaders torch our bridges and boats and we are forced to listen to our inner innovative voices! The ones that we have been drowning out with whining, wailing and complaining for years.

And there is another cultural dimension to this symbolic pyre metaphor. It is important to say “goodbye” to the past and to do so with respect. It is important to mourn the loss of what was good and to acknowledge the passing of what was bad. It was not all good and it was not all bad. Both sadness and relief are natural parts of change and improvement. They are part of the emotional transition process. The Nerve Curve.

And I know just how this sort of transition feels because this week I went through a major one. I upgraded my old push-button mobile phone to a phablet. Wow! What a transition! I’m going to call it a “fablet”.

I have to say that I have been looking forward to it with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. I felt a sad to finally say goodbye to my trusted Blackberry and I felt relieved to say goodbye to its Niggles. The deed is done. The phone number and contacts have been transferred. There is no going back. The boat and bridge are burned. And it was done seamlessly, quickly and with minimal pain. The trigger was the sand running out on my old phone contract. Thank you Car Phone Warehouse – you provided a fabulous service!

And the new fablet feels like an old friend already.

So, onwards and forwards … and so many new and exciting opportunities to explore! And two days after getting the fablet I am writing Android apps in Java (that is geek-speak just to be extra-super-nerdy) – I would never have done that with the old phone!

15/02/2013

What Can I Do To Help?

The growing debate about the safety of our health care systems is gaining momentum.

This is not just a UK phenomenon.

The same question was being asked 10 years ago across the pond by many people – perhaps the most familiar name is Don Berwick.

The term Improvement Science has been buzzing around for a long time. This is a global – not just a local challenge.

Seeing the shameful reality in black-and-white [the Francis Report] is a nasty shock to everyone. There are no winners here. Our blissful ignorance is gone. Painful awareness has arrived.

The usual emotional reaction to being shoved from blissful ignorance into painful awareness is characteristic; and it does not matter if it is discovering horse in your beef pie or hearing of 1200 avoidable deaths in a UK hospital.

Our emotional reaction is a predictable sequence that goes something like:

Shock => Denial => Anger =>Bargaining =>Depression =>Acceptance

=> Resolution.

It is the psychological healing process that is called the grief reaction and it is a normal part of the human psyche. We all do it. And we do it both individually and collectively. I remember well the global grief reactions that followed the sudden explosion of Challenger; the sudden death of Princess Diana; and the sudden collapse of the Twin Towers.

Fortunately such avoidable tragedies are uncommon.

The same chain-reaction happens to a lesser degree in any sudden change. We grieve the loss of our old way of thinking – we mourn the passing away our comfortable rhetoric that has been rudely and suddenly disproved by harsh reality. This is the Nerve Curve. And learning to ride it safely is a critical-to-survival life skill. Especially in turbulent times.

The UK population has suffered two psychological shocks in recent weeks – the discovery of horse in the beef pie and the fuller public disclosure of the story behind the 1000’s of avoidable deaths in one of our Trust hospitals. Both are now escalating and the finger of blame is pointing squarely at a common cause: the money-tail-wagging-the-safety-dog.

So what will happen next? The Wall of Denial has been dynamited with hard evidence. We are now into the Collective Anger phase.

First there will be widespread righteous indignation and a strong desire to blame, to hunt down the evil ones, and to crucify the responsible and accountable. Partly as punishment, partly as a lesson to others, and partly to prevent them doing harm again. Uncontrolled anger is dangerous especially when there is a lethal weapon to hand. The more controlled, action-oriented and future-focused will want to do something about it. Now! There will be rallies, and soap-boxes, and megaphones. The We-Told-You-So brigade will get shoved aside and trampled in the rush to do something – ANYTHING. Conferences will be hastily arranged and those most fearful for their reputations and jobs will cough up the cash and clear their diaries. They will be expected to be there. They will be. Desperately looking for answers. Anxiously seeking credible leaders. And the snake-oil salesmen will have a bonanza! The calmer, more reflective, phlegmatic, academic types will call for more money for more research so that we can fully analyse and fully understand the problem before we do anything.

And while the noisy bargaining for more cash keeps everyone busy the harm will continue to happen.

Eventually the message will sink in as the majority accept that there is no way to change the past; that we cannot cling to what is out-of-date thinking; and that all of our new-reality-avoiding tactics are fruitless. And we are forced to accept that there is no more cash. Now we are in danger of becoming helpless and hopeless, slipping into depression, and then into despair. We are at risk of giving up and letting ourselves wallow and drown in self-pity. This is a dangerous phase. Depression is understandable but it is avoidable because there is always something than can be done. We can always ask the elephant-in-the-room questions. Inside we usually know the answers.

We accept the new reality; we accept that we cannot change the past, we accept that we have some learning to do; we accept that we have to adjust; and we accept that all of us can do something.

Now we have reached the most important stage – resolution. This is the test of our resolve. Are we all-talk or can we convert talk-to-walk?

We can all ask ourselves one question: “What can I do to help?”

I have asked myself that question and my first answer was “As a system designer I can help by looking at this challenge as a design assignment and describe what I see “.

Design starts with the intended outcome, the vision, the goal, the objective, the specification, the target.

The design goal is: Significant reduction in avoidable harm in the NHS, quickly, and at no extra cost.

[Please note that a design goal is a “what we get” not a “what we do”. It is a purpose and not just a process.]

Now we can invite, gather, dream-up, brain-storm any number of design options and then we can consider logically and rationally how well they might meet our design goal.

What are some of the design options on the table?

Design Option 1. Create a cadre of hospital inspectors.

Nope – that will take time and money and inspection alone does not guarantee better outcomes. We have enough evidence of that.

Design Option 2. Get lots more PhDs funded, do high quality academic research, write papers, publish them and hope the evidence is put into practice.

Nope – that will take time and money too and publication alone does not guarantee adoption of the lessons and delivery of better outcomes. We have enough evidence of that too. What is proven to be efficacious in a research trial is not necessarily effective, practical or affordable in reality.

Design Option 3. Put together conferences and courses to teach/train a new generation of competent healthcare improvement practitioners.

Maybe – it has the potential to deliver the outcome but it too will take time and money. We have been doing conferences and courses for decades – they are not very cost-effective. The Internet may have changed things though.

Design Option 4. All of the above plus broadcast via the Internet the current pragmatic know-how of the basics of safe system design to everyone in the NHS so that they know what is possible and they know how to get started.

Promising – it has the greatest potential to deliver the required outcome, a broadcast will cost nothing and it can start working immediately.

OK – Option 4 it is – here we go …

The Basics of How To Design a Safe System

Definition 1: Safe means free of risk of harm.

Definition 2: Harm is the result of hazards combining with risks.

There are two components to safe system design – the people stuff and the process stuff.

For example a busy main road is designed to facilitate the transport of stuff from A to B. It also represents a hazard – the potential for harm. If the vehicles bump into each other or other things then harm will result. So a lot of the design of the vehicles and the roads is about reducing the risk of bumps or mitigating the effects (e.g. seat-belts).

The risk is multi-factorial. If you drive at high speed, under the influence of recreational drugs, at night, on an icy road then the probability of having a bump is high. If you step into a busy road without looking then the risk of getting bumped into is high too.

So the path to better safety is to eliminate as many hazards as possible and to reduce the risks as much as possible. And we have to do that without unintentionally creating more hazards, higher risks, excessive delays and higher costs.

So how is this done outside healthcare?

One tried-and-tested method for designing safer processes is called FMEA – Failure Modes and Effects Analysis.

Now that sounds really nerdy and it is. It is an attention-to-detail exercise that will make your brain ache and your eyes bleed. But it works – so it is worthwhile learning the basic principles.

For the people part there is the whole body of Human Factors Research to access. This is also a bit nerdy for us hands-on oily-rag pragmatists so if you want something more practical immediately then have a go with The 4N Chart and the Niggle-o-Gram (which is a form of emotional FMEA). This short summary is also free to download, read, print, copy, share, discuss and use.

OK – I am off to design and build something else – an online course for teaching safety-by-design.

What are you going to do to help improve safety in the NHS?

10/02/2013

The Writing on the Wall – Part II

The retrospectoscope is the favourite instrument of the forensic cynic – the expert in the after-the-event-and-I-told-you-so rhetoric. The rabble-rouser for the lynch-mob.

It feels better to retrospectively nail-to-a-cross the person who committed the Cardinal Error of Omission, and leave them there in emotional and financial pain as a visible lesson to everyone else.

This form of public feedback has been used for centuries.

It is called barbarism, and it has no place in a modern civilised society.

A more constructive question to ask is:

“Could the evolving Mid-Staffordshire crisis have been detected earlier … and avoided?”

And this question exposes a tricky problem: it is much more difficult to predict the future than to explain the past. And if it could have been detected and avoided earlier, then how is that done? And if the how-is-known then is everyone else in the NHS using this know-how to detect and avoid their own evolving Mid-Staffs crisis?

To illustrate how it is currently done let us use the actual Mid-Staffs data. It is conveniently available in Figure 1 embedded in Figure 5 on Page 360 in Appendix G of Volume 1 of the first Francis Report. If you do not have it at your fingertips I have put a copy of it below.

The message does not exactly leap off the page and smack us between the eyes does it? Even with the benefit of hindsight. So what is the problem here?

The problem is one of ergonomics. Tables of numbers like this are very difficult for most people to interpret, so they create a risk that we ignore the data or that we just jump to the bottom line and miss the real message. And It is very easy to miss the message when we compare the results for the current period with the previous one – a very bad habit that is spread by accountants.

This was a slowly emerging crisis so we need a way of seeing it evolving and the better way to present this data is as a time-series chart.

As we are most interested in safety and outcomes, then we would reasonably look at the outcome we do not want – i.e. mortality. I think we will all agree that it is an easy enough one to measure.

MS_RawDeaths This is the raw mortality data from the table above, plotted as a time-series chart. The green line is the average and the red-lines are a measure of variation-over-time. We can all see that the raw mortality is increasing and the red flags say that this is a statistically significant increase. Oh dear!

But hang on just a minute – using raw mortality data like this is invalid because we all know that the people are getting older, demand on our hospitals is rising, A&Es are busier, older people have more illnesses, and more of them will not survive their visit to our hospital. This rise in mortality may actually just be because we are doing more work.

Good point! Let us plot the activity data and see if there has been an increase.

Yes – indeed the activity has increased significantly too.

Told you so! And it looks like the activity has gone up more than the mortality. Does that mean we are actually doing a better job at keeping people alive? That sounds like a more positive message for the Board and the Annual Report. But how do we present that message? What about as a ratio of mortality to activity? That will make it easier to compare ourselves with other hospitals.

Good idea! Here is the Raw Mortality Ratio chart.

Ah ha. See! The % mortality is falling significantly over time. Told you so.

Careful. There is an unstated assumption here. The assumption that the case mix is staying the same over time. This pattern could also be the impact of us doing a greater proportion of lower complexity and lower risk work. So we need to correct this raw mortality data for case mix complexity – and we can do that by using data from all NHS hospitals to give us a frame of reference. Dr Foster can help us with that because it is quite a complicated statistical modelling process. What comes out of Dr Fosters black magic box is the Global Hospital Raw Mortality (GHRM) which is the expected number of deaths for our case mix if we were an ‘average’ NHS hospital.

What this says is that the NHS-wide raw mortality risk appears to be falling over time (which may be for a wide variety of reasons but that is outside the scope of this conversation). So what we now need to do is compare this global raw mortality risk with our local raw mortality risk … to give the Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio.

This gives us the Mid Staffordshire Hospital HSMR chart. The blue line at 100 is the reference average – and what this chart says is that Mid Staffordshire hospital had a consistently higher risk than the average case-mix adjusted mortality risk for the whole NHS. And it says that it got even worse after 2001 and that it stayed consistently 20% higher after 2003.

Ah! Oh dear! That is not such a positive message for the Board and the Annual Report. But how did we miss this evolving safety catastrophe? We had the Dr Foster data from 2001

This is not a new problem – a similar thing happened in Vienna between 1820 and 1850 with maternal deaths caused by Childbed Fever. The problem was detected by Dr Ignaz Semmelweis who also discovered a simple, pragmatic solution to the problem: hand washing. He blew the whistle but unfortunately those in power did not like the implication that they had been the cause of thousands of avoidable mother and baby deaths. Semmelweis was vilified and ignored, and he did not publish his data until 1861. And even then the story was buried in tables of numbers. Semmelweis went mad trying to convince the World that there was a problem. Here is the full story.

Also, time-series charts were not invented until 1924 – and it was not in healthcare – it was in manufacturing. These tried-and-tested safety and quality improvement tools are only slowly diffusing into healthcare because the barriers to innovation appear somewhat impervious.

And the pores have been clogged even more by the social poison called “cynicide” – the emotional and political toxin exuded by cynics.

So how could we detect a developing crisis earlier – in time to avoid a catastrophe?

The first step is to estimate the excess-death-equivalent. Dr Foster does this for you.Here is the data from the table plotted as a time-series chart that shows that the estimated-excess-death-equivalent per year. It has an average of 100 (that is two per week) and the average should be close to zero. More worryingly the number was increasing steadily over time up to 200 per year in 2006 – that is about four excess deaths per week – on average. It is important to remember that HSMR is a risk ratio and mortality is a multi-factorial outcome. So the excess-death-equivalent estimate does not imply that a clear causal chain will be evident in specific deaths. That is a complete misunderstanding of the method.

I am sorry – you are losing me with the statistical jargon here. Can you explain in plain English what you mean?

OK. Let us use an example.

Suppose we set up a tombola at the village fete and we sell 50 tickets with the expectation that the winner bags all the money. Each ticket holder has the same 1 in 50 risk of winning the wad-of-wonga and a 49 in 50 risk of losing their small stake. At the appointed time we spin the barrel to mix up the ticket stubs then we blindly draw one ticket out. At that instant the 50 people with an equal risk changes to one winner and 49 losers. It is as if the grey fog of risk instantly condenses into a precise, black-and-white, yes-or-no, winner-or-loser, reality.

Translating this concept back into HSMR and Mid Staffs – the estimated 1200 deaths are the just the “condensed risk of harm equivalent”. So, to then conduct a retrospective case note analysis of specific deaths looking for the specific cause would be equivalent to trying to retrospectively work out the reason the particular winning ticket in the tombola was picked out. It is a search that is doomed to fail. To then conclude from this fruitless search that HSMR is invalid, is only to compound the delusion further. The actual problem here is ignorance and misunderstanding of the basic Laws of Physics and Probability, because our brains are not good at solving these sort of problems.

But Mid Staffs is a particularly severe example and it only shows up after years of data has accumulated. How would a hospital that was not as bad as this know they had a risk problem and know sooner? Waiting for years to accumulate enough data to prove there was a avoidable problem in the past is not much help.

That is an excellent question. This type of time-series chart is not very sensitive to small changes when the data is noisy and sparse – such as when you plot the data on a month-by-month timescale and avoidable deaths are actually an uncommon outcome. Plotting the annual sum smooths out this variation and makes the trend easier to see, but it delays the diagnosis further. One way to increase the sensitivity is to plot the data as a cusum (cumulative sum) chart – which is conspicuous by its absence from the data table. It is the running total of the estimated excess deaths. Rather like the running total of swings in a game of golf.

This is the cusum chart of excess deaths and you will notice that it is not plotted with control limits. That is because it is invalid to use standard control limits for cumulative data. The important feature of the cusum chart is the slope and the deviation from zero. What is usually done is an alert threshold is plotted on the cusum chart and if the measured cusum crosses this alert-line then the alarm bell should go off – and the search then focuses on the precursor events: the Near Misses, the Not Agains and the Niggles.

I see. You make it look easy when the data is presented as pictures. But aren’t we still missing the point? Isn’t this still after-the-avoidable-event analysis?

Yes! An avoidable death should be a Never-Event in a designed-to-be-safe healthcare system. It should never happen. There should be no coffins to count. To get to that stage we need to apply exactly the same approach to the Near-Misses, and then the Not-Agains, and eventually the Niggles.

You mean we have to use the SUI data and the IR1 data and the complaint data to do this – and also ask our staff and patients about their Niggles?

Yes. And it is not the number of complaints that is the most useful metric – it is the appearance of the cumulative sum of the complaint severity score. And we need a method for diagnosing and treating the cause of the Niggles too. We need to convert the feedback information into effective action.

Ah ha! Now I understand what the role of the Governance Department is: to apply the tools and techniques of Improvement Science proactively. But our Governance Department have not been trained to do this!

Then that is one place to start – and their role needs to evolve from Inspectors and Supervisors to Demonstrators and Educators – ultimately everyone in the organisation needs to be a competent Healthcare Improvementologist.

OK – I now now what to do next. But wait a minute. This is going to cost a fortune!

This is just one small first step. The next step is to redesign the processes so the errors do not happen in the first place. The cumulative cost saving from eliminating the repeated checking, correcting, box-ticking, documenting, investigating, compensating and insuring is much much more than the one-off investment in learning safe system design.

So the Finance Director should be a champion for safety and quality too.

Yup!

Brill. Thanks. And can I ask one more question? I do not want to appear to skeptical but how do we know we can trust that this risk-estimation system has been designed and implemented correctly? How do we know we are not being bamboozled by statisticians? It has happened before!

That is the best question yet. It is important to remember that HSMR is counting deaths in hospital which means that it is not actually the risk of harm to the patient that is measured – it is the risk to the reputation of hospital! So the answer to your question is that you demonstrate your deep understanding of the rationle and method of risk-of-harm estimation by listing all the ways that such a system could be deliberately “gamed” to make the figures look better for the hospital. And then go out and look for hard evidence of all the “games” that you can invent. It is a sort of creative poacher-becomes-gamekeeper detective exercise.

OK – I sort of get what you mean. Can you give me some examples?

Yes. The HSMR method is based on deaths-in-hospital so discharging a patient from hospital before they die will make the figures look better. Suppose one hospital has more access to end-of-life care in the community than another: their HSMR figures would look better even though exactly the same number of people died. Another is that the HSMR method is weighted towards admissions classified as “emergencies” – so if a hospital admits more patients as “emergencies” who are not actually very sick and discharges them quickly then this will inflated their estimated deaths and make their actual mortality ratio look better – even though the risk-of-harm to patients has not changed.

OMG – so if we have pressure to meet 4 hour A&E targets and we get paid more for an emergency admission than an A&E attendance then admitting to an Assessmen Area and discharging within one day will actually reward the hospital financially, operationally and by apparently reducing their HSMR even though there has been no difference at all to the care that patients actually recieve?

Yes. It is an inevitable outcome of the current system design.

But that means that if I am gaming the system and my HSMR is not getting better then the risk-of-harm to patients is actually increasing and my HSMR system is giving me false reassurance that everything is OK. Wow! I can see why some people might not want that realisation to be public knowledge. So what do we do?

Design the system so that the rewards are aligned with lower risk of harm to patients and improved outcomes.

Is that possible?

Yes. It is called a Win-Win-Win design.

How do we learn how to do that?

Improvement Science.

Footnote I:

The graphs tell a story but they may not create a useful sense of perspective. It has been said that there is a 1 in 300 chance that if you go to hospital you will not leave alive for avoidable causes. What! It cannot be as high as 1 in 300 surely?

OK – let us use the published Mid-Staffs data to test this hypothesis. Over 12 years there were about 150,000 admissions and an estimated 1,200 excess deaths (if all the risk were concentrated into the excess deaths which is not what actually happens). That means a 1 in 130 odds of an avoidable death for every admission! That is twice as bad as the estimated average.

The Mid Staffordshire statistics are bad enough; but the NHS-as-a-whole statistics are cumulatively worse because there are 100’s of other hospitals that are each generating not-as-obvious avoidable mortality. The data is very ‘noisy’ so it is difficult even for a statistical expert to separate the message from the morass.

And remember – that the “expected” mortality is estimated from the average for the whole NHS – which means that if this average is higher than it could be then there is a statistical bias and we are being falsely reassured by being ‘not statistically significantly different’ from the pack.

And remember too – for every patient and family that suffers and avoidable death there are many more that have to live with the consequences of avoidable but non-fatal harm. That is called avoidable morbidity. This is what the risk really means – everyone has a higher risk of some degree of avoidable harm. Psychological and physical harm.

This challenge is not just about preventing another Mid Staffs – it is about preventing 1000’s of avoidable deaths and 100,000s of patients avoidably harmed every year in ‘average’ NHS trusts.

It is not a mass conspiracy of bad nurses, bad doctors, bad managers or bad policians that is the root cause.

It is poorly designed processes – and they are poorly designed because the nurses, doctors and managers have not learned how to design better ones. And we do not know how because we were not trained to. And that education gap was an accident – an unintended error of omission.

Our urgently-improve-NHS-safety-challenge requires a system-wide safety-by-design educational and cultural transformation.

And that is possible because the knowledge of how to design, test and implement inherently safe processes exists. But it exists outside healthcare.

And that safety-by-design training is a worthwhile investment because safer-by-design processes cost less to run because they require less checking, less documenting, less correcting – and all the valuable nurse, doctor and manager time freed up by that can be reinvested in more care, better care and designing even better processes and systems.

Everyone Wins – except the cynics who have a choice: to eat humble pie or leave.

Footnote II:

In the debate that has followed the publication of the Francis Report a lot of scrutiny has been applied to the method by which an estimated excess mortality number is created and it is necessary to explore this in a bit more detail.

The HSMR is an estimate of relative risk – it does not say that a set of specific patients were the ones who came to harm and the rest were OK. So looking at individual deaths and looking for the specific causes is to completely misunderstand the method. So looking at the actual deaths individually and looking for identifiable cause-and-effect paths is an misuse of the message. When very few if any are found to conclude that HSMR is flawed is an error of logic and exposes the ignorance of the analyst further.

HSMR is not perfect though – it has weaknesses. It is a benchmarking process the”standard” of 100 is always moving because the collective goal posts are moving – the reference is always changing . HSMR is estimated using data submitted by hospitals themselves – the clinical coding data. So the main weakness is that it is dependent on the quality of the clinicial coding – the errors of comission (wrong codes) and the errors of omission (missing codes). Garbage In Garbage Out.

Hospitals use clinically coded data for other reasons – payment. The way hospitals are now paid is based on the volume and complexity of that activity – Payment By Results (PbR) – using what are called Health Resource Groups (HRGs). This is a better and fairer design because hospitals with more complex (i.e. costly to manage) case loads get paid more per patient on average. The HRG for each patient is determined by their clinical codes – including what are called the comorbidities – the other things that the patient has wrong with them. More comorbidites means more complex and more risky so more money and more risk of death – roughly speaking. So when PbR came in it becamevery important to code fully in order to get paid “properly”. The problem was that before PbR the coding errors went largely unnoticed – especially the comorbidity coding. And the errors were biassed – it is more likely to omit a code than to have an incorrect code. Errors of omission are harder to detect. This meant that by more complete coding (to attract more money) the estimated casemix complexity would have gone up compared with the historical reference. So as actual (not estimated) NHS mortality has gone down slightly then the HSMR yardstick becomes even more distorted. Hospitals that did not keep up with the Coding Game would look worse even though their actual risk and mortality may be unchanged. This is the fundamental design flaw in all types of benchmarking based on self-reported data.

The actual problem here is even more serious. PbR is actually a payment for activity – not a payment for outcomes. It is calculated from what it cost to run the average NHS hospital using a technique called Reference Costing which is the same method that manufacturing companies used to decide what price to charge for their products. It has another name – Absorption Costing. The highest performers in the manufacturing world no longer use this out-of-date method. The implication of using Reference Costing and PbR in the NHS are profound and dangerous:

If NHS hospitals in general have poorly designed processes that create internal queues and require more bed days than actually necessary then the cost of that “waste” becomes built into the future PbR tariff. This means average length of stay (LOS) is financially rewarded. Above average LOS is financially penalised and below average LOS makes a profit. There is no financial pressure to improve beyound average. This is called the Regression to the Mean effect. Also LOS is not a measure of quality – so there is a to shorten length of stay for purely financial reasons – to generate a surplus to use to fund growth and capital investment. That pressure is non-specific and indiscrimiate. PbR is necessary but it is not sufficient – it requires an quality of outcome metric to complete it.

So the PbR system is based on an out-of-date cost-allocation model and therefore leads to the very problems that are contributing to the MidStaffs crisis – financial pressure causing quality failures and increased risk of mortality. MidStaffs may be a chance victim of a combination of factors coming together like a perfect storm – but those same factors are present throughout the NHS because they are built into the current design.

One solution is to move towards a more up-to-date financial model called stream costing. This uses the similar data to reference costing but it estimates the “ideal” cost of the “necessary” work to achieve the intended outcome. This stream cost becomes the focus for improvement – the streams where there is the biggest gap between the stream cost and the reference cost are the focus of the redesign activity. Very often the root cause is just poor operational policy design; sometimes it is quality and safety design problems. Both are solvable without investment in extra capacity. The result is a higher quality, quicker, lower-cost stream. Win-win-win. And in the short term that is rewarded by a tariff income that exceeds cost and a lower HSMR.

Radically redesigning the financial model for healthcare is not a quick fix – and it requires a lot of other changes to happen first. So the sooner we start the sooner we will arrive.

09/02/2013

The Writing On The Wall – Part I

The writing is on the wall for the NHS.

It is called the Francis Report and there is a lot of it. Just the 290 recommendations runs to 30 pages. It would need a very big wall and very small writing to put it all up there for all to see.

So predictably the speed-readers have latched onto specific words – such as “Inspectors“.

Recommendation 137 “Inspection should remain the central method for monitoring compliance with fundamental standards.”

And it goes further by recommending “A specialist cadre of hospital inspectors should be established …”

A predictable wail of anguish rose from the ranks “Not more inspectors! The last lot did not do much good!”

The word “cadre” is not one that is used in common parlance so I looked it up:

Cadre: 1. a core group of people at the center of an organization, especially military; 2. a small group of highly trained people, often part of a political movement.

So it has a military, centralist, specialist, political flavour. No wonder there was a wail of anguish! Perhaps this “cadre of inspectors” has been unconsciously labelled with another name? Persecutors.

Of more interest is the “highly trained” phrase. Trained to do what? Trained by whom? Clearly none of the existing schools of NHS management who have allowed the fiasco to happen in the first place. So who – exactly? Are these inspectors intended to be protectors, persecutors, or educators?

And what would they inspect?

And how would they use the output of such an inspection?

Would the fear of the inspection and its possible unpleasant consequences be the stick to motivate compliance?

Is the language of the Francis Report going to create another brick wall of resistance from the rubble of the ruins of the reputation of the NHS? Many self-appointed experts are already saying that implementing 290 recommendations is impossible.

They are incorrect.

The number of recommendations is a measure of the breadth and depth of the rot. So the critical-to-success factor is to implement them in a well-designed order. Get the first few in place and working and the rest will follow naturally. Get the order wrong and the radical cure will kill the patient.

So where do we start?

Let us look at the inspection question again. Why would we fear an external inspection? What are we resisting? There are three facets to this: first we do not know what is expected of us; second we do not know if we can satisfy the expectation; and third we fear being persecuted for failing to achieve the impossible.

W Edwards Deming used a very effective demonstration of the dangers of well-intended but badly-implemented quality improvement by inspection: it was called the Red Bead Game. The purpose of the game was to illustrate how to design an inspection system that actually helps to achieve the intended goal. Sustained improvement.

This is applied Improvement Science and I will illustrate how it is done with a real and current example.

I am assisting a department in a large NHS hospital to improve the quality of their service. I have been sent in as an external inspector. The specific quality metric they have been tasked to improve is the turnaround time of the specialist work that they do. This is a flow metric because a patient cannot leave hospital until this work is complete – and more importantly it is a flow and quality metric because when the hospital is full then another patient, one who urgently needs to be admitted, will be waiting for the bed to be vacated. One in one out.

The department have been set a standard to meet, a target, a specification, a goal. It is very clear and it is easily measurable. They have to turnaround each job of work in less than 2 hours. This is called a lead time specification and it is arbitrary. But it is not unreasonable from the perspective of the patient waiting to leave and for the patient waiting to be admitted. Neither want to wait.

The department has a sophisticated IT system that measures their performance. They use it to record when each job starts and when each job is finished and from those two events the software calculates the lead time for each job in real-time. At the end of each day the IT system counts how many jobs were completed in less than 2 hours and compares this with how many were done in total and calculates a ratio which it presents as a percentage in the range of 0 and 100. This is called the process yield. The department are dedicated and they work hard and they do all the work that arrives each day the same day – no matter how long it takes. And at the end of each day they have their score for that day. And it is almost never 100%. Not never. Almost never. But it is not good enough and they are being blamed for it. In turn they blame others for making their job more difficult. It is a blame-game and it has been going on for years.

So how does an experienced Improvement Science-trained Inspector approach this sort of “wicked” problem?

First we need to get the writing on the wall – we need to see the reality – we need to “plot the dots” – we need to see what the performance is doing over time – we need to see the voice of the process. And that requires only their data, a pencil, some paper and for the chart to be put on the on the wall where everyone can see it.

This is what their daily % yield data for three consecutive weeks looked like as a time-series chart. The thin blue line is the 100% yield target.

The 100% target was only achieved on three days – and they were all Sundays. On the other Sunday it was zero (which may mean that there was no data to calculate a ratio from).

There is wide variation from one day to the next and it is the variation as well as the average that is of interest to an improvement scientist. What is the source of the variation it? If 100% yield can be achieved some days then what is different about those days?

So our Improvement science-trained Inspector will now re-plot the data in a different way – as rational groups. This exposes the issue clearly. The variation on Weekends is very wide and the performance during the Weekdays is much less variable. What this says is that the weekend system and the weekday system are different. This means that it is invalid to combine the data for both.

It also raises the question of why there is such high variation in yield only at weekends? The chart cannot answer the question, so our IS-trained Inspector digs a bit deeper and discovers that the volume of work done at the weekend is low, the staffing of the department is different, and that the recording of the events is less reliable. In short – we cannot even trust the weekend data – so we have two reasons to justify excluding it from our chart and just focusing on what happens during the week.

We re-plot our chart, marking the excluded weekend data as not for analysis.

We can now see that the weekday performance of our system is visible, less variable, and the average is a long way from 100%.

The team are working hard and still only achieving mediocre performance. That must mean that they need something that is missing. Motivating maybe. More people maybe. More technology maybe. But there is no more money for more people or technology and traditional JFDI motivation does not seem to have helped.

This looks like an impossible task!

So what does our Inspector do now? Mark their paper with a FAIL and put them on the “To Be Sacked for Failing to Meet an Externally Imposed Standard“ heap?

Nope.

Our IS-trained Inspector calculates the limits of expected performance from the data and plots these limits on the chart – the red lines. The computation is not difficult – it can be done with a calculator and the appropriate formula. It does not need a sophisticated IT system.

What this chart now says is “The current design of this process is capable of delivering between 40% and 85% yield. To expect it do do better is unrealistic”. The implication for action is “If we want 100% yield then the process needs to be re-designed.” Persecution will not work. Blame will not work. Hoping-for-the-best will not work. The process must be redesigned.

Our improvement scientist then takes off the Inspector’s hat and dons the Designer’s overalls and gets to work. There is a method to this and it is called 6M Design®.

First we need to have a way of knowing if any future design changes have a statistically significant impact – for better or for worse. To do this the chart is extended into the future and the red lines are projected forwards in time as the black lines called locked-limits. The new data is compared with this projected baseline as it comes in. The weekends and bank holidays are excluded because we know that they are a different system. On one day (20/12/2012) the yield was surprisingly high. Not 100% but more than the expected upper limit of 85%.

The alerts us to investigate and we found that it was a ‘hospital bed crisis’ and an ‘all hands to the pumps’ distress call went out.

Extra capacity was pulled to the process and less urgent work was delayed until later. It is the habitual reaction-to-a-crisis behaviour called “expediting” or “firefighting”. So after the crisis had waned and the excitement diminished the performance returned to the expected range. A week later the chart signals us again and we investigate but this time the cause was different. It was an unusually quiet day and there was more than enough hands on the pumps.

Both of these days are atypically good and we have an explanation for each of them. This is called an assignable cause. So we are justified in excluding these points from our measure of the typical baseline capability of our process – the performance the current design can be expected to deliver.

An inexperienced manager might conclude from these lessons that what is needed is more capacity. That sounds and feels intuitively obvious and it is correct that adding more capacity may improve the yield – but that does not prove that lack of capacity is the primary cause. There are many other causes of long lead times just as there are many causes of headaches other than brain tumours! So before we can decide the best treatment for our under-performing design we need to establish the design diagnosis. And that is done by inspecting the process in detail. And we need to know what we are looking for; the errors of design commission and the errors of design omission. The design flaws.

Only a trained and experienced process designer can spot the flaws in a process design. Intuition will trick the untrained and inexperienced.

Once the design diagnosis is established then the redesign stage can commence. Design always works to a specification and in this case it was clear – to significantly improve the yield to over 90% at no cost. In other words without needing more people, more skills, more equipment, more space, more anything. The design assignment was made trickier by the fact that the department claimed that it was impossible to achieve significant improvement without adding extra capacity. That is why the Inspector had been sent in. To evaluate that claim.

The design inspection revealed a complex adaptive system – not a linear, deterministic, production-line that manufactures widgets. The department had to cope with wide variation in demand, wide variation in quality of request, wide variation in job complexity, and wide variation in urgency – all at the same time. But that is the nature of healthcare and acute hospital work. That is the expected context.

The analysis of the current design revealed that it was not well suited for this requirement – and the low yield was entirely predictable. The analysis also revealed that the root cause of the low yield was not lack of either flow-capacity or space-capacity.

This insight led to the suggestion that it would be possible to improve yield without increasing cost. The department were polite but they did not believe it was possible. They had never seen it, so why should they be expected to just accept this on faith?

So, the next step was to develop, test and demonstrate a new design and that was done in three stages. The final stage was the Reality Test – the actual process design was changed for just one day – and the yield measured and compared with the predicted improvement.

This was the validity test – the proof of the design pudding. And to visualise the impact we used the same technique as before – extending the baseline of our time-series chart, locking the limits, and comparing the “after” with the “before”.

The yellow point marks the day of the design test. The measured yield was well above the upper limit which suggested that the design change had made a significant improvement. A statistically significant improvement. There was no more capacity than usual and the day was not unusually quiet. At the end of the day we held a team huddle.

Our first question was “How did the new design feel?” The consensus was “Calmer, smoother, fewer interruptions” and best of all “We finished on time – there was no frantic catch up at the end of the day and no one had to stay late to complete the days work!”

The next question was “Do we want to continue tomorrow with this new design or revert back to the old one?” The answer was clear “Keep going with the new design. It feels better.”

The same chart was used to show what happened over the next few days – excluding the weekends as before. The improvement was sustained – it did not revert to the original because the process design had been changed. Same work, same capacity, different process – higher yield. The red flags on the charts mark the statistically significant evidence of change and the cluster of red flags is very strong statistical evidence that the improvement is not due to chance.

The next phase of the 6M Design® method is to continue to monitor the new process to establish the new baseline of expectation. That will require at least twelve data points and it is in progress. But we have enough evidence of a significant improvement. This means that we have no credible justification to return to the old design, and it also implies that it is no longer valid to compare the new data against the old projected limits. Our chart tells us that we need to split the data into before-and-after and to calculate new averages and limits for each segment separately. We have changed the voice of the process by changing the design.

And when we split the data at the point-of-change then the red flags disappear – which means that our new design is stable. And it has a new capability – a better one. We have moved closer to our goal of 100% yield. It is still early days and we do not really have enough data to calculate the new capability.

What we can say is that we have improved average quality yield from 63% to about 90% at no cost using a sequence of process diagnose, design, deliver. Study-Plan-Do.

And we have hard evidence that disproves the impossibility hypothesis.

And that was the goal of the first design change – it was not to achieve 100% yield in one jump. Our design simulation had predicted an improvement to about 90%. And there are other design changes to follow that need this stable foundation to build on. The order of implementation is critical – and each change needs time to bed in before the next change is made. That is the nature of the challenge of improving a complex adaptive system.

The cost to the department was zero but the benefit was huge. The bigger benefit to the organisation was felt elsewhere – the ‘customers’ saw a higher quality, quicker process – and there will be a financial benefit for the whole system. It will be difficult to measure with our current financial monitoring systems but it will be real and it will be there – lurking in the data.

The improvement required a trained and experienced Inspector/Designer/Educator to start the wheel of change turning. There are not many of these in the NHS – but the good news is that the first level of this training is now available.

What this means for the post-Francis Report II NHS is that those who want to can choose to leap over the wall of resistance that is being erected by the massing legions of noisy cynics. It means we can all become our own inspectors. It means we can all become our own improvers. It means we can all learn to redesign our systems so that they deliver higher safety, better quality, more quickly and at no extra one-off or recurring cost. We all can have nothing to fear from the Specialist Cadre of Hospital Inspectors.

The writing is on the wall.

15/02/2013 – Two weeks in and still going strong. The yield has improved from 63% to 92% and is stable. Improvement-by-design works.

10/03/2013 – Six weeks in and a good time to test if the improvement has been sustained.

The chart is the weekly performance plotted for 17 weeks before the change and for 5 weeks after. The advantage of weekly aggregated data is that it removes the weekend/weekday 7-day cycle and reduces the effect of day-to-day variation.

The improvement is obvious, significant and has been sustained. This is the objective improvement. More important is the subjective improvement.

Here is what Chris M (departmental operational manager) wrote in an email this week (quoted with permission):

Hi Simon

It is I who need to thank you for explaining to me how to turn our pharmacy performance around and ultimately improve the day to day work for the pharmacy team (and the trust staff). This will increase job satisfaction and make pharmacy a worthwhile career again instead of working in constant pressure with a lack of achievement that had made the team feel rather disheartened and depressed. I feel we can now move onwards and upwards so thanks for the confidence boost.

Best wishes and many thanks

Chris

This is what Improvement Science is all about!

26/01/2013

Curing Chronic Carveoutosis

Last week the Ray Of Hope briefly illuminated a very common system design disease called carveoutosis. This week the RoH will tarry a little longer to illuminate an example that reveals the value of diagnosing and treating this endemic process ailment.

Do you remember the days when we used to have to visit the Central Post Office in our lunch hour to access a quality-of-life-critical service that only a Central Post Office could provide – like getting a new road tax disc for our car? On walking through the impressive Victorian entrances of these stalwart high street institutions our primary challenge was to decide which queue to join.

In front of each gleaming mahogony, brass and glass counter was a queue of waiting customers. Behind was the Post Office operative. We knew from experience that to be in-and-out before our lunch hour expired required deep understanding of the ways of people and processes – and a savvy selection. Some queues were longer than others. Was that because there was a particularly slow operative behind that counter? Or was it because there was a particularly complex postal problem being processed? Or was it because the customers who had been waiting longer had identified that queue was fast flowing and had defected to it from their more torpid streams? We know that size is not a reliable indicator of speed or quality.

The social pressure is now mounting … we must choose … dithering is a sign of weakness … and swapping queues later is another abhorrent behaviour. So we employ our most trusted heuristic – we join the end of the shortest queue. Sometimes it is a good choice, sometimes not so good! But intuitively it feels like the best option.

Of course if we choose wisely and we succeed in leap-frogging our fellow customers then we can swagger (just a bit) on the way out. And if not we can scowl and mutter oaths at others who (by sheer luck) leap frog us. The Post Office Game is fertile soil for the Aint’ It Awful game which we play when we arrive back at work.

But those days are past and now we are more likely to encounter a single-queue when we are forced by necessity to embark on a midday shopping sortie. As we enter we see the path of the snake thoughtfully marked out with rope barriers or with shelves hopefully stacked with just-what-we-need bargains to stock up on as we drift past. We are processed FIFO (first-in-first-out) which is fairer-for-all and avoids the challenge of the dreaded choice-of-queue. But the single-queue snake brings a new challenge: when we reach the head of the snake we must identify which operative has become available first – and quickly!

Because if we falter then we will incur the shame of the finger-wagging or the flashing red neon arrow that is easily visible to the whole snake; and a painful jab in the ribs from the impatient snaker behind us; and a chorus of tuts from the tail of the snake. So as we frantically scan left and right along the line of bullet-proof glass cells looking for clues of imminent availability we run the risk of developing acute vertigo or a painful repetitive-strain neck injury!

So is the single-queue design better? Do we actually wait less time, the same time or more time? Do we pay a fair price for fair-for-all queue design? The answer is not intuitively obvious because when we are forced to join a lone and long queue it goes against our gut instinct. We feel the urge to push.

The short answer is “Yes”. A single-queue feeding tasks to parallel-servers is actually a better design. And if we ask the Queue Theorists then they will dazzle us with complex equations that prove it is a better design – in theory. But the scary-maths does not help us to understand how it is a better design. Most of us are not able to convert equations into experience; academic rhetoric into pragmatic reality. We need to see it with our own eyes to know it and understand it. Because we know that reality is messier than theory.

And if it is a better design then just how much better is it?

To illustrate the potential advantage of a single-queue design we need to push the competing candiates to their performance limits and then measure the difference. We need a real example and some real data. We are Improvementologists!

First we need to map our Post Office process – and that reveals that we have a single step process – just the counter. That is about as simple as a process gets. Our map also shows that we have a row of counters of which five are manned by fully trained Post Office service operatives.

Now we can measure our process and when we do that we find that we get an average of 30 customers per hour walking in the entrance and and average of 30 cusomers an hour walking out. Flow-out equals flow-in. Activity equals demand. And the average flow is one every 2 minutes. So far so good. We then observe our five operatives and we find that the average time from starting to serve one customer to starting to serve the next is 10 minutes. We know from our IS training that this is the cycle time. Good.

So we do a quick napkin calculation to check and that the numbers make sense: our system of five operatives working in parallel, each with an average cycle time of 10 minutes can collectively process a customer on average every 2 minutes – that is 30 per hour on average. So it appears we have just enough capacity to keep up with the flow of work – we are at the limit of efficiency. Good.

We also notice that there is variation in the cycle time from customer to customer – so we plot our individual measurements asa time-series chart. There does not seem to be an obvious pattern – it looks random – and BaseLine says that it is statistically stable. Our chart tells us that a range of 5 to 15 minutes is a reasonable expectation to set.

We also observe that there is always a queue of waiting customers somewhere – and although the queues fluctuate in size and location they are always there.

So there is always a wait for some customers. A variable wait; an unpredictable wait. And that is a concern for us because when the queues are too numerous and too long then we see customers get agitated, look at their watches, shrug their shoulders and leave – taking their custom and our income with them and no doubt telling all their friends of their poor experience. Long queues and long waits are bad for business.

And we do not want zero queues either because if there is no queue and our operatives run out of work then they become under-utilised and our system efficiency and productivity falls. That means we are incurring a cost but not generating an income. No queues and idle resources are bad for business too.

And we do not want a mixture of quick queues and slow queues because that causes complaints and conflict. A high-conflict customer complaint experience is bad for business too!

What we want is a design that creates small and stable queues; ones that are just big enough to keep our operatives busy and our customers not waiting too long.

So which is the better design and how much better is it? Five-queues or a single-queue? Carve-out or no-carve-out?

To find the answer we decide to conduct a week-long series of experiments on our system and use real data to reveal the answer. We choose the time from a customer arriving to the same customer leaving as our measure of quality and performance – and we know that the best we can expect is somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes. We know from our IS training that is called the Lead Time.

On day #1 we arrange our Post Office with five queues – clearly roped out – one for each manned counter. We know from our mapping and measuring that customers do not arrive in a steady stream and we fear that may confound our experiment so we arrange to admit only one of our loyal and willing customers every 2 minutes. We also advise our loyal and willing customers which queue they must join before they enter to avoid the customer choice challenges. We decide which queue using a random number generator – we toss a dice until we get a number between 1 and 5. We record the time the customer enters on a slip of paper and we ask the customer to give it to the operative and we instruct our service operatives to record the time they completed their work on the same slip and keep it for us to analyse later. We run the experiment for only 1 hour so that we have a sample of 30 slips and then we collect the slips, calculate the difference between the arrival and departure times and plot them on a time-series chart in the order of arrival.

This is what we found. Given that the time at the counter is an average of 10 minutes then some of these lead times seem quite long. Some customers spend more time waiting than being served. And we sense that the performance is getting worse over time.

So for the next experiment we decide to open a sixth counter and to rope off a sixth queue. We expect that increasing capacity will reduce waiting time and we confidently expect the performance to improve.

On day #2 we run our experiment again, letting customers in one every 2 minutes as before and this time we use all the numbers on the dice to decide which queue to direct each customer to. At the end of the hour we collect the slips, calculate the lead times and plot the data – on the same chart.

This is what we see.

It does not look much better and that is big surprise!

The wide variation from customer to customer looks about the same but with the Eye of Optimism we get a sense that the overall performance looks a bit more stable.

So we conclude that adding capacity (and cost) may make a small difference.

But then we remember that we still only served 30 customers – which means that our income stayed the same while our cost increased by 20%. That is definitely NOT good for business: it is not goiug to look good in a business case “possible marginally better quality and 20% increase in cost and therefore price!”

So on day #3 we change the layout. This time we go back to five counters but we re-arrange the ropes to create a single-queue so the customer at the front can be ‘pulled’ to the first available counter. Everything else stays the same – one customer arriving every 2 minutes, the dice, the slips of paper, everything. At the end of the hour we collect the slips, do our sums and plot our chart.

And this is what we get! The improvement is dramatic. Both the average and the variation has fallen – especially the variation. But surely this cannot be right. The improvement is too good to be true. We check our data again. Yes, our customers arrived and departed on average one every 2 minutes as before; and all our operatives did the work in an average of 10 minutes just as before. And we had the exactly the same capacity as we had on day #1. And we finished on time. It is correct. We are gobsmaked. It is like a magic wand has been waved over our process. We never would have predicted that just moving the ropes around to could have such a big impact. The Queue Theorists were correct after all!

But wait a minute! We are delivering a much better customer experience in terms of waiting time and at the same cost. So could we do even better with six counters open? What will happen if we keep the single-queue design and open the sixth desk? Before it made little difference but now we doubt our ability to guess what will happen. Our intuition seems to keep tricking us. We are losing our confidence in predicting what the impact will be. We are in counter-intuitive land! We need to run the experiment for real.

So on day #4 we keep the single-queue and we open six desks. We await the data eagerly.

And this is what happened. Increasing the capacity by 20% has made virtually no difference – again. So we now have two pieces of evidence that say – adding extra capacity did not make a difference to waiting times. The variation looks a bit less though but it is marginal.

It was changing the Queue Design that made the difference! And that change cost nothing. Rien. Nada. Zippo!

That will look much better in our report but now we have to face the emotional discomfort of having to re-evaluate one of our deepest held assumptions.

Reality is telling us that we are delivering a better quality experience using exactly the same resources and it cost nothing to achieve. Higher quality did NOT cost more. In fact we can see that with a carve-out design when we added capacity we just increased the cost we did NOT improve quality. Wow! That is a shock. Everything we have been led to believe seems to be flawed.

Our senior managers are not going to like this message at all! We will be challening their dogma directly. And they do not like that. Oh dear!

Now we can see how much better a no-carveout single-queue pull-design can work; and now we can explain why single-queue designs are used; and now we can show others our experiment and our data and if they do not believe us they can repeat the experiment themselves. And we can see that it does not need a real Post Office – a pad of Post It® Notes, a few stopwatches and some willing helpers is all we need.

And even though we have seen it with our own eyes we still struggle to explain how the single-queue design works better. What actually happens? And we still have that niggling feeling that the performance on day #1 was unstable. We need to do some more exploring.

So we run the day#1 experiment again – the five queues – but this time we run it for a whole day, not just an hour.

Ah ha! Our hunch was right. It is an unstable design. Over time the variation gets bigger and bigger.

But how can that happen?

Then we remember. We told the customers that they could not choose the shortest queue or change queue after they had joined it. In effect we said “do not look at the other queues“.

And that happens all the time on our systems when we jealously hide performance data from each other! If we are seen to have a smaller queue we get given extra work by the management or told to slow down by the union rep!

So what do we do now? All we are doing is trying to improve the service and all we seem to be achieving is annoying more and more people.

What if we apply a maximum waiting time target, say of 1 hour, and allow customers to jump to the front of their queue if they are at risk if breaching the target? That will smooth out spikes and give everyone a fair chance. Customers will understand. It is intuitively obvious and common sense. But our intuition has tricked us before …

So we run the experiment again and this time we tell our customers that if they wait 50 minutes then they can jump to the front of their queue. They appreciate this because they now have a upper limit on the time they will wait.

And this is what we observe. It looks better than before, at least initially, and then it goes pear-shaped.

All we have done with our ‘carve-out and-expedite-the-long-waiters’ design is to defer the inevitable – the crunch. We cannot keep our promise. By the end everyone is pushing to the frontof the queue. It is a riot!

And there is more. Look at the lead time for the last few customers – two hours. Not only have they waited a long time, but we have had to stay open for two hours longer. That is a BIG cost pessure in overtime payments.

So, whatever way we look at it: a single-queue design is better. And no one loses out! The customers have a short and predictable waiting time; the operatives are kept occupied and go home on time; and the executives bask in the reflected glory of the excellent customer feedback. It is a Three Wins® design.

Seeing is believing – and we now know that it is worth diagnosing and treating carveoutosis.

And the only thing left to do is to explain is how a single-queue design works better. It is not obvious is it?

And the best way to do that is to play the Post Office Game and see what actually happens.

A big light-bulb moment awaits!

Update: My little Sylvanian friends have tried the Post Office Game and kindly sent me this video of the before Sylvanian Post Office Before and the after Sylvanian Post Office After. They say they now know how the single-queue design works better.

30/12/2012

The Heart of Change

In 1628 a courageous and paradigm shifting act happened. A small 72-page book was published in Frankfurt that openly challenged 1500 years of medical dogma. The book challenged the authority of Galen (129-200) the most revered medical researcher of antiquity and Hippocrates (460 BC – 370 BC) the Father of Medicine.

The writer of the book was a respected and influential English doctor called William Harvey (1578-1657) who was physician to King James I and who became personal physician to King Charles I.

William Harvey was from yeoman stock. The salt-of-the-earth. Loyal, honest and hard-working free men often owned their land – but who were way down the social pecking order. They were the servant class.

William was the eldest son of Thomas Harvey from Folkstone who had a burning ambition to raise the station of his family from yeoman to gentry. This implied that the family was allowed to have their own coat of arms. To the modern mind this is almost meaningless – in the 17th Century it was not!

And Thomas was wealthy enough to have William formally educated and the dutiful William worked hard at his studies and was rewarded by gaining a place at Caius College in Cambridge University. John Caius (1510-1573) was a physician who had studied in Padua, Italy – the birthplace of modern medicine. William did well and after graduating from Cambridge in 1597 he too travelled through Europe to study in Padua. There he saw Galenic dogma challenged and defused using empirical evidence. This was at the same time that Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was challenging the geocentric dogma of the Catholic Church using empirical evidence gained by simple celestial observation with his new telescope. This was the Renaissance. The Rebirth of Learning. This was the end of the Dark Ages of Dogma.

Harvey brought this “new thinking” back to Elizabethan England and decided to focus his attention on the heart. And what Harvey discovered was that the accepted truth from the ancients about how the heart worked was wrong. Galen was wrong. Hippocrates was wrong.

But this was not the most interesting part of the story. It was the how he proved it that was radically different. He used evidence from reality to disprove the rhetoric. He used the empirical method espoused by Francis Bacon (1561-1626): what we now call the Scientific Method. In effect what Harvey said was “If you do not believe or agree with me then all you need to do is repeat the observation yourself. Do an autopsy“. [aut=self and opsy=see]. William Harvey saw and conducted human dissection in Padua, and practiced both it and animal vivisection back in England – and by that means he discovered how the heart actually worked.

Harvey opened a crack in the cultural ice that had frozen medical innovation for 1500 years. The crack in the paradigm was a seed of doubt planted by a combination of curiosity and empirical experimentation:

Q1: If Galen was wrong about the heart then what else was he wrong about? The Four Humours too?
Q2: If the heart is just a simple pump then where does the Spirit reside?

Looking back with our 21st century perspective these are meaningless questions. To a person in the 17th Century these were fundamental paradigm-challenging questions. They rocked the whole foundation of their belief system. The believed that illness was a natural phenomenon and was not caused by magic, curses and evil spirits; but they believed that celestial objects, the stars and planets, were influential. In 1628 astronomy and astrology were the same thing.

And Harvey was savvy. He was both religious and a devout Royalist and he knew that he would need the support of the most powerful person in England – the monarch. And he knew that he needed to be a respectable member of a powerful institution – the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) which he gained in 1604. A remarkable achievement in itself for someone of yeoman stock. With this ticket he was able to secure a position at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield, London and in 1615 he became the RCP Lumleian Lecturer which involved lecturing on anatomy – which he did from 1616. By virtue of his position Harvey was able to develop a lucrative private practice in London and by that route was introduced to the Court. In 1618 he was appointed as Physician Extraordinary to King James I. [The Physician Ordinary was the top job].

And even with this level of influence, credibility and royal support his paradigm-challenging message met massive cultural and political resistance because he was challenging a 1500 year old belief.

Over the 12 years between 1616 and 1628 Harvey invested a lot of time sharing his ideas and the evidence with influential friends and he used their feedback to deepen his understanding, to guide his experiments, and to sharpen his arguments. He had learned how to debate at school and had developed his skill at Cambridge so he know how to turn argments-against into arguments-for.

Harvey was intensely curious, he knew how to challenge himself, to learn, to influence others, and to change their worldview. He knew that easily observable phenomemon could help spread the message – such as the demonstration of venous valves in the arm illustrated in his book.

After the publication of De Motu Cordis in 1628 his personal credibility and private practice suffered massively because as a self-declared challenger of the current paradigm he was treated with skepticism and distrust by his peers. Gossip is effective.

And even with all his passion, education, evidence, influence and effort it still took 20 years for his message to become widely enough accepted to survive him. And it did so because others resonated with the message; others like a Rene Descartes (1596-1650).

William Harvey is now remembered as one of the founders of modern medical science. When he published De Motu Cordis he triggered a paradim shift – one that we take for granted today. Harvey showed that the path to improvement is through respectfully challenging accepted dogma with a combination of curiosity, humility, hard-work, and empirical evidence. Reality reinforced rhetoric.

Today we are used to having the freedom of speech and we are familiar with using experimental data to test our hypotheses. In 1628 this was new thinking and was very risky. People were burned at the stake for challenging the authority of the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Inquisition was still active well into the 18th Century!

Harvey was also innovative in the use of arithmetic. He showed that the volume of blood pumped by the heart in a day was far more than the liver could reasonably generate. But at that time arithmetic was the domain of merchants, accountants and money-lenders and was not seen as a tool that a self-respecting natural philosopher would use! The use of mathematics as a scientific tool did not really take off until after Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) published the Principia in 1687 – 30 years after Harvey’s death. [To read more about William Harvey click here].

William Harvey was an Improvementologist.

So what lessons can modern Improvement Scientists draw from his story?

The first is that all significant challanges to current thinking will meet emotional and political resistance. They will be discounted and ridiculed because they challenge the authority of experts.
The second is that challenges must be made respectfully. The current thinking has both purpose and value. Improvements build on the foundation of knowledge and only challenge what is not fit for purpose.
The third is that the challenge must be more than rhetorical – it must be backed with replicatable evidence. A difference of opinion is just that. Reality is the ultimate arbiter.
The fourth is that having an idea is not enough – testig, proving, explaining and demonstrating are needed too. It is hard work to change a mental paradigm and it requires an emotionally secure context to do it. People who are under pressure will find it more difficult and more traumatic.
The fifth is that patience and persistence are needed. Worldview change takes time and happen in small steps. The new paradigm needs to find its place.

And Harvey did not say that Galen and Hippocrates were completely wrong – just partly wrong. And he explained that the reason that Hippocrates and Galen could not test their ideas about human anatomy was because dissection of human bodies was illegal in Greek and Roman societies. Padua in Renaissance Italy was one of the first places where dissection was permitted by Law.

So which part of the Galenic dogma did Harvey challenge?

He challenged the dogma that blood was created continuously by the liver. He challenged the dogma that there were invisible pores between the right and left sides of the heart. He challenged the dogma that the arteries ‘sucked’ the blood from the heart. He challenged the dogma that the ‘vitalised’ arterial blood was absorbed by the tissues. And he challenged these beliefs with empirical evidence. He showed evidence that the blood circulated fom the right heart to the lungs to the left heart to the body and back to the right heart. He showed evidence that the heart was a muscular pump. And he showed evidence that it worked the same way in man and in animals.

In so doing he undermined the foundation of the whole paradigm of ancient belief that illness was the result of an imbalance between the Four Humours. Yellow Bile (associated with the liver), Black Bile (associated with the Spleen), Blood (as ociated with the heart) and Phlegm (associated with the lungs).

We still have the remnants of this ancient belief in our language. The Four Humours were also associated with Four Temperaments – four observable personality types. The phlegmatic type (excess phlegm), the sanguine type (excess blood), the choleric type (excess yellow bile), and the melancholic type (excess black bile).

We still talk about “the heart of the matter” and being “heartless”, “heartfelt” and “change of heart” because the heart was believed to be where emotion and passion resided. Sanguine is the term given to people who show warmth, passion, a live-now-pay-later, optimistic and energetic disposition. And this is not an unreasonable hypothesis given that we are all very aware of changes in how our heart beats when we are emotionally aroused; and how the color of our skin changes.

So when Harvey suggested that blood flowed in a circle from the heart to the arteries and back to the heart via the veins; and that the heart was just a pump then this idea shook the current paradigm on many levels – right down to its roots.

And the ancient justification for a whole raft of medical diagnoses, prognoses and treatments was challenged. The House of Cards was challenged. And many people owed their livelihoods to these ancient beliefs – so it is no surprise that his peers were not jumping for joy to hear what Harvey said.

But Harvey had reality on his side – and reality trumps rhetoric.

And the same is true today, 500 years later.

The current paradigm is being shaken. The belief that we can all live today and pay tomorrow. The belief that our individual actions have no global impact and no long lasting consequences. The belief that competition is the best route to contentment.

The evidence is accumulating that these beliefs are wrong.

The difference is that today the paradigm is being challenged by a collective voice – not by a lone voice.

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16/12/201207/09/2024

Defusing Trust Eroders – Part III

Leslie’s computer heralded the arrival of yet another email! They were coming in faster and faster – now that the word had got out on the grapevine about Improvementology.

Leslie glanced at the sender.

It was from Bob. That was a surprise. Bob had never emailed out-of-the-blue before. Leslie was too impatient to wait until later to read the email.

Leslie was consumed with curiosity. What could Bob possibly want advice on? It was Leslie who sought advice from Bob – not the other way around.

Leslie could not wait and emailed back immediately that it was OK to talk now.

L: Hello Bob, what a pleasant surprise! I am very curious to know what you need my advice about.

B: Thank you Leslie. What I would like your counsel on is how to engage in learning the science of improvement.

L: Wow! That is a surprising question. I am really confused now. You helped me to learn this new thinking and now you are asking me to teach you?

B: Yes. On the surface it seems counter-intuitive. It is a genuine request though. I need to learn and understand what works for you and what does not.

L: OK. I think I am getting an idea of what you are asking. But I am only just getting grips with the basics. I do not know how to engage others yet and I certainly would not be able to teach anyone!

B: I must apologise. I was not clear in my request. I need to understand how you engaged yourself in learning. I only provided the germ of the idea – it was you who added what was needed for it to develop into something tangible and valuable for you. I need to understand how that happened.

L: Ahhhh! I see what you mean. Yes. Let me think. Would it help if I describe my current mental metaphor?

B: That sounds like an excellent idea.

L: OK. Well your phrase ‘germ of an idea’ was a trigger. I see the science of improvement as a seed of information that grows into a sturdy tree of understanding. Just like the ‘tiny acorn into the mighty oak’ concept. Using that seed-to-tree metaphor helped me to appreciate that the seed is necessary but it is not sufficient. There are other things that are needed too. Soil, water, air, sunlight, and protection from hazards and predators.

I then realised that the seed-to-tree metaphor goes deeper. One insight that I had was when I realised that the first few leaves are critical to success – because they provide the ongoing energy and food to support the growth of more leaves, and the twigs, branches, trunk, and roots that support the leaves and supply them with water and nutrients. I see the tree as synergistic system that has a common purpose: to become big enough and stable enough to be able to survive the inevitable ups-and-downs of reality. To weather the winter storms and survive the summer droughts.

It seemed to me that the first leaf needed to be labelled ‘safety’ because in our industry if we damage our customers or our staff we do not get a second chance! The next leaf to grow is labelled ‘quality’ and that means quality-by-design. Doing the right thing and doing it right first time without needing inspection-and-correction. The safety and quality leaves provide the resources needed to grow the next leaf which I labelled ‘delivery’. Getting the work done in time, on time, every time. Together these three leaves support the growth of the fourth – ‘economy’ which means using only what is necessary and also having just enough reserve to ride over the inevitable rocks and ruts in the road of reality.

I then reflected on what the water and the sunshine would represent when applying improvement science in the real world.

It occurred to me that the water in the tree is like money in a real system. It is required for both growth and health; it must flow to where it is needed, when it is needed and as much as needed. Too little will prevent growth, and too much water at the wrong time and wrong place is just as unhealthy. I did some reading about the biology of trees and I learned that the water is pulled up the tree! The ‘suck’ is created by the water evaporating from the leaves. The plant does not have a committee that decides where the available water should go! It is a simple self-adjusting, auto-regulating system.

The sunshine for the tree is like feedback for people. In a plant the suns energy provides the motive force for the whole system. In our organisations we call it motivation and the feedback loop is critical to success. Keeping people in the dark about what is required and how they are doing is demotivating. Healthy organisations are feedback-fuelled!

B: I see the picture in my mind clearly. That is a powerful metaphor. How did it help overcome the natural resistance to change?

L: Well using the 6M Design method and taking the desire to create a ‘sturdy tree of understanding’ as the goal of the seed-to-tree process, I then considered what the possible ways it could fail – the failure modes and effects analysis method that you taught me.

B: OK. Yes I see how that approach would help – approaching the problem from the far side of the invisible barrier. What insights did that lead to?

L: Well it highlighted that just having enough water and enough sunshine was not sufficient – it had to be clean water and the right sort of sunshine. The quality is as critical as the quantity. A toxic environment will kill tender new shoots of improvement long before they can get established. Cynicism is like cyanide! Non-specific cost cutting is like blindly wielding a pair of sharp secateurs. Ignoring the competition from wasteful weeds and political predators is a guaranteed recipe-for-failure too.

This seed-to-tree metaphor really helped because it allowed me to draw up a checklist of necessary conditions for successful growth of knowledge and understanding. Rather like the shopping list that a gardener might have. Viable seeds, fertile soil, clean water, enough sunlight, and protection from threats and hazards, especially in the early stages. And patience and perseverance. Growing from seed takes time. Not all seeds will germinate. Not all seeds can thrive in the context our gardener is able to create. And the harsher the elements the fewer the types of seed that have any chance of survival. The conditions select the successful seeds. Deserts select plants that hoard water so the desert remains a desert. If money is too tight the miserly will thrive at the expense of the charitable – and money remains hoarded and fought over as the rest of the organisation withers. And the timing is crucial – the seeds need to be planted at the right time in the cycle of change. Too early and they cannot germinate, too late and they do not have time to become strong enough to survive in the real world winter storms.

B: Yes. I see. The deeper you dig into your seeds-to-trees metaphor, the more insightful it becomes.

L: Bob, you just said something really profound then that has unlocked something for me.

B: Did I? What was it?

L: You said ‘seeds-to-trees’. Up until you said that I was unconsciously limiting myself to one-seed-to-one-tree. Of course! If it works for the individual it can work for the collective. Woods and forests are collectives. The best example I can think of is a tropical rainforest. With ample water and sunshine the plant-collective creates a synergistic system that has endured millions of years of global climate change. And one of the striking features of the tropical rain forest is the diversity of species. It is as if that diversity is an important part of the design. Competition is ever present though – all the trees compete for sunlight – but it is healthy competition. Trees do not succeed individually by hunting each other down. And the diversity seems to be an important component of healthy competition too. It is as if they are in a shared race to the sun and their differences are an asset rather than a liability. If all the trees were the same the forest would be at greater risk of all making the same biological blunder and suddenly becoming extinct if their environment changes unpredictably. Uniformity only seems to work in harsh conditions.

B: That is a profound observation Leslie. I had not consciously made that distinction.

L: So have I answered your question? Have I helped you? It has certainly helped me by being asked to putting my thoughts into words. I see it clearer too now.

B: Yes. You are a good teacher. I believe others will resonate with your seeds-to-trees metaphor just as I have.

L: Thank you Bob. I believe I am beginning to understand something you said in a previous conversation – “the teacher is the person who learns the most”. I am going to test our seeds-to-trees metaphor on the real world! And I will feedback what I learn – because in doing that I will amplify and clarify my own learning.

B: Thank you Leslie. I look forward to learning with you.

15/12/201207/09/2024

Defusing Trust Eroders – Part II

B: Hello Leslie. How are you today?

L: Hi Bob – I am OK. Thank you for your time today. Is 15 minutes going to be enough?

B: Yes. There is evidence that the ideal chunk of time for effective learning is around 15 minutes.

L: OK. I said I would read the material you sent me and reflect on it.

B: Yes. Can you retell your Nerve Curve experience as a storyboard and highlight your ‘ah ha’ moments?

L: OK. And that was the first ‘ah ha’. I found the storyboard format a really effective way to capture my sequence of emotional states.

B: Yes. There are close links between stories, communication, learning and improvement. Before we learned to write we used campfire stories to pass collective knowledge from generation to generation. It is an ancient, in-built skill we all have and we all enjoy a good story.

L: Yes. My first reaction was to the way you described the Victim role. It really resonated with how I was feeling and how I was part of the dynamic. You were spot on with the feelings that dominated my thinking – anxiety and fear. The big ‘ah ha’ for me was to understand the discount that I was making. Not of others – of myself.

B: OK. What was the image that you sketched on your storyboard?

L: I am embarrased to say – you will think I am silly.

B: I will not think you are silly.

I know. And I knew that as soon as I said it. I think I was actually saying it to myself – or part of myself. Like I was trying to appease part of myself. Anyway, the picture I sketched was me as a small child at school standing with my head down, hands by my sides, and being told off in front of the whole class for getting a sum wrong. I was crying. I was not very good at maths and even now my mind sort of freezes and I get tears in my eyes and feel scared whenever someone tries to explain something using equations! I can feel the terror starting to well up just talking about it.

B: OK. No need to panic. Take a long breath and exhale slowly. The story you have told is very common. Many of our fears of failure originate from early memories of experiencing ‘education by humiliation’. It is a blunt and ineffective motivational tool that causes untold and long lasting damage. It is a symptom of a low quality education system design. Education is an exercise in improvement of knowledge, understanding, capability and confidence. The unintended outcome of this clumsy teaching tactic is a belief that we cannot solve problems ourselves and it is that invalid belief that creates the self-fulfilling prophecy of repeated failure.

L: Yes! And I know I can solve maths problems – I do it all the time – and I help my children with their maths homework. So, it is not the maths that is triggering my fear. What is it?

B: The answer to your question will become clear. What is the next picture on your storyboard?

The next picture was of the teacher who was telling me off. Or rather the face of the teacher. It was a face of frustration and anger. I drew a thought bubble and wrote in it “This small, irritating child cannot solve even a simple maths problem and is slowing down the whole lesson by bursting into tears everytime they get stuck. I blame the parents who are clearly too soft. They all need to learn some discipline – the hard way.“

L: Does this shed any light on your question?

B: Wow! Yes! It is not the maths that I am reacting to – it is the behaviour of the teacher. I am scared of the behaviour. I feel powerless. They are the teacher, I am just a small, incompetent, stupid, blubbing child. They do not care that I do not understand the question, and that I am in distress, and that I am scared that I will be embarassed in front of the whole class, and that I am scared that my parents will see a bad mark on my school report. And I feel trapped. I need to rationalise this. To make sense of it. Maybe I am stupid? That would explain why I cannot solve the mths problem. Maybe I should just give in and accept that I am a failure and too stupid to do maths?

There was a pause. Then Leslie continued in a different tone. A more determined tone.

L: But I am not a failure. This is just my knee jerk habitual reaction to an authority figure displaying anger towards me. I can decide how I react. I have complete control over that. I can disconnect the behaviour I experience and my reaction to it. I can choose. Wow!

B: OK. How are you feeling right now? Can you describe it using a visual metaphor?

ready_to_launch_PA_150_wht_5052 L: Um – weird. Mixed feelings. I am picturing myself sitting on a giant catapault. The ends of the huge elastic bands are anchored in the present and I am sitting in the loop but it is stretched way back into the past. There is something formless in the past that has been holding me back and the tension has been slowly building over time. And it feels that I have just cut that tie to the past, and I am free, and I am now being accelerated into the future. I did that. I am in control of my own destiny and it suddenly feels fun and exciting.

B: OK. How do you feel right now about the memory of the authority figure from the past?

L: OK actually. That is really weird. I thought that I would feel angry but I do not. I just feel free. It was not them that was the problem. Their behaviour was not my fault – and it was my reaction to their behaviour that was the issue. My habitual behaviour. No, wait a second. Our habitual behaviour. It is a dynamic. It takes both people to play the game.

There was a pause. Leslie sensed that Bob knew that some time was needed to let the emotions settle a bit.

B: Are you OK to continue with your storyboard?

L: Yes. The next picture is of the faces of my parents. They are looking at my school report. They look sad and are saying “We always dreamed that Leslie would be a doctor or something like that. I suppose we will have to settle for something less ambitious. Do not worry Leslie, it is not your fault, it will be OK, we will help you.” I felt like I had let them down and I had shattered their dream. I felt so ashamed. They had given me everything I had ever asked for. I also felt angry with myself and with them. And that is when I started beating myself up. I no longer needed anyone else to do that! I could persecute myself. I could play both parts of the game in my own head. That is what I did just now when it felt like I was talking to myself.

B: OK. You have now outlined the three roles that together create the dynamic for a stable system of learned behaviour. A system that is very resistant to change. It is like a triangular role-playing-game. We pass the role-hats as we swap places in the triangle and we do it in collusion with others and ourselves and we do it unconsciously. The purpose of the game is to create opportunities for social interaction – which we need and crave – the process has a clear purpose. The unintended outcome of this design is that it generates bad feelings, it erodes trust and it blocks personal and organisational development and improvement. We get stuck in it – rather like a small boat in a whirlpool. And we cannot see that we are stuck in it. We just feel bad as we spin around in an emotional maelstrom. And we feel cheated out of something better but we do not know what it is and how to get it.

There was a long pause. Leslie’s mind was racing. The world had just changed. The pieces had been blown apart and were now re-assembling in a different configuration. A simpler, clearer and more elegant design.

L: So, tell me if I have this right. Each of the three roles involves a different discount?

B: Yes.

And each discount requires a different – um – tactic to defuse?

B: Yes.

So, the way to break out of this trust eroding behavioural hamster-wheel is to learn to recognise which role we are in and to consciously deploy the discount defusing tactic.

B: Yes.

And by doing that enough times we learn how to spot the traps that other people are creating and avoid getting sucked into them.

B: Yes. And we also avoid starting them ourselves.

L: Of course! And by doing that we develop growing respect for ourselves and for each other and a growing level of trust in ourselves and in others? We have started to defuse the trust eroding behaviour and that lowers the barrier to personal and organisational development and improvement.

B: Yes.

L: So what are the three discount defusing tactics?

There was a pause. Leslie knew what was coming next. It would be a question.

B: What role are you in now?

L: Oh! Yes. I see. I am still feeling like that small school child at school but now I am asking for the answer and I am discounting myself by assuming that I cannot solve this problem myself. I am assuming that I need you to rescue me by telling me the answer. I am still in the trust eroding game, I do not trust myself and I am inviting you to play too, and to reinforce my belief that I cannot solve the problem.

B: And do you need me to tell you the answer?

L: No. I can probably work this out myself. And if I do get stuck then I can ask for hints or nudges – not for the answer. I need to do the learning work and I want to do it.

B: OK. I will commit to hinting and nudging if asked, and if I do not know the answer I will say so.

L: Phew! That was definitely an emotional rollercoaster ride on the Nerve Curve. Looking back it all makes complete sense and I now know what to do – but at the start it felt like I was heading into the Dark Unknown. You are right. It is liberating and exhilarating!

B: That feeling of clarity-of-hindsight and exhilaration from learning is what we always strive for. Both as teachers and students.

L: You mean it is the same for you? You are still riding the Nerve Curve? Still feeling surprised, confused, scared, resolved, enlightened then delighted?

B: Ha ha! Yes. Every day. It is fun. I believe that there is No Limit to Learning so there is an inexhaustible Font of Fun.

L: Wow! I am off to have more Fun from Learning. Thank you so much yet again.

B: Thank you Leslie.

13/12/201207/09/2024

Defusing Trust Eroders – Part I

Bob heard the beep and looked at his phone. There was a text message from Leslie, one of his Improvementology coachees.

It said:

“Hi Bob, Do you have time to help me with a behaviour barrier that I keep hitting and cannot see a way around?”

Bob thumbed his reply:

“Yes. I am free at the moment – please feel free to call.”

B: Hello Leslie. What’s on your mind?

L: Hi Bob. I really hope you can help me with this recurring Niggle. I have looked through my Foundation notes and I cannot see where it is described and it does not seem to be a Nerve Curve problem.

B: I will do my best. Can you outline the context or give me an example?

L: It is easier to give you an example. This week I was working with a team in my organisation who approached me to help them with recurring niggles in their process. I went to see for myself and I mapped their process and identified where their Niggles were and what was driving them. That was the easy bit. But when I started to make suggestions of what they could do to resolve their problems they started to give me a hard time and kept saying ‘Yes, but …”. It was as if they were asking for help but did not really want it. They kept emphasising that all their problems were caused by other people outside their department and kept asking me what I could do about it. I felt as if they were pushing the problem onto me and I was also feeling guilty for not being able to sort it out for them.

There was a pause. Then Bob said.

B: You are correct Leslie. This is not a Nerve Curve issue. It is a different people-related system issue. It is ubiquitous and it is a potentially deadly organisational disease. We call it Trust Eroding Behaviour.

L: That sounds exactly how it felt for me. I went to help in good faith and quickly started to feel distrustful of their motives. It was not a good feeling and I do not know if I want to go back. One part of me says “Keep going – you have made a commitment” and another part of me says “Stop – you are being suckered”. What is happening?

B: Do you remember that the Improvement Science framework has three parts – Processes, People and Systems?

L: Yes.

B: OK. This is part of the People component and it is similar to but different from the Nerve Curve. The Nerve Curve is a hard-wired emotional response to any change. The Fright, Freeze, Fight, Flight response. It is just the way we are and it is not ‘correctable’. This is different. This is a learned behaviour. Which means it can be unlearned.

L: Unlearned? That is not a concept that I am familiar with. Can you explain? Is it the same as forgetting?

B: Forgetting means that you cannot bring something to conscious awareness. Unlearning is different – it operates at a deeper psychological and emotional level. Have you ever tried to change a bad habit?

L: Yes, I have! I used to smoke which is definitely a bad habit and I managed to give up but it was really tough.

B: What you did was to unlearn the smoking habit and replaced it with a healthier one. You did not forget about smoking. You could not because you are repeatedly reminded by other people who still indulge in the habit.

L: Ah ha! I see what you mean. Yes – after I kicked the habit I became a bit of a Stop-Smoking evangelist. It did not seem to make much impact on the still-smokers though. If anything my behaviour seemed to make them more determined to keep doing it – just to spite me!

B: Yes. What you describe is what many people report. It is part if the same learned behaviour patterns. The habit that is causing the issue is rather like smoking because it causes short-term pleasure and long-term pain. It is both attractive and destructive. The reactive behaviour generates a positive feeling briefly but it is toxic to trust over the longer term, which is why we call it a Trust Eroding Behaviour.

L: What is the bad habit? I do not recognise the behaviour that you are referring to.

B: The habit is called discounting. The reason we are not aware of it is because we do it unconsciously.

L: What is it that we do?

B: I will give you some examples. How do you feel when all the feedback you get is silence? How do you feel when someone complains that their mistake was not their fault? How do you feel when you try to help but you hit invisible barriers that block your progess?

L: Ouch! Those are uncomfortable questions. When I get no feedback I feel anxious and even fearful that I have made a mistake, and no one is telling me. There is a conspiracy of silence and a nasty surprise is on its way. When someone keeps complaining that even though they made the mistake they are not to blame I feel angry. When I try to help others and I fail to then I feel anxious and sad because my reputation, credibility and self-confidence is damaged.

B: OK. No need to panic. These negative emotional reactions are the normal reaction to discounting behaviour. Another word for discounting is disrespect. The three primary emotions we feel are sadness, anger and fear. Fear is the sense of impending loss; anger is the sense of present loss; and sadness is the sense of past loss. They are the same emotions that we feel on the Nerve Curve. What is different is the cause. Discounting is a disrepectful behaviour that is learned. So, it can be unlearned.

L: Oooo! That really resonates with me. Just reflecting on one day at work I can think of lots of examples of all of those negative feelings. So, when and how do we learn this discounting habit?

B: It is believed that we learn this behaviour when we are very young – before the age of seven. And because we learn it so young we internalise it and we become unaware of it. It then becomes a habit that is reinforced with years of experience and practice.

L: Wow! That rings true for me – and it may explain why I actively avoided some people at school – they were just toxic. But they had friends, went to college, got jobs, married and started families – just like me. Does that mean we grow out of it?

B: Most people unlearn some of these behavioural habits because life-experience teaches them that they are counter-productive. We all carry some of them though, and they tend to emerge when we are tired and under pressure. Some people get sort of stuck and carry these behaviours into their adult life. Their behaviour can be toxic to their relationships and their organisations.

L: I definitely resonate with that statement! Is there a way to unlearn this discounting habit?

B: Yes – just becoming aware of its existence is the first step. There are some strategies that we can learn, practice and use to defuse the discounting behaviour and over time our bad habit can be “kicked”.

L: Wow! That sounds really useful. And not just at work – I can see benefits in other areas of my life too.

B: Yes. Improvement science is powerful medicine.

L: So what do I need to do?

B: You have learned the 6M Design framework for resolving process niggles. There is an equivalent one for dissolving people niggles. I will send you some links to material to read and then we can talk again.

L: Will it help me resolve the problem that I have with the department that asked for my help who are behaving like Victims?

B: Yes.

L: OK – please send me the material. I promise to read it, reflect on it and I will arrange another conversation. I cannot wait to learn how to nail this niggle! I can see a huge win-win-win opportunity here.

B: OK. The email is on its way. I look forward to our next conversation.

01/12/2012

The F Word

There is an F-word that organisations do not like to use – except maybe in conspiratorial corridor conversations.

What word might that be? What are good candidates for it?

Finance perhaps?

Certainly a word that many people do not want to utter – especially when the financial picture is not looking very rosy. And when the word finance is mentioned in meetings there is usually a groan of anguish. So yes, finance is a good candidate – but it is not the F-word.

Failure maybe?

Yes – definitely a word that is rarely uttered openly. The concept of failure is just not acceptable. Organisations must succeed, sustain and grow. Talk of failure is for losers not for winners. To talk about failure is tempting fate. So yes, another excellent candidate – but it is not the F-word.

OK – what about Fear?

That is definitely something no one likes to admit to. Especially leaders. They are expected to be fearless. Fear is a sign of weakness! Once you start letting the fear take over then panic starts to set in – then rash decisions follow then you are really on the slippery slope. Your organisation fragments into warring factions and your fate is sealed. That must be the F-word!

Nope. It is another very worthy candidate but it is not the F-word.

[reveal heading=”Click here to reveal the F-word“]

The dreaded F-word is Feedback.

We do not like feedback. We do not like asking for it. We do not like giving it. We do not like talking about it. Our systems seem to be specifically designed to exclude it. Potentially useful feedback information is kept secret, confidential, for-our-eyes only. And if it is shared it is emasculated and anonymized.

And the brave souls who are prepared to grasp the nettle – the 360 Feedback Zealots – are forced to cloak feedback with secrecy and confidentiality. We are expected to ask for feedback, to take it on the chin, but not to know who or where it came from. So to ease the pain of anonymous feedback we are allowed to choose our accusers. So we choose those who we think will not point out our blindspot. Which renders the whole exercise worthless.

And when we actually want feedback we extract it mercilessly – like extracting blood from a reluctant stone. And if you do not believe me then consider this question: Have you ever been to a training course where your ‘certificate of attendance’ was with-held until you had completed the feedback form? The trainers do this for good reason. We just hate giving feedback. Any feedback. Positive or negative. So if they do not extract it from us before we leave they do not get any.

Unfortunately by extracting feedback from us under coercion is like acquiring a confession under torture – it distorts the message and renders it worthless.

What is the problem here? What are we scared of?

We all know the answer to the question. We just do not want to point at the elephant in the room.

We are all terrified of discovering that we have the organisational equivalent of body-odour. Something deeply unpleasant about our behaviour that we are blissfully unaware of but that everyone else can see as plain as day. Our behaviour blindspot. The thing we would cringe with embarrassment about if we knew. We are social animals – not solitary ones. We need on feedback yet we fear it too.

We lack the courage and humility to face our fear so we resort to denial. We avoid feedback like the plague. Feedback becomes the F-word.

But where did we learn this feedback phobia?

Maybe we remember the playground taunts from the Bullies and their Sychophants? From the poisonous Queen-Bees and their Wannabees? Maybe we tried to protect ourselves with incantations that our well-meaning parents taught us. Spells like “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me“. But being called names does hurt. Deeply. And it hurts because we are terrified that there might be some truth in the taunt.

Maybe we learned to turn a blind-eye and a deaf-ear; to cross the street at the first sign of trouble; to turn the other cheek? Maybe we just learned to adopt the Victim role? Maybe we were taught to fight back? To win at any cost? Maybe we were not taught how to defuse the school yard psycho-games right at the start? Maybe our parents and teachers did not know how to teach us? Maybe they did not know themselves? Maybe the ‘innocent’ schoolyard games are actually much more sinister? Maybe we carry them with us as habitual behaviours into adult life and into our organisations? And maybe the bullies and Queen-Bees learned something too? Maybe they learned that they could get away with it? Maybe they got to like the Persecutor role and its seductive musk of power? If so then then maybe the very last thing the Bullies and Queen-Bees will want to do is to encourage open, honest feedback – especially about their behaviour. Maybe that is the root cause of the conspiracy of silence? Maybe?

But what is the big deal here?

The ‘big deal’ is that this cultural conspiracy of silence is toxic. It is toxic to trust. It is toxic to teams. It is toxic to morale. It is toxic to motivation. It is toxic to innovation. It is toxic to improvement. It is so toxic that it kills organisations – from the inside. Slowly.

Ouch! That feels uncomfortably realistic. So what is the problem again – exactly?

The problem is a deliberate error of omission – the active avoidance of feedback.

So ….. if it were that – how would we prove that is the root cause? Eh?

By correcting the error of omission and then observing what happens.

And this is where it gets dangerous for leaders. They are skating on politically thin ice and they know it.

Subjective feedback is very emotive. If we ask ten people for their feedback on us we will get ten different replies – because no two people perceive the world (and therefore us) the same way. So which is ‘right’? Which opinions do we take heed of and which ones do we discount? It is a psycho-socio-political minefield. So no wonder we avoid stepping onto the cultural barbed-wire!

There is an alternative. Stick to reality and avoid rhetoric. Stick to facts and avoid feelings. Feed back the facts of how the organisational system is behaving to everyone in the organisation.

And the easiest way to do that is with three time-series charts that are updated and shared at regular and frequent intervals.

First – the count of safety and quality failure near-misses for each interval – for at least 50 intervals.

Second – the delivery time of our product or service for each customer over the same time period.

Third – the revenue generated and the cost incurred for each interval for the same 50 intervals.

No ratios, no targets, no balanced scorecard.

Just the three charts that paint the big picture of reality. And it might not be a very pretty picture.

But why at least 50 intervals?

So we can see the long term and short term variation over time. We need both … because …

Our Safety Chart shows that near misses keep happening despite all the burden of inspection and correction.

Our Delivery Chart shows that our performance is distorted by targets and the Horned Gaussian stalks us.

Our Viability Chart shows that our costs are increasing as we pay dearly for past mistakes and our revenue is decreasing as our customers protect their purses and their persons by staying away.

That is the not-so-good news.

The good news is that as soon as we have a multi-dimensional-frequent-feedback loop installed we will start to see improvement. It happens like magic. And the feedback accelerates the improvement.

And the news gets better.

To make best use of this frequent feedback we just need to include in our Constant Purpose – to improve safety, delivery and viability. And then the final step is to link the role of every person in the organisation to that single win-win-win goal. So that everyone can see how they contribute and how their job is worthwhile.

Shared Goals, Clear Roles and Frequent Feedback.

And if you resonate with this message then you will resonate with “The Three Signs of Miserable Job” by Patrick Lencioni.

And if you want to improve your feedback-ability then a really simple and effective feedback tool is The 4N Chart

And please share your feedback.

[/reveal]

24/11/2012

The Three R’s

Processes are like people – they get poorly – sometimes very poorly.

Poorly processes present with symptoms. Symptoms such as criticism, complaints, and even catastrophes.

Poorly processes show signs. Signs such as fear, queues and deficits.

So when a process gets very poorly what do we do?

We follow the Three R’s

1-Resuscitate
2-Review
3-Repair

Resuscitate means to stabilize the process so that it is not getting sicker.

Review means to quickly and accurately diagnose the root cause of the process sickness.

Repair means to make changes that will return the process to a healthy and stable state.

So the concept of ‘stability’ is fundamental and we need to understand what that means in practice.

Stability means ‘predictable within limits’. It is not the same as ‘constant’. Constant is stable but stable is not necessarily constant.

Predictable implies time – so any measure of process health must be presented as time-series data.

We are now getting close to a working definition of stability: “a useful metric of system performance that is predictable within limits over time”.

So what is a ‘useful metric’?

There will be at least three useful metrics for every system: a quality metric, a time metric and a money metric.

Quality is subjective. Money is objective. Time is both.

Time is the one to start with – because it is the easiest to measure.

And if we treat our system as a ‘black box’ then from the outside there are three inter-dependent time-related metrics. These are external process metrics (EPMs) – sometimes called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Flow in – also called demand
Flow out – also called activity
Delivery time – which is the time a task spends inside our system – also called the lead time.

But this is all starting to sound like rather dry, conceptual, academic mumbo-jumbo … so let us add a bit of realism and drama – let us tell this as a story …

[reveal heading=”Click here to reveal the story …“]

Picture yourself as the manager of a service that is poorly. Very poorly. You are getting a constant barrage of criticism and complaints and the occasional catastrophe. Your service is struggling to meet the required delivery time performance. Your service is struggling to stay in budget – let alone meet future cost improvement targets. Your life is a constant fire-fight and you are getting very tired and depressed. Nothing you try seems to make any difference. You are starting to think that anything is better than this – even unemployment! But you have a family to support and jobs are hard to come by in austere times so jumping is not an option. There is no way out. You feel you are going under. You feel are drowning. You feel terrified and helpless!

In desperation you type “Management fire-fighting” into your web search box and among the list of hits you see “Process Improvement Emergency Service”. That looks hopeful. The link takes you to a website and a phone number. What have you got to lose? You dial the number.

It rings twice and a calm voice answers.

?“You are through to the Process Improvement Emergency Service – what is the nature of the process emergency?”

“Um – my service feels like it is on fire and I am drowning!”

The calm voice continues in a reassuring tone.

?“OK. Have you got a minute to answer three questions?”

“Yes – just about”.

?“OK. First question: Is your service safe?”

“Yes – for now. We have had some catastrophes but have put in lots of extra safety policies and checks which seems to be working. But they are creating a lot of extra work and pushing up our costs and even then we still have lots of criticism and complaints.”

?“OK. Second question: Is your service financially viable?”

“Yes, but not for long. Last year we just broke even, this year we are projecting a big deficit. The cost of maintaining safety is ‘killing’ us.”

?“OK. Third question: Is your service delivering on time?”

“Mostly but not all of the time, and that is what is causing us the most pain. We keep getting beaten up for missing our targets. We constantly ask, argue and plead for more capacity and all we get back is ‘that is your problem and your job to fix – there is no more money’. The system feels chaotic. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to when we have a good day or a bad day. All we can hope to do is to spot the jobs that are about to slip through the net in time; to expedite them; and to just avoid failing the target. We are fire-fighting all of the time and it is not getting better. In fact it feels like it is getting worse. And no one seems to be able to do anything other than blame each other.”

There is a short pause then the calm voice continues.

?“OK. Do not panic. We can help – and you need to do exactly what we say to put the fire out. Are you willing to do that?”

“I do not have any other options! That is why I am calling.”

The calm voice replied without hesitation.

?“We all always have the option of walking away from the fire. We all need to be prepared to exercise that option at any time. To be able to help then you will need to understand that and you will need to commit to tackling the fire. Are you willing to commit to that?”

You are surprised and strangely reassured by the clarity and confidence of this response and you take a moment to compose yourself.

“I see. Yes, I agree that I do not need to get toasted personally and I understand that you cannot parachute in to rescue me. I do not want to run away from my responsibility – I will tackle the fire.”

?“OK. First we need to know how stable your process is on the delivery time dimension. Do you have historical data on demand, activity and delivery time?”

“Hey! Data is one thing I do have – I am drowning in the stuff! RAG charts that blink at me like evil demons! None of it seems to help though – the more data I get sent the more confused I become!”

?“OK. Do not panic. The data you need is very specific. We need the start and finish events for the most recent one hundred completed jobs. Do you have that?”

“Yes – I have it right here on a spreadsheet – do I send the data to you to analyse?”

?“There is no need to do that. I will talk you through how to do it.”

“You mean I can do it now?”

?“Yes – it will only take a few minutes.”

“OK, I am ready – I have the spreadsheet open – what do I do?”

?“Step 1. Arrange the start and finish events into two columns with a start and finish event for each task on each row.

You copy and paste the data you need into a new worksheet.

“OK – done that”.

?“Step 2. Sort the two columns into ascending order using the start event.”

“OK – that is easy”.

?“Step 3. Create a third column and for each row calculate the difference between the start and the finish event for that task. Please label it ‘Lead Time’”.

“OK – do you want me to calculate the average Lead Time next?”

There was a pause. Then the calm voice continued but with a slight tinge of irritation.

?“That will not help. First we need to see if your system is unstable. We need to avoid the Flaw of Averages trap. Please follow the instructions exactly. Are you OK with that?”

This response was a surprise and you are starting to feel a bit confused.

“Yes – sorry. What is the next step?”

?“Step 4: Plot a graph. Put the Lead Time on the vertical axis and the start time on the horizontal axis”.

“OK – done that.”

?“Step 5: Please describe what you see?”

“Um – it looks to me like a cave full of stalagtites. The top is almost flat, there are some spikes, but the bottom is all jagged.”

?“OK. Step 6: Does the pattern on the left-side and on the right-side look similar?”

“Yes – it does not seem to be rising or falling over time. Do you want me to plot the smoothed average over time or a trend line? They are options on the spreadsheet software. I do that use all the time!”

The calm voice paused then continued with the irritated overtone again.

?“No. There is no value is doing that. Please stay with me here. A linear regression line is meaningless on a time series chart. You may be feeling a bit confused. It is common to feel confused at this point but the fog will clear soon. Are you OK to continue?”

An odd feeling starts to grow in you: a mixture of anger, sadness and excitement. You find yourself muttering “But I spent my own hard-earned cash on that expensive MBA where I learned how to do linear regression and data smoothing because I was told it would be good for my career progression!”

?“I am sorry I did not catch that? Could you repeat it for me?”

“Um – sorry. I was talking to myself. Can we proceed to the next step?”

?”OK. From what you say it sounds as if your process is stable – for now. That is good. It means that you do not need to Resuscitate your process and we can move to the Review phase and start to look for the cause of the pain. Are you OK to continue?”

An uncomfortable feeling is starting to form – one that you cannot quite put your finger on.

“Yes – please”.

?Step 7: What is the value of the Lead Time at the ‘cave roof’?”

“Um – about 42”

?“OK – Step 8: What is your delivery time target?”

“42”

?“OK – Step 9: How is your delivery time performance measured?”

“By the percentage of tasks that are delivered late each month. Our target is better than 95%. If we fail any month then we are named-and-shamed at the monthly performance review meeting and we have to explain why and what we are going to do about it. If we succeed then we are spared the ritual humiliation and we are rewarded by watching others else being mauled instead. There is always someone in the firing line and attendance at the meeting is not optional!”

You also wanted to say that the data you submit is not always completely accurate and that you often expedite tasks just to avoid missing the target – in full knowkedge that the work had not been competed to the required standard. But you hold that back. Someone might be listening.

There was a pause. Then the calm voice continued with no hint of surprise.

?“OK. Step 10. The most likely diagnosis here is a DRAT. You have probably developed a Gaussian Horn that is creating the emotional pain and that is fuelling the fire-fighting. Do not panic. This is a common and curable process illness.”

You look at the clock. The conversation has taken only a few minutes. Your feeling of panic is starting to fade and a sense of relief and curiosity is growing. Who are these people?

“Can you tell me more about a DRAT? I am not familiar with that term.”

?“Yes. Do you have two minutes to continue the conversation?”

“Yes indeed! You have my complete attention for as long as you need. The emails can wait.”

The calm voice continues.

?“OK. I may need to put you on hold or call you back if another emergency call comes in. Are you OK with that?”

“You mean I am not the only person feeling like this?”

?“You are not the only person feeling like this. The process improvement emergency service, or PIES as we call it, receives dozens of calls like this every day – from organisations of every size and type.”

“Wow! And what is the outcome?”

There was a pause. Then the calm voice continued with an unmistakeable hint of pride.

?“We have a 100% success rate to date – for those who commit. You can look at our performance charts and the client feedback on the website.”

“I certainly will! So can you explain what a DRAT is?”

And as you ask this you are thinking to yourself ‘I wonder what happened to those who did not commit?’

The calm voice interrupts your train of thought with a well-practiced explanation.

?“DRAT stands for Delusional Ratio and Arbitrary Target. It is a very common management reaction to unintended negative outcomes such as customer complaints. The concept of metric-ratios-and-performance-specifications is not wrong; it is just applied indiscriminately. Using DRATs can drive short-term improvements but over a longer time-scale they always make the problem worse.”

One thought is now reverberating in your mind. “I knew that! I just could not explain why I felt so uneasy about how my service was being measured.” And now you have a new feeling growing – anger. You control the urge to swear and instead you ask:

“And what is a Horned Gaussian?”

The calm voice was expecting this question.

?“It is easier to demonstrate than to explain. Do you still have your spreadsheet open and do you know how to draw a histogram?”

“Yes – what do I need to plot?”

?“Use the Lead Time data and set up ten bins in the range 0 to 50 with equal intervals. Please describe what you see”.

It takes you only a few seconds to do this. You draw lots of histograms – most of them very colourful but meaningless. No one seems to mind though.

“OK. The histogram shows a sort of heap with a big spike on the right hand side – at 42.”

The calm voice continued – this time with a sense of satisfaction.

?“OK. You are looking at the Horned Gaussian. The hump is the Gaussian and the spike is the Horn. It is a sign that your complex adaptive system behaviour is being distorted by the DRAT. It is the Horn that causes the pain and the perpetual fire-fighting. It is the DRAT that causes the Horn.”

“Is it possible to remove the Horn and put out the fire?”

?“Yes.”

This is what you wanted to hear and you cannot help cutting to the closure question.

“Good. How long does that take and what does it involve?”

The calm voice was clearly expecting this question too.

?“The Gaussian Horn is a non-specific reaction – it is an effect – it is not the cause. To remove it and to ensure it does not come back requires treating the root cause. The DRAT is not the root cause – it is also a knee-jerk reaction to the symptoms – the complaints. Treating the symptoms requires learning how to diagnose the specific root cause of the lead time performance failure. There are many possible contributors to lead time and you need to know which are present because if you get the diagnosis wrong you will make an unwise decision, take the wrong action and exacerbate the problem.”

Something goes ‘click’ in your head and suddently your fog of confusion evaporates. It is like someone just switched a light on.

“Ah Ha! You have just explained why nothing we try seems to work for long – if at all. How long does it take to learn how to diagnose and treat the specific root causes?”

The calm voice was expecting this question and seemed to switch to the next part of the script.

?“It depends on how committed the learner is and how much unlearning they have to do in the process. Our experience is that it takes a few hours of focussed effort over a few weeks. It is rather like learning any new skill. Guidance, practice and feedback are needed. Just about anyone can learn how to do it – but paradoxically it takes longer for the more experienced and, can I say, cynical managers. We believe they have more unlearning to do.”

You are now feeling a growing sense of urgency and excitement.

“So it is not something we can do now on the phone?”

?“No. This conversation is just the first step.”

You are eager now – sitting forward on the edge of your chair and completely focussed.

“OK. What is the next step?”

There is a pause. You sense that the calm voice is reviewing the conversation and coming to a decision.

?“Before I can answer your question I need to ask you something. I need to ask you how you are feeling.”

That was not the question you expected! You are not used to talking about your feelings – especially to a complete stranger on the phone – yet strangely you do not sense that you are being judged. You have is a growing feeling of trust in the calm voice.

You pause, collect your thoughts and attempt to put your feelings into words.

“Er – well – a mixture of feelings actually – and they changed over time. First I had a feeling of surprise that this seems so familiar and straightforward to you; then a sense of resistance to the idea that my problem is fixable; and then a sense of confusion because what you have shown me challenges everything I have been taught; and then a feeling distrust that there must be a catch and then a feeling of fear of embarassement if I do not spot the trick. Then when I put my natural skepticism to one side and considered the possibility as real then there was a feeling of anger that I was not taught any of this before; and then a feeling of sadness for the years of wasted time and frustration from battling something I could not explain. Eventually I started to started to feel that my cherished impossibility belief was being shaken to its roots. And then I felt a growing sense of curiosity, optimism and even excitement that is also tinged with a feeling of fear of disappointment and of having my hopes dashed – again.”

There was a pause – as if the calm voice was digesting this hearty meal of feelings. Then the calm voice stated:

?“You are experiencing the Nerve Curve. It is normal and expected. It is a healthy sign. It means that the healing process has already started. You are part of your system. You feel what it feels – it feels what you do. The sequence of negative feelings: the shock, denial, anger, sadness, depression and fear will subside with time and the positive feelings of confidence, curiosity and excitement will replace them. Do not worry. This is normal and it takes time. I can now suggest the next step.”

You now feel like you have just stepped off an emotional rollercoaster – scary yet exhilarating at the same time. A sense of relief sweeps over you. You have shared your private emotional pain with a stranger on the phone and the world did not end! There is hope.

“What is the next step?”

This time there was no pause.

?“To commit to learning how to diagnose and treat your process illnesses yourself.”

“You mean you do not sell me an expensive training course or send me a sharp-suited expert who will come tell me what to do and charge me a small fortune?”

There is an almost sarcastic tone to your reply that you regret as soon as you have spoken.

Another pause. An uncomfortably long one this time. You sense the calm voice knows that you know the answer to your own question and is waiting for you to answer it yourself.

You answer your own question.

“OK. I guess not. Sorry for that. Yes – I am definitely up for learning how! What do I need to do.”

?“Just email us. The address is on the website. We will outline the learning process. It is neither difficult nor expensive.”

The way this reply was delivered – calmly and matter-of-factly – was reassuring but it also promoted a new niggle – a flash of fear.

“How long have I got to learn this?”

This time the calm voice had an unmistakable sense of urgency that sent a cold prickles down your spine.

?”Delay will add no value. You are being stalked by the Horned Gaussian. This means your system is on the edge of a catastrophe cliff. It could tip over any time. You cannot afford to relax. You must maintain all your current defenses. It is a learning-by-doing process. The sooner you start to learn-by-doing the sooner the fire starts to fade and the sooner you move away from the edge of the cliff.”

“OK – I understand – and I do not know why I did not seek help a long time ago.”

The calm voice replied simply.

?”Many people find seeking help difficult. Especially senior people”.

Sensing that the conversation is coming to an end you feel compelled to ask:

“I am curious. Where do the DRATs come from?”

?“Curiosity is a healthy attitude to nurture. We believe that DRATs originated in finance departments – where they were originally called Fiscal Averages, Ratios and Targets. At some time in the past they were sucked into operations and governance departments by a knowledge vacuum created by an unintended error of omission.”

You are not quite sure what this unfamiliar language means and you sense that you have strayed outside the scope of the “emergency script” but the phrase ‘error of omission sounds interesting’ and pricks your curiosity. You ask:

“What was the error of omission?”

?“We believe it was not investing in learning how to design complex adaptive value systems to deliver capable win-win-win performance. Not investing in learning the Science of Improvement.”

“I am not sure I understand everything you have said.”

?“That is OK. Do not worry. You will. We look forward to your email. My name is Bob by the way.”

“Thank you so much Bob. I feel better just having talked to someone who understands what I am going through and I am grateful to learn that there is a way out of this dark pit of despair. I will look at the website and send the email immediately.”

?”I am happy to have been of assistance.”

[/reveal]

09/11/2012

The Four Parts of Purpose

Mission Statements are often ridiculed and discounted by the very people they are designed for.

Their intention appears positive yet they often seem ineffective and even counter-productive.

Why is that?

In essence the Mission Statement is a declaration of the organisations purpose and provides a context for the formulation of strategy. Very often they are ambiguous, emotive and sort of yingy-yangy. More marketing gimmick than management goal.

The output of Improvement Science is a system designed to deliver its value purpose. So a clear and realistic purpose is the first requirement for an effective system design.

For example:

Global Fast Food Inc – “To provide fast-food prepared in the same high-quality manner world-wide that is tasty, reasonably-priced and delivered consistently in a low-key décor and friendly atmosphere.”

This is a clear purpose specification – and it has all the Three Wins® design elements of quality, delivery and money. It is necessary but it is not yet sufficient.

What is missing?

First we need to be clear what a poor purpose statement design looks like. They contain the word “best”. They are poor designs because just using the word “best” makes them aspirations not specifications. Dreams rather than deliverables. Only one organisation can actually be “the best” so adopting impossible purpose condemns the majority of organisations to failure-to-achieve-their-purpose. And everyone in the organisation knows that. So they give up emotionally at the start. They know that achieving the stated purpose is impossible.

Not having a Statement of Purpose (SoP) at all is even worse because the message this broadcasts is that the organisation cannot articulate its purpose – its reason for existing – where it derives its sense of value and worth. Purposeless organisations are chaotic and demotivating places to work in because the emotional vacuum is filled with something much more toxic – organisational politics.

So we do need some form of Statement of Purpose and one reason that the what-we-will-do design feels incomplete is because it only covers a quarter of the requirements for a system purpose specification. And it is the missing three-quarters that causes the problems. They are difficult to articulate but we can feel the gap that we cannot see.

A statement of purpose is a cultural contract – is operates at the people and psychological level – not at the legal level. It is a collective pledge. It is a statement of expectation.

So when observed behaviour falls short of expected behaviour then disappointment and anger results. After that comes sadness – for the loss of hope – then fear of what the failure implies and what will come next. Fear of the rhetoric-reality mismatch; the small white lies that feed on fear and grow into the big fat porkie-pies; the secrecy and hoarding of knowledge; the hidden agendas; and the behind-closed door wheeling and dealing; the fait accomplis and the handed down JFDI Policies. All untrustworthy behaviours. And all blindingly obvious to everyone. Trust is eroded, optimism turns to skepticism and then cynicism. The toxic emotional swamp deepens. Who would want to invest their lifetime there? The savvy sensitive ones escape. The emotionally thick-skinned species of employee survive. A few noisy idealists may stay out of a misplaced sense of loyality but usually even they fall silent as the toxic swamp overwhelmes them. Not a very rosy picture is it?

So what does a full Statement of Purpose look like?

Firstly there are two Acts:

1. The Acts of Commission – the things that we say we will commit to do.
2. The Acts of Omission – the things that we say we will commit NOT to do.

Both are required.

These are made explicit using a Pledge. The pledge is the output if a formal design exercise – like a blueprint.

Secondly there are the two Defences against Errors. These are made explicit using a Plan. It too requires design.

When we fail to deliver on our commitments as individuals (and we all do because we are all human) then we make two different types of error. I- the Error of Commission or II – the Error of Omission.

The Error of Commission is when we do the wrong thing (or we try to do the right thing but do it wrong). The first is failure of efficacy the second is failure of effectiveness. So first we need to be able to decide what is the right thing and then we need the capability to deliver it right. For that we need to know what to do and how to do it. We need both knowledge and understanding. We need to know what and why.

Errors erode trust. And one of the commonest errors of commission is to assume ineffectiveness (or inefficiency) when the actual cause is poor strategic decisions. The effect of this error is to add more and more bureaucracy. Checking that we have done what we should and done it right. Inspection-and-Correction, Supervision-and-Surveillance, Audits-and-Reports. Waiting for a failure and then sniffing like hounds up the trail of spilt blood and breadcrumbs. Right back to the individual who committed the sinof commission and then to expose and punish them. To weed out the bad apples in the barrel. Bureaucracy is not the solution – it is the symptom of poor strategic decisions.

And some people are naturally drawn to the Inspection, Supervision and Protection roles – the ISP functions – because their temperaments are suited to it. And that is OK so long as the Purpose is valid. When the Purpose is invalid the ISP army will enforce an ineffective strategic plan and the problem will be magnified. Invalid purposes are a symptom of a lack of collective strategic wisdom – which is why the design of the Statement of Purpose is critical to long term success.

The world is always changing – so even when the Purpose is valid and does not change – what was a well designed Policy a decade ago may easily be a poor design of Policy now. But the role of the Inspectors, Supervisors and Protectors is to maintain stability – and that is good. We need that. The danger comes silently and slowly as the Reality changes and the Rhetoric does not. The ISP army grows, the bureaucracy and bullying grows, and the costs escalate. The mismatch is exposed eventually – there is a crisis – often of catastrophic proportions. The longer the delay the bigger the catastrophe. And the bigger the catastrophe the more people get caught in the cross-fire.

So the fourth part is the Defence against Errors of Omission.

An Error of Omission is when we do not do something that we should have. When we did not say “That is not OK” when we could clearly see that something was not OK. The Error of Omission is the more dangerous error because it is invisible. There is nothing to see. There is no blood or breadcrumb trail for the faithful hounds to follow. There is no evidence trail leading to the bad outcome so the hounds follow any trail that they find and either scapegoat the wrong person or go around in circles and eventually conclude “it was a system problem”. They are correct. It is. A system design problem.

The individual errors of omission are bad enough – the collective errors of omission are worse.

And they are driven by two forces. Ignorance and Fear.

160 years ago in Vienna the doctors did not know that not washing their hands when entering the labour ward was an Error of Omission. They were ignorant of the fact. And as a result hundreds of young women and their new babies died of Childbed Fever. The people knew this and it is said that husbands would rather their wives give birth on the street than go to hospital when the doctors were on duty for the day. At its worse the death rate was 30% per month! Now we do know that to not disinfect our hands between patients is an error of omission and we understand the reason – we understand how we unintentionally spread invisible germs on our hands.

Knowledge is the antidote to ignorance and knowledge needs to be shared to be effective – because we are all ignorant until educated. And we are ignorant of our ignorance. We do not now what we do not know. Tackling our ignorance requires humility. The willingness to expose our own knowledge gaps. The willingness to learn – continuously – because reality is always evolving.

The more usual driver of the collective error of omission is fear. Fear of persecution if we break ranks and make ourselves conspicuous by saying “This is not OK”. And the people who perscute us the most are our peers. Their collective fear of their own failures of purpose creates a much greater emotional barrier than the fear of an autocratic ISP bully. We also fear the mob. The dangerously unpredictable blinded-by-anger mob that becomes collectively enraged by their loss of trust and who stone-to-death anything that resembles the threat.

We fear and we turn away so we cannot see; we cover our ears so we cannot hear; and we say and do nothing. That is the Collective Error of Omission.

What then is the way forward?

Fill in the missing pieces.

Ensure that our Statement of Purpose has Four Parts.

1. What we will do and why. The Intended Acts of Commission.

2. What we will not do and why. The Intended Acts of Omission.

3. How we will know we have made an Error of Commission. The Defence against Type I Errors.

4. How we will know we have made an Error of Omission. The Defence against Type II Errors.

The Acts are designs for Trust, the Defences are designs for Feedback – the two essential components of an effective value system design.

27/10/2012

The First Step Looks The Steepest

Getting started on improvement is not easy.

It feels like we have to push a lot to get anywhere and when we stop pushing everything just goes back to where it was before and all our effort was for nothing.

And it is easy to become despondent. It is easy to start to believe that improvement is impossible. It is easy to give up. It is not easy to keep going.

One common reason for early failure is that we often start by trying to improve something that we have little control over. Which is natural because many of the things that niggle us are not of our making.

But not all Niggles are like that; there are also many Niggles over which we have almost complete control.

It is these close-to-home Niggles that we need to start with – and that is surprisingly difficult too – because it requires a bit of time-investment.

The commonest reason for not investing time in improvement is: “I am too busy.”

Q: Too busy doing what – specifically?

This simple question is a good place to start because just setting aside a few minutes each day to reflect on where we have been spending our time is a worthwhile task.

And the output of our self-reflection is usually surprising.

We waste lifetime every day doing worthless work.

Then we complain that we are too busy to do the worthwhile stuff.

Q: So what are we scared of? Facing up to the uncomfortable reality of knowing how much lifetime we have wasted already?

We cannot change the past. We can only influence the future. So we need to learn from the past to make wiser choices.

Lifetime is odd stuff. It both is and is not like money.

We can waste lifetime and we can waste money. In that respect they are the same. Money we do not use today we can save for tomorrow, but lifetime not used today is gone forever.

We know this, so we have learned to use up every last drop of lifetime – we have learned to keep ourselves busy.

And if we are always busy then any improvement will involve a trade-off: dis-investing and re-investing our lifetime. This implies the return on our lifetime re-investment must come quickly and predictably – or we give up.

One tried-and-tested strategy is to start small and then to re-invest our time dividend in the next cycle of improvement. An if we make wise re-investment choices, the benefit will grow exponentially.

Successful entrepreneurs do not make it big overnight.

If we examine their life stories we will find a repeating cycle of bigger and bigger business improvement cycles.

The first thing successful entrepreneurs learn is how to make any investment lead to a return – consistently. It is not luck. They practice with small stuff until they can do it reliably.

Successful entrepreneurs are disciplined and they only take calculated risks.

Unsuccessful entrepreneurs are more numerous and they have a different approach.

They are the get-rich-quick brigade. The undisciplined gamblers. And the Laws of Probability ensure that they all will fail eventually.

Sustained success is not by chance, it is by design.

The same is true for improvement. The skill to learn is how to spot an opportunity to release some valuable time resource by nailing a time-sapping-niggle; and then to reinvest that time in the next most promising cycle of improvement – consistently and reliably. It requires discipline and learning to use some novel tools and techniques.

This is where Improvement Science helps – because the tools and techniques apply to any improvement. Safety. Flow. Quality. Productivity. Stability. Reliability.

In a nutshell … trustworthy.

The first step looks the steepest because the effort required feels high and the benefit gained looks small. But it is climbing the first step that separates the successful from the unsuccessful. And successful people are self-disciplined people.

After a few invest-release-reinvest cycles the amount of time released exceeds the amount needed to reinvest. It is then we have time to spare – and we can do what we choose with that.

Ask any successful athlete or entrepreneur – they keep doing it long after they need to – just for the “rush” it gives them.

The tool I use, because it is quick, easy and effective, is called The 4N Chart®. And it has a helpful assistant called a Niggle-o-Gram®. Together they work like a focusing lens – they show where the most fertile opportunity for improvement is – the best return on an investment of time and effort.

And when we have proved to yourself that the first step of improvement is not as steep as you believed – then we have released some time to re-invest in the next cycle of improvement – and in sharing what we have discovered.

That is where the big return comes from.

10/11/2012: Feedback from people who have used The 4N Chart and Niggle-o-Gram for personal development is overwhelmingly positive.

06/10/2012

Intuitive Counter

If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets how long does it take ten machines to make ten widgets?

If the answer “ten minutes” just popped into your head then your intuition is playing tricks on you. The correct answer is “five minutes“.

Let us try another.

If the lily leaves on the surface of a lake double in area every day and if it takes 48 days to cover the whole lake then how long did it take to cover half the lake? Twenty four days? Nope. The correct answer is 47 days and once again our intuition has tricked us. It is obvious in hindsight though – just not so obvious before.

We all make thousands of unconscious, intuitive decisions every day so if we make unintended errors like this then they must be happening all the time and we do not realise.

OK one more and really concentrate this time.

If we have a three-step sequential process and the chance of a significant safety error at each step is 10%, 30% and 20% respectively then what is the overall error rate for the process? A: (10%+30%+20%) /3 = 60%/3 = 20%? Nope. Um 30%? Nope. What about 60%? Nope. The answer is 49.6%. And it is not intuitively obvious how that is the correct answer.

When it comes to numbers, counting, and anything to do with chance and probability then our intuition is not a safe and reliable tool. But we rely on it all the time and we are not aware of the errors we are making. And it is not just numbers that our intuition trips us up over!

A lot of us are intuitive thinkers … about 40% in fact. The majority of leaders and executives are categorised as iNtuitors when measured using a standard psychological assessment tool. And remember – they are the ones making the Big Decisions that effect us all. So if their intuition is tripping them up then their decisions are likely to be a bit suspect.

Fortunately there is a group of people who do not fall into these hidden cognitive counting traps so easily. They have Books of Rules of how to do numbers correctly – and they are called Accountants. When they have the same standard assessment a lot of them pop up at the other end of the iNtuitor dimension. They are called Sensors. Not because they are sensitive (which of course they are) but because they rank reality more trustworthy than rhetoric. They trust what they see – the facts – the numbers. And money is a number. And numbers add up exactly so that everything is neat, tidy, and auditable down to the last penny. Ahhhh – Blisse is Balanced Books and Budgets.

This is why the World is run by Accountants. They nail our soft and fuzzy intuitive rhetoric onto the hard and precise fiscal reality. And in so doing a big and important piece of the picture is lost. The fuzzy bit,

Intuitors have a very important role. They are able to think outside the Rule Book Box. They are comfortable working with fuzzy concepts and in abstract terms and their favourite sport is intuitive leaping. It is a high risk sport though because sometimes Reality reminds them that the Laws of Physics are not optional or subject to negotiation and innovation. Ouch! But the iNtuitors ability to leap about conceptuallycomes in very handy when the World is changing unpredictably – because it allows the Books of Rules to be challenged and re-written as new discoveries are made. The first Rule is usually “Do not question the Rules” so those who follow Rules are not good at creating new ones. And those who write the rules are not good at sticking to them.

So, after enough painful encounters with Reality the iNtuitors find their comfort zones in board rooms, academia and politics – where they can avoid hard Reality and concentrate on soft Rhetoric. Here they can all have a different conceptual abstract mental model and can happily discuss, debate and argue with each other for eternity. Of course the rest of the Universe is spectacularly indifferent to board room, academic and political rhetoric – but the risk to the disinterested is when the influential iNtuitors impose their self-generated semi-delusional group-think on the Real World without a doing a Reality Check first. The outcome is entirely predictable ….

And as the hot rhetoric meets cold reality the fog of disillusionment forms.

So if we wish to embark on a Quest for Improvement then it is really helpful to know where on the iNtuitor-Sensor dimension each of us prefers to sit. Intuitors need Sensors to provide a reality check and Sensors need Intuitors to challenge the status quo. We are not nailed to our psychological perches – we can shuffle up and down if need be – we do have a favourite spot though; our comfort zone.

To help answer the “Where am I on the NS dimension?” question here is a Temperament Self-Assessment Tool that you can use. It is based on the Jungian, Myers-Briggs and Keirsey models. Just run the programme, answer the 72 questions and you will get your full 4-dimensional profile and your “centre” on each. Then jot down the results on a scrap of paper.

There is a whole industry that has sprung up out these (and other) psychological assessment tools. They feed our fascination with knowing what makes us tick and the role of the psychoexpert is to de-mystify the assessments for us and to explain the patterns in the tea leaves (for a fee of course because it takes years of training to become a Demystifier). Disappointingly, my experience is that almost every person I have asked if they know their Myers-Briggs profile say “Oh yes, I did that years ago, it is SPQR or something like that but I have no idea what it means“. Maybe they should ask for their Demystification Fee to be returned?

Anyway – here is the foundation level demystification guide to help you derive meaning from what is jotted on the scrap of paper.

First look at the N-S (iNtuitor-Sensor) dimension. If you come out as N then look at the T-F (Thinking-Feeling) dimension – and together they will give an xNTx preference or an xNFx preference. People with these preferences are called Rationals and Idealists respectively. If you prefer the S end of the N-S dimension then look at the J-P (Judging-Perceiving) result and this will give an xSxJ or xSxP preference. These are the Guardians and the Artisans. Those are the Four Temperaments described by David Keirsey in “Please Understand Me II“. If you are near the middle of any of the dimensions then you will show a blend of temperaments. And please note – it is not an either-or category – it is a continuous spectrum.

How we actually manifest our innate personality preferences depends on our education, experiences and the exact context. This makes it a tricky to interpret the specific results for an individual – hence the Tribe of Demystificationists. And remember – these are not intelligence tests, and there are no good/bad or right/wrong answers. They are gifts – or rather gifts differing.

So how does all this psychobabble help us as Improvement Scientists?

Much of Improvement Science is just about improving awareness and insight – so insight into ourselves is of value.

Rationals (xNTx) are attracted to occupations that involve strategic thinking and making rational, evidence based decisions: such as engineers and executives. The Idealists (xNFx) are rarer, more sensitive, and attracted to occupations such as teaching, counselling, healing and being champions of good causes. The Guardians (xSxJ) are particularly numerous and are attracted to occupations that form the stable bedrock of society – administrators, inspectors, supervisors, providers and protectors. They value the call-of-duty and sticking-to-the-rules for the good-of-all. Artisans (SPs) are the risk-takers and fun-makers; the promotors, the entertainers, the explorers, the dealers, the artists, the marketeers and the salespeople.

These are the Four Temperaments that form the basic framework of the sixteen Myers-Briggs polarities. And this is not a new idea – it has been around for millenia – just re-emerging with different names in different paradigms. In the Renaissance the Galenic Paradigm held sway and they were called the Phlegmatics (NT), the Cholerics (NF), the Melancholics (SJ) and the Sangines (SP) – depending on which of the four body fluids were believed to be out of balance (phlegm, yellow bile, black bile or blood). So while the paradigms have changed, the empirical reality appears to have endured the ages.

The message for the Improvement Scientist is two-fold:

1. Know your own temperament and recognise the strengths and limitations of it. They all have a light and dark side.
2. Understand that the temperaments of groups of people can be both synergistic and antagonistic.

It is said that birds of a feather flock together and the collective behaviour of departments in large organisations tend to form around the temperament that suits that organisational function. The character of the Finance department is usually very different to that of Operations, or Human Resources – and sparks can (and do) fly when they engage each other. No wonder chief executives have a short half-life and an effective one is worth its weight in gold!

The interdepartmental discord that is commonly observed in large organisations follows more from ignorance (unawareness of the reality of a spectrum of innate temperaments) and arrogance (expecting everyone to think the same way as we do). Antagonism is not an inevitable consequence though – it is just the default outcome in the absence of awareness and effective leadership.

This knowledge highlights two skills that an effective Improvement Scientist needs to master:

1. Respectful Educator (drawing back the black curtain of ignorance) and
2. Respectful Challenger (using reality to illuminate holes in the rhetoric).

Intuitive counter or counter intuitive?

22/09/2012

The Frightening Cost Of Fear

The recurring theme this week has been safety and risk.

Specifically in a healthcare context. Most people are not aware just how risky our current healthcare systems are. Those who work in healthcare are much more aware of the dangers but they seem powerless to do much to make their systems safer for patients.

The shroud-waving zealots who rant on about safety often use a very unhelpful quotation. They say “Every system is perfectly designed to deliver the performance it does“. The implication is that when the evidence shows that our healthcare systems are dangerous …. then …. we designed them to be dangerous. The reaction from the audience is emotional and predictable “We did not intend this so do not try to pin the blame on us!” The well-intentioned shroud-waving safety zealot loses whatever credibility they had and the collective swamp of cynicism and despair gets a bit deeper.

The warning-word here is design – because it has many meanings. The design of a system can mean “what the system is” in the sense of a blueprint. The design of a system can also mean “how the blueprint was created”. This process sense is the trap – because it implies intention. Design needs a purpose – the intended outcome – so to say an unsafe system has been designed is to imply that it was intended to be unsafe. This is incorrect.

The message in the emotional backlash that our well-intended zealot provoked is “You said we intended bad things to happen which is not correct so if you are wrong on that fundamental belief then how can I trust anything else you say?“. This is the reason zealots lose credibility and actually make improvement less likely to happen.

The reality is not that the system was designed to be unsafe – it is that it was not designed not to be. The double negatives are intentional. The two statements are not the same.

The default way of the Universe is evolutionary (which is unintentional and reactive) and chaotic (which is unstable and unsafe). To design a system to be not-unsafe we need to understand Two Sciences – Design Science and Safety Science. Only then can we proactively and intentionally design safe, stable, and trustable systems. If we do nothing and do not invest in mastering the Two Sciences then we will get the default outcome: unintended unsafety. This is what the uncomfortable evidence says we have.

So where does the Frightening Cost of Fear come in?

If our system is unintentionally and unpredictably unsafe then of course we will try to protect ourselves from the blame which inevitably will follow from disappointed customers. We fear the blame partly because we know it is justified and partly because we feel powerless to avoid it. So we cover our backs. We invent and implement complex check-and-correct systems and we document everything we do so that we have the evidence in the inevitable event of a bad outcome and the backlash it unleashes. The evidence that proves we did our best; it shows we did what the safety zealots told us to do; it shows that we cannot be held responsible for the bad outcome.

Unfortunately this strategy does little to prevent bad outcomes. In fact it can have has exactly the opposite effect of what is intended. The added complexity and cost of our cover-my-back bureaucracy actually increases the stress and chaos and makes bad outcomes more likely to happen. It makes the system even less safe. It does not deflect the blame. It just demonstrates that we do not understand how to design a not-unsafe system.

And the financial cost of our fear is frighteningly high.

Studies have shown that over 60% of nursing time is spent on documentation – and about 70% of healthcare cost is on hospital nurse salaries. The maths is easy – at least 42% of total healthcare cost is spent on back-covering-blame-deflection-bureaucracy.

It gets worse though.

Those legal documents called clinical records need to be moved around and stored for a minimum of seven years. That is expensive. Converting them into an electronic format misses the point entirely. Finding the few shreds of valuable clinical information amidst the morass of back-covering-bureaucracy uses up valuable specialist time and has a high risk of failure. Inevitably the risk of decision errors increases – but this risk is unmeasured and is possibly unmeasurable. The frustration and fear it creates is very obvious though: to anyone willing to look.

The cost of correcting the Niggles that have been detected before they escalate to Not Agains, Near Misses and Never Events can itself account for half the workload. And the cost of clearing up the mess after the uncommon but inevitable disaster becomes built into the system too – as insurance premiums to pay for future litigation and compensation. It is no great surprise that we have unintentionally created a compensation culture! Patient expectation is rising.

Add all those costs up and it becomes plausible to suggest that the Cost of Fear could be a terrifying 80% of the total cost!

Of course we cannot just flick a switch and say “Right – let us train everyone in safe system design science“. What would all the people who make a living from feeding on the present dung-heap do? What would the checkers and auditors and litigators and insurers do to earn a crust? Join the already swollen ranks of the unemployed?

If we step back and ask “Does the Cost of Fear principle apply to everything?” then we are faced with the uncomfortable conclusion that it most likely is. So the cost of everything we buy will have a Cost of Fear component in it. We will not see it written down like that but it will be in there – it must be.

This leads us to a profound idea. If we collectively invested in learning how to design not-unsafe systems then the cost of everything could fall. This means we would not need to work as many hours to earn enough to pay for what we need to live. We could all have less fear and stress. We could all have more time to do what we enjoy. We could all have both of these and be no worse off in terms of financial security.

This Win-Win-Win outcome feels counter-intuitive enough to deserve serious consideration.

So here are some other blog topics on the theme of Safety and Design:

Never Events, Near Misses, Not Agains and Nailing Niggles

The Safety Line in the Quality Sand

Safety By Design

15/09/201214/05/2024

Standard Ambiguity

One that causes much confusion and debate in the world of Improvement is the word standard – because it has so many different yet inter-related meanings.

It is an ambiguous word and a multi-facetted concept.

For example, standard method can be the normal way of doing something (as in a standard operating procedure or SOP); standard can be the expected outcome of doing something; standard can mean the minimum acceptable quality of the output (as in a safety standard); standard can mean an aspirational performance target; standard can mean an absolute reference or yardstick (as in the standard kilogram); standard can mean average; and so on. It is an ambiguous word.

So, it is no surprise that we get confused. And when we feel confused we get scared and we try to relieve our fear by asking questions; which doesn’t help because we don’t get clear answers. We start to discuss, and debate and argue and all this takes effort, time and inevitably money. And the fog of confusion does not lift. If anything it gets denser. And the reason? Standard Ambiguity.

One contributory factor is the perennial confusion between purpose and process. Purpose is the Why. Process is the How. The concept of Standard applied to the Purpose will include the outcomes: the minimum acceptable (safety standard), the expected (the specification standard) and the actual (the de facto standard). The concept of Standard applied to the Process would include the standard operating procedures and the reference standards for accurate process measurement (e.g. a gold standard).

To illustrate the problems that result from confusing purpose standards with process standards we need look no further than education.

Q: What is the purpose of a school? Why does a school exist:

A:To deliver people who have achieved their highest educational potential perhaps.

Q: What is the purpose of an exam board? Why does an exam board exist?

A: To deliver a common educational reference standard and to have a reliable method for comparing individual pupils against that reference standard perhaps.

So, where does the idea of “Being the school that achieved the highest percentage of top grades?” fit with these two purpose standards? Where does the school league table concept fit? It is not obvious to see immediately. But, you might say, we do want to improve the educational capability of our population because that is a national and global asset in an increasingly complex, rapidly changing, high technology world. Surely a league table will drive up the quality of education? But it doesn’t seem to be turning out that way. What is getting in the way?

What might be getting in the way is how we often conflate collaboration with competition.

It seems that many believe we can only have either collaboration or competition. Either-Or thinking is a trap for the unwary and whenever these words are uttered a small alarm bell should ring. Are collaboration and competition mutually exclusive? Or are we just making this assumption to simplify the problem? PS. We do that a lot.

Suppose the exam boards were both competing and collaborating with each other. Suppose they collaborated to set and to maintain a stable and trusted reference standard; and suppose that they competed to provide the highest quality service to the schools – in terms of setting and marking exams. What would happen?

Firstly, an exam board that stepped out of line in terms of these standards would lose its authority to set and mark exams – it would cut its own commercial throat. Secondly, the quality of the examination process would go up because those who invest in doing that will attract more of the market share.

What about the schools – what if they both collaborated and competed too? What if they collaborated to set and maintain a stable and trusted reference standard of conduct and competency of their teachers – and what if they competed to improve the quality of their educational process. The best schools would attract the most pupils.

What can happen if we combine competition and collaboration is that the sum becomes greater than the parts.

A similar situation exists in healthcare. Some hospitals are talking about competing to be the safest hospitals and collaborating to improve quality. It sounds plausible but it is rational?

Safety is an absolute standard – it is the common minimum acceptable quality. No hospital should fail on safety so this is not a suitable subject for competition. All hospitals could collaborate to set and to maintain safety – helping each other by sharing data, information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom. And with that Foundation of Trust they can then compete on quality – using their natural competitive spirit to pull them ever higher. Better quality of service, better quality of delivery and better quality of performance – including financial. Win-win-win. And when the quality of everything improves through collaborative and competitive upwards pull, then the achievable level of minimum acceptable quality increases. This means that the Safety Standard can improve too. Everyone wins.

18/08/2012

Disappointers, Delighters and Satisfiers.

There are two broad approaches to improvement. One is to start with what we have got now and tinker with it in the hope it will get better. When this is done well it is effective albeit slow. When it is done badly it amounts to dangerous meddling. The more interconnected the system we are trying to improve the more likely our well intentioned tinkering will create a bigger problem in the future than we have now.

Another approach is to start with what-we-want-to-have in the future and then design-to-deliver it. Our starting point is not an aspirational dream vision, also known as an hallucination, it is a clear performance specification with four dimensions: safety, delivery, quality and affordability. This is called a SFQP specification.

The first one to focus on is safety … and what we usually find is that risk of harm is usually a knock-on effect of delivery and quality design problems.

The easiest one is delivery – because it is the application of process physics. The next easiest one is affordability because that is the application of value system accounting.

The tricky one is quality because that implies subjectivity, people, psychology, behaviour and politics. When we add quality to our design challenge we rack up the wickedness score!

So, how do we create a clear and realistic output quality performance specification?

If we draw up a chart with Subjective Quality on the Y-axis and Objective Performance on the X-axis, we can plot all the characteristics of our current and future design on this chart. And when we do that we discover some surprising things.

First – some factors go unnoticed until the performance drops. Said another way we do not notice when it is working – we only only notice when it is not. These factors are called Disappointers. We take for granted that things work 99% of the time – the sun comes up every morning; there is 21% of oxygen in the atmosphere; the air temperature is OK; the electricity is on; the milk, paper and post gets delivered; the car starts and so on. We take it all for granted and we complain when it unexpectedly does not.

So if we ask our customers what they want from an improved service they do not spontaneously volunteer what is currently working well and that they take for granted – because it is out of their awareness. This is what Henry Ford implied when he said “If I asked the customer what they wanted I would have got a faster horse“. It is also the reason why a Three Wins design starts with The 4N Chart® – and specifically the Nuggets corner. We need to make conscious what works well because when we plan improvement we do not want to unintentionally discard the baby with the bath water!

Second – some factors go unnoticed until performance exceeds a minimum threshold. They are not expected so we do not mind if they are not provided – but if they are unexpectedly provided then we are surprised and Delighted. The first time. Once we know what is possible we come to expect it again, and eventually every time.

A common design error is to try to use a Delighter to compensate for a Disappointer.

Suppose we walked into our hotel room and found a complimentary bottle of wine that we were not expecting and then we discovered that there was no toilet paper and the shower was cold. The bottle of wine would not compensate for our disappointment and it might even irritate us because we conclude that the management does not care about our basic needs. Our trust is eroded and our feedback reflects that.

Effective design for trusted quality starts by eliminating the possibility of disappointment. We design it so the expected essentials are “right first time and every time“. Our measure of success is not praise – it is absence of complaints. A deafening silence. It is what does not happen that is important. Good expected essential design is invisible – because it never intrudes on our awareness. And for this reason it is surprisingly difficult to do. It requires pro-action not re-action.

The third type of factor is the Satisfier – and these are the ones that our customers will volunteer because they are aware of them. Lower performance giving lower perceived quality scores and higher performance giving higher. These are the “you get what you pay for” factors. A better designed car is expected to be more comfortable, quieter, easier to drive, safer, more reliable, more effort-saving gadgets and so on. Price is a satisfier. Cost is not. Cost is an output of the design process. So the better the design the greater the gap can be between cost and price.

This method is called Kano Analysis and an understanding of it is essential for effective quality improvement. And like so much of Improvement Science it appears counter-intuitive at first, common-sense when explained, and blindingly obvious when experienced.

21/07/2012

Are-Eee-Ess-Pee-Eee-See-Tee

The phrase that sums up the attitude and behaviour of an effective Improvement Scientist is respectful challenge. The challenge part is the easier to appreciate because to improve we have to change something which implies that we have to challenge the current reality in some way. The respect part is a bit tricker.

One dictionary definition is: Respect gives a positive feeling of esteem for a person or entity. The opposite of respect is contempt.

This definition gets us started because it points to what happens inside our heads – feeling respected is a good feeling; feeling disrespected is a bad one. Improvement only happens and is sustained when it is strongly associated with good feelings. That is how our the caveman wetware between our ears works. So respect is a fundamental component of improvement.

The animation illustrates several aspects of respect. One is the handshake. It is one of those rituals that on the surface seems illogical and superfluous but it has deep social and psychological importance. I once read that it comes from the time when men carried swords and the hand shake signifies “I am not holding my sword“. The handshake is an expression of extending mutual trust using a clear visual signal – it is a mark of mutual respect. The other aspect is signified by the neckties. Again an illogical and superfluous garment except that it too broadcasts a signal – the message “I have prepared for this meeting by taking care to be clean and tidy because it is important“. This too has great social significance – in the past the biggest killer was not swords but something much smaller and more dangerous. Germs. People knew that disease and dirt were associated and that meant a dirty person was a dangerous one. Cleaning up was much more difficult in the days before piped water, baths, showers, washing machines and soap – so to put effort into getting clean and tidy was a mark of great respect. It still is.

So if we want to challenge and influence improvement then we must establish respect first. And that means we have to behave in a respectful manner. And that means we have to think in a respectful way. And that means we have to consciously not behave in an unintended disrespectful manner. Our learned rituals, such as a smile, a handshake and a hello, help us to do that automatically. Unfortunately it is more often what we do not do that is the most disrespectful behaviour. And we all fall into these traps.

Unintended outcomes that result from what we do not do are called Errors of Omission (EOO) – and they are tricky to spot because there is no tangible evidence of them. The evidence of the error is intangible – a bad feeling.

For example, not acknowledging someone is an EOO. This is very obvious in social situations and it presses one of our Three Fears buttons – the Fear of Rejection. It is very easy to broadcast to whole roomful of people that you do not respect someone just by obviously ignoring them. And the higher up the social pecking order you are the greater the impact: for two reasons. First because followers unconsciously copy the behaviour of the leader; and second because it broadcasts the message that disrespectful behaviour is OK.

Contempt is toxic to a collaborative culture and blocks significant, sustained improvement.

In the modern world we have so many more ways that we can communicate and therefore many more opportunities for communication EOOs. The most fertile ground for EOOs is probably email. It is so much easier to be disrespectful to a lot of people in a short period of time by email than just about any other medium. Just failing to acknowledge an email question or request is enough. Failing to put in the email-equivalent of a handshake of Dear <yourname> …. message …. Regards <myname> is similar.

Omitting to communicate last minute changes in a plan is an effective way to upset people too!

And perhaps the most effective is firing a grapeshot email in the hope that one will hit the intended target. These two examples highlight a different form of disrespect: discounting someone else’s time – or more specifically their lifetime.

When we waste our time we waste a bit of our life – and we deny ourselves the opportunity to invest that finite and precious lifetime doing something more enjoyable. Time is not money. Money can be saved for later – time cannot. When we waste an hour of our lives we waste it forever. If we do that to ourselves we are showing lack of self-respect and that is our choice – when we do it to others we create a pervasive and toxic cultural swamp.

One of the first steps in the process of improvement is to engage and listen and one tool for this is The 4N Chart® – which is an emotional mapping technique. Niggles are the Negative Emotions in the Present together with their Be-Causes. The three commonest niggles that people consistently report are car parking, emails and meetings. All three involve lifetime wasting activities. The cumulative effect is frustration and erosion of trust which drives further disrespectful behaviour. The end result is a viscous self-sustaining toxic cycle of habitual disrespect.

An effective tactic here is first to hold up the mirror and reflect back what is happening … that is respectful challenge.

The next step is to improving the processes that are linked to car parking, emails and meetings so that they are more effective and more efficient. And that means actively designing them to be more productive – by actively designing out the lifetime wasting parts.

30/06/2012

The Skeptics, The Cynics and The Sphere of Influence

All intentional improvement implies change. Change requires deliberate action – thinking about change is not enough. Action implies control of physical objects and, despite what we might like to believe, the only things that are under our personal control are our beliefs, our attitudes, our behaviours and our actions. Everything else can only be changed through some form of indirect influence.

Our Circle of Control appears to extends only to our skin – beyond that is our Sphere of Influence – and beyond that is our Region of Concern.

Very few of us live a solitary existence as a hermit. The usual context for improvement is social and therefore to achieve improvement outside ourselves we need to influence the beliefs, attitudes, behaviours and actions of others. And we can only do that through our own behaviour and actions. We cannot do telepathy or mind-control. And remember, we are being influenced by others – it is a two-way street.

So when we receive a push-back to our attempted change-for-the-better action, we have failed to influence in a positive sense and the intended improvement cannot happen. Those who oppose our innovation usually belong to one of two tribes – the Skeptics and the Cynics – and they have much in common. They both operate from a position of doubt and a belief that they are being deliberately deceived. They distrust, discount, question, analyse, critique and they challenge. They do not blindly believe our rhetoric.

This is not new. These two tribes are thousands of years old – the Ancient Greeks knew them well and gave them the names Skeptics and Cynics. They were the Lords of the Dark Ages but they survived the Renaissance and the first skeptical hypothesis in modern Western philosophy is attributed to Rene Descartes who wrote “I will suppose … that some evil demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies to deceive me.”

The two tribes present the Innovator and Improvement Scientist with a dilemma. Before action there is only rhetoric, only an idea, only a belief that better is possible. There is no evidence of improvement yet – so no reality to support the rhetoric. And if the action requires the engagement or permission of either of the two tribes then the change will not happen because it is impossible to influence their belief and behaviour without evidence. We have crashed into the wall of resistance – and the harder we push the harder they push back. So let us conserve our energy, step back from the wall, reflect for a moment and ask “Does the wall surround us completely – or are there gaps?”

Could we find a region of the Sphere of Influence that has few or no Skeptics and Cynics? Is there a place where they do not like to live because the cultural climate is not to their taste? We have an option – we can explore the Sphere of Influence.

At one pole we discover a land called Apathy. It is a barren place where nothing changes; it is devoid of ideas and innovation; it is passionless, monotonous, stable, predictable, safe and boring. The Skeptics and Cynics do not like it there because there is none of their favourite food – Innovator Passion – which is where they derive their energy and their sport.

At the other pole we discover a land called Assertion – and we discover that the Skeptics and Cynics do not like it there either but for a different reason. In Assertion there is abundant passion and innovation, but also experimentation and reflection and the ideas are fewer but come packaged with a tough shell of hard evidence. This makes them much less palatable to the Skeptics because they have to chew hard for little gain. The Cynics shun the place.

At the end of our journey we have learned that the two tribes prefer to live in the temperate zone between Apathy and Assertion where there is an abundant supply of innocent, passionate, innovators with new ideas and no evidence. The Skeptics and Cynics frustrate the inexperienced Innovators who become inflamed with passion which is what the two tribes feed on, and when finally exhausted the Innovators fall easy prey to the Cynics – who convert and enslave them. It is a veritable feeding frenzy – and the ultimate casuality is improvement.

So what is the difference between the Skeptics and the Cynics?

Despite their behaviour the Skeptics do care – they are careful. They are the guardians of stability and their opinion is respected because they help to keep the Sphere safe. They are willing to be convinced – but they want explanation and evidence. Rhetoric is not enough.

The Cynics follow a different creed. Their name derives from the Greek for dog and it is not a term of endearment. They have lost their dreams. They blame others for it and their goal is vengeance. They are remorseless, and shameless. They shun social norms and reasonable behaviour and they are not respected by others. They do not care. They are indifferent.

So the wise Improvement Scientist needs to be able to distinguish the Skeptics from the Cynics – and to learn to value the strengths of the Skeptics and to avoid the Cynics. The deal they negotiate with the Skeptics is: “In return for a steady supply of ideas and enthusiasm we ask only for an explanation of the rejections”. It is a fair trade. The careful and considered feedback of the Skeptics is valuable to the Improvement Scientist because it helps to sharpen the idea and harden the shell of evidence. Once the Innovator, Improvement Scientist and the Skeptic have finished their work any ideas that have survived the digestive process are worthy of investment. It is a a win-win-win arrangement – everyone gets what they want.

The Cynics scavenge the scraps. And that is OK – it is their choice.

03/06/2012

Negotiate, Negotiate, Negotiate.

One of the most important skills that an Improvement Scientist needs is the ability to negotiate. We are all familiar with one form of negotiaton which is called distributive negotiation which is where the parties carve up the pie in a low trust compromise. That is not the form we need – what we need is called integrative negotiation. The goal of integrative negotiation is to join several parts into a greater whole and it implies a higher level of trust and a greater degree of collaboration.

Organisations of more than about 90 people are usually split into departments – and for good reasons. The complex organisation requires specialist aptitudes, skills, and know-how and it is easier to group people together who share the specialist skills needed to deliver that service to the organisation – such as financial services in the accounts department. The problem is that this division also creates barriers and as the organisation increases in size these barriers have a cumulative effect that can severely limit the capability of the organisation. The mantra that is often associated with this problem is “communication, communication, communication” … which is too non-specific and therefore usually ineffective.

The products and services that an organisation is designed to deliver are rarely the output of one department – so the parts need to align and to integrate to create an effective and efficient delivery system. This requires more than just communication – it requires integrative negotiation – and it is not a natural skill or one that is easy to develop. It requires investment of effort and time.

To facilitate the process we need to provide three things: a common goal, a common language and a common ground. The common goal is what all parts of the system are aligned to; the common language is how the dialog is communicated; and the common ground is our launch pad.

Integrative negotiation starts with finding the common ground – the areas of agreement. Very often these are taken for granted because we are psychologically tuned to notice differences rather than similarities. We have to make the “assumed” and “obvious” explicit before we turn our attention on our differences.

Integrative negoation proceeds with defining the common niggles and nice-ifs that could be resolved by a single change; the win-win-win opportunities.

Integrative negotiation concludes with identifying changes that are wholly within the circle of influence of the parties involved – the changes that they have the power to make individually and collectively.

After negotiation comes decision and after decision comes action and that is when improvement happens.

26/05/201216/01/2023

The Nerve Curve

The Nerve Curve is the emotional roller-coaster ride that everyone who engages in Improvement needs to become confident to step onto.

Just like a theme park ride it has ups and downs, twists and turns, surprises and challenges, an element of danger and a splash of excitement. If it did not have all of those components then it would not be fun and there would not be queues of people wanting to ride, again and again. And the reason that theme parks are so successful is because their rides have been very carefully designed – to be challenging, exciting, fun and safe – all at the same time.

So, when we challenge others to step aboard our Improvement Nerve Curve then we need to ensure that our ride is safe – and to do that we need to understand where the emotional dangers lurk, to actively point them out and then avoid them.

A big danger hides right at the start. To get aboard the Nerve Curve we have to ask questions that expose the Elephant-in-the-Room issues. Everyone knows they are there – but no one wants to talk about them. The biggest one is called Distrust – which is wrapped up in all sorts of different ways and inside the nut is the Kernel of Cynicism. The inexperienced improvement facilitator may blunder straight into this trap just by using one small word … the word “Why”? Arrrrrgh! Kaboom! Splat! Game Over.

The “Why” question is like throwing a match into a barrel of emotional gunpowder – because it is interpreted as “What is your purpose?” and in a low-trust climate no one will want to reveal what their real purpose or intention is. They have learned from experience to keep their cards close to their chest – it is safer to keep agendas hidden.

A much safer question is “What?” What are the facts? What are the effects? What are the causes? What works well? What does not? What do we want? What don’t we want? What are the constraints? What are our change options? What would each deliver? What are everyone’s views? What is our decision? What is our first action? What is the deadline?

Sticking to the “What” question helps to avoid everyone diving for the Political Panic Button and pulling the Emotional Emergency Brake before we have even got started.

The first part of the ride is the “Awful Reality Slope” that swoops us down into “Painful Awareness Canyon” which is the emotional low-point of the ride. This is where the elephants-in-the-room roam for all to see and where passengers realise that, once the issues are in plain view, there is no way back.

The next danger is at the far end of the Canyon and is called the Black Chasm of Ignorance and the roller-coaster track goes right to the edge of it. Arrrgh – we are going over the edge of the cliff – quick grab the Wilful Blindness Goggles and Denial Bag from under the seat, apply the Blunder Onwards Blind Fold and the Hope-for-the-Best Smoke Hood.

So, before our carriage reaches the Black Chasm we need to switch on the headlights to reveal the Bridge of How: The structure and sequence that spans the chasm and that is copiously illuminated with stories from those who have gone before. The first part is steep though and the climb is hard work. Our carriage clanks and groans and it seems to take forever but at the top we are rewarded by a New Perspective and the exhilarating ride down into the Plateau of Understanding where we stop to reflect and to celebrate our success.

Here we disembark and discover the Forest of Opportunity which conceals many more Nerve Curves going off in all directions – rides that we can board when we feel ready for a new challenge. There is danger lurking here too though – hidden in the Forest is Complacency Swamp – which looks innocent except that the Bridge of How is hidden from view. Here we can get lured by the pungent perfume of Power and the addictive aroma of Arrogance and we can become too comfortable in the Zone. As we snooze in the Hammock of Calm from we do not notice that the world around us is changing. In reality we are slipping backwards into Blissful Ignorance and we do not notice – until we suddenly find ourselves in an unfamiliar Canyon of Painful Awareness. Ouch!

Being forewarned is our best defense. So, while we are encouraged to explore the Forest of Opportunity, we learn that we must also return regularly to the Plateau of Understanding to don the Habit of Humility. We must regularly refresh ourselves from the Fountain of New Knowledge by showing others what we have learned and learning from them in return. And when we start to crave more excitement we can board another Nerve Curve to a new Plateau of Understanding.

The Safety Harness of our Improvement journey is called See-Do-Teach and the most important part is Teach. Our educators need to have more than just a knowledge of how-to-do, they also need to have enough understanding to be able to explore the why-to -do. The Quest for Purpose.

To convince others to get onboard the Nerve Curve we must be able to explain why the Issues still exist and why the current methods are not sufficient. Those who have been on the ride are the only ones who are credible because they understand. They have learned by doing.

And that understanding grows with practice and it grows more quickly when we take on the challenge of learning how to explore purpose and explain why. This is Nerve Curve II.

All aboard for the greatest ride of all.

19/05/2012

Knowledge and Understanding

Knowledge is not the same as Understanding.

We all know that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West; most of us know that the oceans have a twice-a-day tidal cycle and some of us know that these tides also have a monthly cycle that is associated with the phase of the moon. We know all of this just from taking notice; remembering what we see; and being able to recognise the patterns. We use this knowledge to make reliable predictions of the future times and heights of the tides; and we can do all of this without any understanding of how tides are caused.

Our lack of understanding means that we can only describe what has happened. We cannot explain how it happened. We cannot extract meaning – the why it happened.

People have observed and described the movements of the sun, sea, moon, and stars for millennia and a few could even predict them with surprising accuracy – but it was not until the 17th century that we began to understand what caused the tides. Isaac Newton developed enough of an understanding to explain how it worked and he did it using a new concept called gravity and a new tool called calculus. He then used this understanding to explain a lot of other unexplained things and suddenly the Universe started to make a lot more sense to everyone. Nowadays we teach this knowledge at school and we take it for granted. We assume it is obvious and it is not. We are no smarter now that people in the 17th Century – we just have a deeper understanding (of physics).

Understanding enables things that have not been observed or described to be predicted and explained. Understanding is necessary if we want to make rational and reliable decisions that will lead to changes for the better in a changing world.

So, how can we test if we only know what to do or if we actually understand what to do?

If we understand then we can demonstrate the application of our knowledge by solving old and new problems effectively and we can explain how we do it. If we do not understand then we may still be able to apply our knowledge to old problems but we do not solve new problems effectively or efficiently and we are not able to explain why.

But we do not want the risk of making a mistake in order to test if we have and understanding-gap so how can we find out? What we look for is the tell-tale sign of an excess of knowledge and a dearth of understanding – and it has a name – it is called “bureaucracy”.

Suppose we have a system where the decisions-makers do not make effective decisions when faced with new challenges – which means that their decisions lead to unintended adverse outcomes. It does not take very long for the system to know that the decision process is ineffective – so to protect itself the system reacts by creating bureaucracy – a sort of organisational damage-limitation circle of sand-bags that limit the negative consequences of the poor decisions. A bureaucratic firewall so to speak.

Unfortunately, while bureaucracy is effective it is non-specific, it uses up resources and it slows everything down. Bureaucracy is inefficiency. What we get as a result is a system that costs more and appears to do less and that is resistant to any change – not just poor decisions – it slows down good ones too.

The bureaucratic barrier is important though; doing less bad stuff is actually a reasonable survival strategy – until the cost of the bureaucracy threatens the systems viability. Then it becomes a liability.

So what happens when a last-saloon-in-town “efficiency” drive is started in desperation and the “bureaucratic red tape” is slashed? The poor decisions that the red tape was ensnaring are free to spread virally and when implemented they create a big-bang unintended adverse consequence! The safety and quality performance of the system drops sharply and that triggers the reflex “we-told-you-so” and rapid re-introduction of the red-tape, plus some extra to prevent it happening again. The system learns from its experience and concludes that “higher quality always costs more” and “don’t trust our decision-makers” and “the only way to avoid a bad decision is not to make/or/implement any decisions” and to “the safest way to maintain quality is to add extra checks and increased the price”. The system then remembers this new knowledge for future reference; the bureaucratic concrete sets hard; and the whole cycle repeats itself. Ad infinitum.

So, with this clearer insight into the value of bureaucracy and its root cause we can now design an alternative system: to develop knowledge into understanding and by that route to improve our capability to make better decisions that lead to predictable, reliable, demonstrable and explainable benefits for everyone. When we do that the non-specific bureaucracy is seen to impede progress so it makes sense to dismantle the bits that block improvement – and keep the bits that block poor decisions and that maintain performance. We now get improved quality and lower costs at the same time, quickly, predictably and without taking big risks, and we can reinvest what we have saved in making making further improvements and developing more knowledge, a deeper understanding and wiser decisions. Ad infinitum.

The primary focus of Improvement Science is to expand understanding – our ability to decide what to do, and what not to; where and where not to; and when and when not to – and to be able to explain and to demonstrate the “how” and to some extent the “why”.

One proven method is to See, then to Do, and then to Teach. And when we try that we discover to our surprise that the person whose understanding increases the most is the teacher! Which is good because the deeper the teachers understanding the more flaxible, adaptable and open to new learning they become. Education and bureaucracy are poor partners.

12/05/2012

Cause and Effect

Breaking News: Scientists have discovered that people with yellow teeth are more likely to die of lung cancer. Patient-groups and dentists are now calling for tooth-whitening to be made freely available to everyone.”

Does anything about this statement strike you as illogical? Surely it is obvious. Having yellow teeth does not cause lung cancer – smoking causes both yellow teeth and lung cancer! Providing a tax-funded tooth-whitening service will be futile – banning smoking is the way to reduce deaths from lung cancer!

What is wrong here? Do we have a problem with mad scientists, misuse of statistics or manipulative journalists? Or all three?

Unfortunately, while we may believe that smoking causes both yellow teeth and lung cancer it is surprisingly difficult to prove it – even when sane scientists use the correct statistics and their results are accurately reported by trustworthy journalists. It is not easy to prove causality. So we just assume it.

We all do this many times every day – we infer causality from our experience of interacting with the real world – and it is our innate ability to do that which allows us to say that the opening statement does not feel right. And we do this effortlessly and unconsciously.

We then use our inferred-causality for three purposes. Firstly, we use it to explain how past actions led to the present situation. The chain of cause-and-effect. Secondly, we use it to create options in the present – our choices of actions. Thirdly, we use it to predict the outcome of our chosen action – we set our expectation and then compare the outcome with our prediction. If outcome is better than we expected then we feel good, if it is worse then we feel bad.

What we are doing naturally and effortlessly is called “causal modelling”. And it is an impressive skill. It is the skill needed to solve problems by designing ways around them.

Unfortunately – the ability to build and use a causal model does not guarantee that our model is a valid, complete or accurate representation of reality. Our model may be imperfect and we may not be aware of it. This raises two questions: “How could two people end up with different causal models when they are experiencing the same reality?” and “How do we prove if either is correct and if so, which it is?”

The issue here is that no two people can perceive reality exactly the same way – we each have an unique perspective – and it is an inevitable source of variation.

We also tend to assume that what-we-perceive-is-the-truth so if someone expresses a different view of reality then we habitually jump to the conclusion that they are “wrong” and we are “right”. This unconscious assumption of our own rightness extends to our causal models as well. If someone else believes a different explanation of how we got to where we are, what our choices are and what effect we might expect from a particular action then there is almost endless opportunity for disagreement!

Fortunately our different perceptions agree enough to create common ground which allows us to co-exist reasonably amicably. But, then we take the common ground for granted, it slips from our awareness, and we then magnify the molehills of disagreement into mountains of discontent. It is the way our caveman wetware works. It is part of the human condition.

So, if our goal is improvement, then we need to consider a more effective approach: which is to assume that all our causal models are approximate and that they are all works-in-progress. This implies that each of us has two challenges: first to develop a valid causal model by testing it against reality through experimentation; and second to assist the collective development of a common causal model by sharing our individual understanding through explanation and demonstration.

The problem we then encounter is that statistical analysis of historical data cannot answer questions of causality – it is necessary but it is not sufficient – and because it is insufficient it does not make common-sense. For example, there may well be a statistically significant association between “yellow teeth” and “lung cancer” and “premature death” but knowing those facts is not enough to help us create a valid cause-and-effect model that we then use to make wiser choices of more effective actions that cause us to live longer.

Learning how to make wiser choices that lead to better outcomes is what Improvement Science is all about – and we need more than statistics – we need to learn how to collectively create, test and employ causal models.

And that has another name – is called common sense.

05/05/2012

Resistance to Change

Many people who are passionate about improvement become frustrated when they encounter resistance-to-change.

It does not matter what sort of improvement is desired – safety, delivery, quality, costs, revenue, productivity or all of them.

The natural and intuitive reaction to meeting resistance is to push harder – and our experience of the physical world has taught us that if we apply enough pressure at the right place then resistance will be overcome and we will move forward.

Unfortunately we sometimes discover that we are pushing against an immovable object and even our maximum effort is futile – so we give up and label it as “impossible”.

Much of Improvement Science appears counter-intuitive at first sight and the challenge of resistance is no different. The counter-intuitive response to feeling resistance is to pull back, and that is exactly what works better. But why does it work better? Isn’t that just giving up and giving in? How can that be better?

To explain the rationale it is necessary to examine the nature of resistance more closely.

Resistance to change is an emotional reaction to an unconsciously perceived threat that is translated into a conscious decision, action and justification: the response. The range of verbal responses is large, as illustrated in the caption, and the range of non-verbal responses is just as large. Attempting to deflect or defuse all of them is impractical, ineffective and leads to a feeling of frustration and futility.

This negative emotional reaction we call resistance is non-specific because that is how our emotions work – and it is triggered as much by the way the change is presented as by what the change is.

Many change “experts” recommend the better method of “driving” change is selling-versus-telling and recommend learning psycho-manipulation techniques to achieve it – close-the-deal sales training for example. Unfortunately this strategy can create a psychological “arms race” which can escalate just as quickly and lead to the same outcome: an emotional battle and psychological casualties. This outcome is often given the generic label of “stress”.

An alternative approach is to regard resistance behaviour as multi-factorial and one model separates the non-specific resistance response into separate categories: Why Do – Don’t Do – Can’t Do – Won’t Do.

The Why Do response is valuable feedback because is says “we do not understand the purpose of the proposed change” and it is not unusual for proposals to be purposeless. This is sometimes called “meddling”. This is fear of the unknown.

The Don’t Do is valuable feedback that is saying “there is a risk with this proposed change – an unintended negative consequence that may be greater than the intended positive outcome“. Often it is very hard to explain this NoNo reaction because it is the output of an unconscious thought process that operates out of awareness. It just doesn’t feel good. And some people are better at spotting the risks – they prefer to wear the Black Hat – they are called skeptics. This is fear of failure.

The Can’t Do is also valuable feedback that is saying “we get the purpose and we can see the problem and the benefit of a change – we just cannot see the path that links the two because it is blocked by something.” This reaction is often triggered by an unconscious recognition that some form of collaborative working will be required but the cultural context is low on respect and trust. It can also just be a manifestation of a knowledge, skill or experience gap – the “I don’t know how to do” gap. Some people habitually adopt the Victim role – most are genuine and do not know how.

The Won’t Do response is also valuable feedback that is saying “we can see the purpose, the problem, the benefit, and the path but we won’t do it because we don’t trust you“. This reaction is common in a low-trust culture where manipulation, bullying and game playing is the observed and expected behaviour. The role being adopted here is the Persecutor role – and the psychological discount is caring for others. Persecutors lack empathy.

The common theme here is that all resistance-to-change responses represent valuable feedback and explains why the better reaction to resistance is to stop talking and start listening because to make progress will require using the feedback to diagnose what components or resistance are present. This is necessary because each category requires a different approach.

For example Why Do requires making the both problem and the purpose explicit; Don’t Do requires exploring the fear and bringing to awareness what is fuelling it; Can’t Do requires searching for the skill gaps and filling them; and Won’t Do requires identifying the trust-eroding beliefs, attitudes and behaviours and making it safe to talk about them.

Resistance-to-change is generalised as a threat when in reality it represents an opportunity to learn and to improve – which is what Improvement Science is all about.

07/04/2012

The Power of the Positive Deviants

It is neither reasonable nor sensible to expect anyone to be a font of all knowledge.

And gurus with their group-think are useful but potentially dangerous when they suppress competitive paradigms.

So where does an Improvement Scientist seek reliable and trustworthy inspiration?

Guessing is a poor guide; gut-instinct can seriously mislead; and mind-altering substances are illegal, unreliable or both!

So who are the sources of tested ideas and where do we find them?

They are called Positive Deviants and they are everywhere.

But, the phrase positive deviant does not feel quite right does it? The word “deviant” has a strong negative emotional association. We are socially programmed from birth to treat deviations from the norm with distrust and for good reason. Social animals view conformity and similarity as security – it is our herd instinct. Anyone who looks or behaves too far from the norm is perceived as odd and therefore a potential threat and discounted or shunned.

So why consider deviants at all? Well, because anyone who behaves significantly differently from the majority is a potential source of new insight – so long as we know how to separate the positive deviants from the negative ones.

Negative deviants display behaviours that we could all benefit from by actively discouraging! The NoNo or thou-shalt-not behaviours that are usually embodied in Law. Killing, stealing, lying, speeding, dropping litter – that sort of thing. The anti-social trust-eroding conflict-generating behaviour that poisons the pond that we all swim in.

Positive deviants display behaviours that we could all benefit from actively encouraging! The NiceIf behaviours. But we are habitually focussed more on self-protection than self-development and we generalise from specifics. So we treat all deviants the same – we are wary of them. And by so doing we miss many valuable opportunities to learn and to improve.

How then do we identify the Positive Deviants?

The first step is to decide the dimension we want to improve and choose a suitable metric to measure it.

The second step is to measure the metric for everyone and do it over time – not just at a point in time. Single point-in-time measurements (snapshots) are almost useless – we can be tricked by the noise in the system into poor decisions.

The third step is to plot our measure-for-improvement as a time-series chart and look at it. Are there points at the positive end of the scale that deviate significantly from the average? If so – where and who do they come from? Is there a pattern? Is there anything we might use as a predictor of positive deviance?

Now we separate the data into groups guided by our proposed predictors and compare the groups. Do the Positive Deviants now stick out like a sore thumb? Did our predictors separate the wheat from the chaff?

If so we next go and investigate. We need to compare and contrast the Positive Deviants with the Norms. We need to compare and contrast both their context and their content. We need to know what is similar and what is different. There is something that is causing the sustained deviation and we need to search until we find it – and then we need know how and why it is happening.

We need to separate associations from causations … we need to understand the chains of events that lead to the better outcomes.

Only then will a new Door to Opportunity magically appear in our Black Wall of Ignorance – a door that leads to a proven path of improvement. A path that has been trodden before by a Positive Deviant – or by a whole tribe of them.

And only we ourselves can choose to open the door and explore the path – we cannot be pushed through by someone else.

When our system is designed to identify and celebrate the Positive Deviants then the negative deviants will be identified too! And that helps too because they will light the path to more NoNos that we can all learn to avoid.

For more about positive deviance from Wikipedia click here

For a case study on positive deviance click here

NB: The terms NiceIfs and NoNos are two of the N’s on The 4N Chart® – the other two are Nuggets and Niggles.

17/03/2012

Never Events and Nailing Niggles

Some events should NEVER happen – such as removing the wrong kidney; or injecting an anti-cancer drug designed for a vein into the spine; or sailing a cruise ship over a charted underwater reef; or driving a bus full of sleeping school children into a concrete wall.

But these catastrophic irreversible and tragic Never Events do keep happening – rarely perhaps – but persistently. At the Never-Event investigation the Finger-of-Blame goes looking for the incompetent culprit while the innocent victims call for compensation.

And after the smoke has cleared and the pain of loss has dimmed another Never-Again-Event happens – and then another, and then another. Rarely perhaps – but not never.

Never Events are so awful and emotionally charged that we remember them and we come to believe that they are not rare and from that misperception we develop a constant nagging feeling of fear for the future. It is our fear that erodes our trust which leads to the paralysis that prevents us from acting. In the globally tragic event of 9/11 several thousand innocents victims died while the world watched in horror. More innocent victims than that die needlessly every day in high-tech hospitals from avoidable errors – but that statistic is never shared.

The metaphor that is often used is the Swiss Cheese – the sort on cartoons with lots of holes in it. The cheese represents a quality check – a barrier that catches and corrects mistakes before they cause irreversible damage. But the cheesy check-list is not perfect; it has holes in it. Mistakes slip through.

So multiple layers of cheesy checks are added in the hope that the holes in the earlier slices will be covered by the cheese in the later ones – and our experience shows that this multi-check design does reduce the number of mistakes that get through. But not completely. And when, by rare chance, holes in each slice line up then the error penetrates all the way through and a Never Event becomes a Actual Catastrophe. So, the typical recommendation from the after-the-never-event investigation is to add another layer of cheese to the stack – another check on the list on top of all the others.

But the cheese is not durable: it deteriorates over time with the incessant barrage of work and the pressure of increasing demand. The holes get bigger, the cheese gets thinner, and new holes appear. The inevitable outcome is the opening up of unpredictable, new paths through the cheese to a Never Event; more Never Events; more after-the-never-event investigation; and more slices of increasingly expensive and complex cheese added to the tottering, rotting heap.

A drawback of the Swiss Cheese metaphor is that it gives the impression that the slices are static and each cheesy check has a consistent position and persistent set of flaws in it. In reality this is not the case – the system behaves as if the slices and the holes are moving about: variation is jiggling , jostling and wobbling the whole cheesy edifice.

This wobble does not increase the risk of a Never Event but it prevents the subsequent after-the-event investigation from discovering the specific conjunction of holes that caused it. The Finger of Blame cannot find a culprit and the cause is labelled a “system failure” or an unlucky individual is implicated and named-shamed-blamed and sacrificed to the Gods of Chance on the Alter of Hope! More often new slices of KneeJerk Cheese are added in the desperate hope of improvement – and creating an even greater burden of back-covering bureaucracy than before – and paradoxically increasing the number of holes!

Improvement Science offers a more rational, logical, effective and efficient approach to dissolving this messy, inefficient and ineffective safety design.

First it recognises that to prevent a Never Event then no errors should reach the last layer of cheese checking – the last opportunity to block the error trajectory. An error that penetrates that far is a Near Miss and these will happen more often than Never Events so they are the key to understanding and dissolving the problem.

Every Near Miss that is detected should be reported and investigated immediately – because that is the best time to identify the hole in the previous slice – before it wobbles out of sight. The goal of the investigation is understanding not accountability. Failure to report a near miss; failure to investigate it; failure to learn from it; failure to act on it; and failure to monitor the effect of the action are all errors of omission (EOOs) and they are the worst of management crimes.

The question to ask is “What error happened immediately before the Near Miss?” This event is called a Not Again. Focussing attention on this Not Again and understanding what, where, when, who and how it happened is the path to preventing the Near Miss and the Never Event. Why is not the question to ask – especially when trust is low and cynicism and fear are high – the question to ask is “how”.

The first action after Naming the Not Again is to design a counter-measure for it – to plug the hole – NOT to add another slice of Check-and Correct cheese! The second necessary action is to treat that Not Again as a Near-Miss and to monitor it so when it happens again the cause can be identified. These common, every day, repeating causes of Not Agains are called Niggles; the hundreds of minor irritations that we just accept as inevitable. This is where the real work happens – identifying the most common Niggle and focussing all attention on nailing it! Forever. Niggle naming and nailing is everyone’s responsibility – it is part of business-as-usual – and if leaders do not demonstrate the behaviour and set the expectation then followers will not do it.

So what effect would we expect?

To answer that question we need a better metaphor than our static stack of Swiss cheese slices: we need something more dynamic – something like a motorway!

Suppose you were to set out walking across a busy motorway with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears – hoping to get to the other side without being run over. What is the chance that you will make it across safely? It depends on how busy the traffic is and how fast you walk – but say you have a 50:50 chance of getting across one lane safely (which is the same chance as tossing a fair coin and getting a head) – what is the chance that you will get across all six lanes safely? The answer is the same chance as tossing six heads in a row: a 1-in-2 chance of surviving the first lane (50%), a 1 in 4 chance of getting across two lanes (25%), a 1 in 8 chance of making it across three (12.5%) …. to a 1 in 64 chance of getting across all six (1.6%). Said another way that is a 63 out of 64 chance of being run over somewhere which is a 98.4% chance of failure – near certain death! Hardly a Never Event.

What happens to our risk of being run over if the traffic in just one lane is stopped and that lane is now 100% safe to cross? Well you might think that it depends on which lane it is but it doesn’t – the risk of failure is now 31/32 or 96.8% irrespective of which lane it is – so not much improvement apparently! We have doubled the chance of success though!

Is there a better improvement strategy?

What if we work collectively to just reduce the flow of Niggles in all the lanes at the same time – and suppose we are all able to reduce the risk of a Niggle in our lane-of-influence from 1-in-2 to 1-in-6. How we do it is up to us. To illustrate the benefit we replace our coin with a six-sided die (no pun intended) and we only “die” if we throw a 1. What happens to our pedestrian’s probability of survival? The chance of surviving the first lane is now 5/6 (83.3%), and both first and second 5/6 x 5/6 = 25/36 (69%.4) and so on to all six lanes which is 5/6 x 5/6 x 5/6 x 5/6 x 5/6 x 5/6 = 15625/46656 = 33.3% which is a lot better than our previous 1.6%! And what if we keep plugging the holes in our bits of the cheese and we increase our individual lane success rate to 95% – our pedestrians probability of survival is now 73.5%. The chance of a catastrophic event becomes less and less.

The arithmetic may be a bit scary but the message is clear: to prevent the Never Events we must reduce the Near Misses and to to do that we investigate every Near Miss and expose the Not Agains and then use them to Name and Nail all the Niggles. And we have complete control over the causes of our commonest Niggles because we create them.

This strategy will improve the safety of our system. It has another positive benefit – it will free up our Near Miss investigation team to do something else: it frees them to assist in the re-design the system so that Not Agains cannot happen at all – they become Never Events too – and the earlier in the path that safety-design happens the better – because it renders the other layers of check-and-correct cheesocracy irrelevant.

Just imagine what would happen in a real system if we did that …

And now try to justify not doing it …

And now consider what an individual, team and organisation would need to learn to do this …

It is called Improvement Science.

And learning the Foundations of Improvement Science in Healthcare (FISH) is one place to start.

10/03/2012

The Journal of Improvement Science

Improvement Science encompasses research, improvement and audit and includes both subjective and objective dimensions. An essential part of collective improvement is sharing our questions and learning with others.

From the perspective of the learner it is necessary to be able to trust that what is shared is valid and from the perspective of the questioner it is necessary to be able to challenge with respect.

Sharing new knowledge is not the only purpose of publication: for academic organisations it is also a measure of performance so there is a academic peer pressure to publish both quantity and quality – an academic’s career progression depends on it.

This pressure has created a whole industry of its own – the academic journal – and to ensure quality is maintained it has created the scholastic peer review process. The intention is to filter submitted papers and to only publish those that are deemed worthy – those that are believed by the experts to be of most value and of highest quality.

There are several criteria that editors instruct their volunteer “independent reviewers” to apply such as originality, relevance, study design, data presentation and balanced discussion. This process was designed over a hundred years ago and it has stood the test of time – but – it was designed specifically for research and before the invention of the Internet, of social media and the emergence of Improvement Science.

So fast-forward to the present and to a world where improvement is now seen to be complementary to research and audit; where time-series statistics is viewed as a valid and complementary data analysis method; and where we are all able to globally share information with each other and learn from each other in seconds through the medium of modern electronic communication.

Given these changes is the traditional academic peer review journal system still fit for purpose?

One way to approach this question is from the perspective of the customers of the system – the people who read the published papers and the people who write them. What niggles do they have that might point to opportunities for improvement?

Well, as a reader:

My first niggle is to have to pay a large fee to download an electronic copy of a published paper before I can read it. All I can see is the abstract which does not tell me what I really want to know – I want to see the details of the method and the data not just the authors edited highlights and conclusions.

My second niggle is the long lead time between the work being done and the paper being published – often measured in years! This implies that the published news is old news useful for reference maybe but useless for stimulating conversation and innovation.

My third niggle is what is not published. The well-designed and well-conducted studies that have negative outcomes; lessons that offer as much opportunity for learning as the positive ones. This is not all – many studies are never done or never published because the outcome might be perceived to adversely affect a commercial or “political” interest.

My fourth niggle is the almost complete insistence on the use of empirical data and comparative statistics – data from simulation studies being treated as “low-grade” and the use of time-series statistics as “invalid”. Sometimes simulations and uncontrolled experiments are the only feasible way to answer real-world questions and there is more to improvement than a RCT (randomised controlled trial).

From the perspective of an author of papers I have some additional niggles – the secrecy that surrounds the review process (you are not allowed to know who has reviewed the paper); the lack of constructive feedback that could help an inexperienced author to improve their studies and submissions; and the insistence on assignment of copyright to the publisher – as an author you have to give up ownership of your creative output.

That all said there are many more nuggets to the peer review process than niggles and to a very large extent what is published can be trusted – which cannot be said for the more popular media of news, newspapers, blogs, tweets, and the continuous cacophony of partially informed prejudice, opinion and gossip that goes for “information”.

So, how do we keep the peer-reviewed baby and lose the publication-process bath water? How do we keep the nuggets and dump the niggles?

What about a Journal of Improvement Science along the lines of:

1. Fully electronic, online and free to download – no printed material.
2. Community of sponsors – who publically volunteer to support and assist authors.
3. Continuously updated ranking system – where readers vote for the most useful papers.
4. Authors can revise previously published papers – using feedback from peers and readers.
5. Authors retain the copyright – they can copy and distribute their own papers as much as they like.
6. Expected use of both time-series and comparative statistics where appropriate.
7. Short publication lead times – typically days.
8. All outcomes are publishable – warts and all.
9. Published authors are eligible to be sponsors for future submissions.
10. No commercial sponsorship or advertising.

STOP PRESS: JOIS is now launched: Click here to enter.

11/02/2012

Homeostasis

Improvement Science is not just about removing the barriers that block improvement and building barriers to prevent deterioration – it is also about maintaining acceptable, stable and predictable performance.

In fact most of the time this is what we need our systems to do so that we can focus our attention on the areas for improvement rather than running around keeping all the plates spinning. Improving the ability of a system to maintain itself is a worthwhile and necessary objective.

Long term stability cannot be achieved by assuming a stable context and creating a rigid solution because the World is always changing. Long term stability is achieved by creating resilient solutions that can adjust their behaviour, within limits, to their ever-changing context.

This self-adjusting behaviour of a system is called homeostasis.

The foundation for the concept of homeostasis was first proposed by Claude Bernard (1813-1878) who unlike most of his contemporaries, believed that all living creatures were bound by the same physical laws as inanimate matter. In his words: “La fixité du milieu intérieur est la condition d’une vie libre et indépendante” (“The constancy of the internal environment is the condition for a free and independent life”).

The term homeostasis is attributed to Walter Bradford Cannon (1871 – 1945) who was a professor of physiology at Harvard medical school and who popularized his theories in a book called The Wisdom of the Body (1932). Cannon described four principles of homeostasis:

Constancy in an open system requires mechanisms that act to maintain this constancy.
Steady-state conditions require that any tendency toward change automatically meets with factors that resist change.
The regulating system that determines the homeostatic state consists of a number of cooperating mechanisms acting simultaneously or successively.
Homeostasis does not occur by chance, but is the result of organised self-government.

Homeostasis is therefore an emergent behaviour of a system and is the result of organised, cooperating, automatic mechanisms. We know this by another name – feedback control – which is passing data from one part of a system to guide the actions of another part. Any system that does not have homeostatic feedback loops as part of its design will be inherently unstable – especially in a changing environment. And unstable means untrustworthy.

Take driving for example. Our vehicle and its trusting passengers want to get to their desired destination on time and in one piece. To achieve this we will need to keep our vehicle within the boundaries of the road – the white lines – in order to avoid “disappointment”.

As their trusted driver our feedback loop consists of a view of the road ahead via the front windscreen; our vision connected through a working nervous system to the muscles in ours arms and legs; to the steering wheel, accelerator and brakes; then to the engine, transmission, wheels and tyres and finally to the road underneath the wheels. It is quite a complicated multi-step feedback system – but an effective one. The road can change direction and unpredictable things can happen and we can adapt, adjust and remain in control. An inferior feedback design would be to use only the rear-view mirror and to steer by looking at the whites lines emerging from behind us. This design is just as complicated but it is much less effective and much less safe because it is entirely reactive. We get no early warning of what we are approaching. So, any system that uses the output performance as the feedback loop to the input decision step is like driving with just a rear view mirror. Complex, expensive, unstable, ineffective and unsafe.

As the number of steps in a process increases the more important the design of the feedback stabilisation becomes – as does the number of ways we can get it wrong: Wrong feedback signal, or from the wrong place, or to the wrong place, or at the wrong time, or with the wrong interpretation – any of which result in the wrong decision, the wrong action and the wrong outcome. Getting it right means getting all of it right all of the time – not just some of it right some of the time. We can’t leave it to chance – we have to design it to work.

Let us consider a real example. The NHS 18-week performance requirement.

The stream map shows a simple system with two parallel streams: A and B that each has two steps 1 and 2. A typical example would be generic referral of patients for investigations and treatment to one of a number of consultants who offer that service. The two streams do the same thing so the first step of the system is to decide which way to direct new tasks – to Step A1 or to Step B1. The whole system is required to deliver completed tasks in less than 18 weeks (18/52) – irrespective of which stream we direct work into. What feedback data do we use to decide where to direct the next referral?

The do nothing option is to just allocate work without using any feedback. We might do that randomly, alternately or by some other means that are independent of the system. This is called a push design and is equivalent to driving with your eyes shut but relying on hope and luck for a favourable outcome. We will know when we have got it wrong – but it is too late then – we have crashed the system!

A more plausible option is to use the waiting time for the first step as the feedback signal – streaming work to the first step with the shortest waiting time. This makes sense because the time waiting for the first step is part of the lead time for the whole stream so minimising this first wait feels reasonable – and it is – BUT only in one situation: when the first steps are the constraint steps in both streams [the constraint step is one one that defines the maximum stream flow]. If this condition is not met then we heading for trouble and the map above illustrates why. In this case Stream A is just failing the 18-week performance target but because the waiting time for Step A1 is the shorter we would continue to load more work onto the failing stream – and literally push it over the edge. In contrast Stream B is not failing and because the waiting time for Step B1 is the longer it is not being overloaded – it may even be underloaded. So this “plausible” feedback design can actually make the system less stable. Oops!

In our transport metaphor – this is like driving too fast at night or in fog – only being able to see what is immediately ahead – and then braking and swerving to get around corners when they “suddenly” appear and running off the road unintentionally! Dangerous and expensive.

With this new insight we might now reasonably suggest using the actual output performance to decide which way to direct new work – but this is back to driving by watching the rear-view mirror! So what is the answer?

The solution is to design the system to use the most appropriate feedback signal to guide the streaming decision. That feedback signal needs to be forward looking, responsive and to lead to stable and equitable performance of the whole system – and it may orginate from inside the system. The diagram above holds the hint: the predicted waiting time for the second step would be a better choice. Please note that I said the predicted waiting time – which is estimated when the task leaves Step 1 and joins the back of the queue between Step 1 and Step 2. It is not the actual time the most recent task came off the queue: that is rear-view mirror gazing again.

When driving we look as far ahead as we can, for what we are heading towards, and we combine that feedback with our present speed to predict how much time we have before we need to slow down, when to turn, in which direction, by how much, and for how long. With effective feedback we can behave proactively, avoid surprises, and eliminate sudden braking and swerving! Our passengers will have a more comfortable ride and are more likely to survive the journey! And the better we can do all that the faster we can travel in both comfort and safety – even on an unfamiliar road. It may be less exciting but excitement is not our objective. On time delivery is our goal.

Excitement comes from anticipating improvement – maintaining what we have already improved is rewarding. We need both to sustain us and to free us to focus on the improvement work!

14/01/2012

The Hierarchy of Constraints

Improvements need to be sustained – but not forever.

They should be worthwhile on their own and also provide a foundation for future improvement.

Improvement flows and it does so down the path of least resistance. Improvement will not flow up the path of most resistance. And resistance to flow is called a constraint.

Many things flow: water, energy, money, data, ideas, knowledge, influence – the list is endless – so the list of possible constraints is also endless. But not all constraints are the same: a constraint that limits the flow of water – a dam for instance – does not limit the flow of ideas.

The flows and their constraints can be arranged on a contiuum with one end labelled “Physics” and the other end labelled “Paradigms”. Physical flows are constrained by the Laws of the Universe which are absolute and stable. Philosophical flows are constrained by beliefs which are arbitrary and mutable.

This spectrum is often viewed as a hierarchy – with Paradigms at the top and Physics at the bottom – and between these limits there is a contiuum of constraints. The Paradigm is completely abstract and intangible and is made actual through Policy, guided by Politics, and enforced by Police. The root of all these words is “poli” which means “many” and implies the collective of people. So, a Policy is an arbitrary constraint that limits what is and what is not allowed. It is the social white line that indicates what behaviours the collective expect from the individual. A Policy is implemented as a Process.

What actually happens is constrained by the Physics. Irrespective of the Paradigm, Policy and Process – if the Laws of Physics say something is impossible then it does not happen. It is impossible to squeeze, store or reverse time. It is impossible to do something that requires 30 mins of time in 5 minutes; it is impossible to store time to use later; it is impossible to rewind time go back to a previous point in time.

From the perspective of reality our hierarchy of constraints is upside down – Physics dictates what is possible irrespective of what the Paradigm indicates is believable. What is believable may not be possible; and what is possible may not be believed.

Improvement Science is the art of the possible – of what the Laws of Physics do not forbid – a wide vista of opportunity. It is now that our Paradigm acts as the constraint – and Improvement Science is the ability to challenge our Paradigm. Only then can we create the Policy and the Process that will deliver actual, valuable and sustainable improvement.

Some parts of our Paradigm are necessary to provide explanation and meaning. Other parts are not needed – they are our “belief baggage” – the assumptions that we have picked up along the way; the mumbo-jumbo that obscures the true message. When we focus on the mumbo-jumbo we miss the message and we open the door to cynicism and distrust.

Our challenge is to separate the two – the wheat from the chaff; the diamond from the dross and the pearl-of-wisdom hidden in the ocean-of-data. What do we actively include? What do we actively exclude? What do we actively remove? What do we actively improve? We need to monitor all four parts of our Paradigm and that task is what The 4N Chart® was designed to help us do.

Click here get The 4N Chart template and here to get The 4N Chart instructions.

17/12/2011

Leading from the Middle

Cuthbert Simpson is reputed to be the first person to be “stretched” during the reign of Mary I – pulled in more than one direction at the same time while trying, in vain, to satisfy the simultaneous demands of his three interrogators.

Being a middle manager in a large organisation feels rather like this – pulled in many directions trying to satisfy the insatiable appetites for improvement of Governance (quality), Operations (delivery) and Finance (productivity).

The critical-to-survival skill for the over-stretched middle manager is the ability to influence others – or rather three complementary influencing styles.

One dimension is vertical and strategic-tactical and requires using the organisational strategy to influence operational tactics; and to use front line feedback to influence future strategic decisions. This influencing dimension requires two complementary styles of behaviour: followership and leadership.

One dimension is horizontal and operational and requires influencing peer-middle-managers in other departpments. This requires yet a different style of leadership: collaboration.

The successful middle manager is able to switch influencing style as effortlessly as changing gear when driving. Select the wrong style at the wrong time and there is an unpleasant grating of teeth and possibly a painful career-grinding-to-a-halt experience.

So what do these three styles have to do with Improvement Science?

Taking the last point first. Middle managers are the lynch-pin on which whole system improvement depends. Whole system improvement is impossible without their commitment – just as a car without a working gearbox is just a heap of near useless junk. Whole system improvement needs middle managers who are skilled in the three styles of behaviour.

The most important style is collaboration – the ability to influence peers – because that is the key to the other two. Let us consider a small socioeconomic system that we all have experience of – the family. How difficult is it to manage children when the parent-figures do not get on with each other and who broadcast confusingly mixed messages? Almost impossible. The children learn quickly to play one off against the other and sit back and enjoy the spectacle. And as a child how difficult it is to manage the parent-figures when you are always fighting and arguing with your siblings and peers and competing with each other for attention? Almost impossible again. Children are much more effective in getting what they want when they learn how to work together.

The same is true in organisations. When influencing from-middle-to-strategic it is more effective to influence your peers and then work together to make the collective case; and when influencing from-middle-to-tactical it is more effective to influence your peers and then work together to set a clear and unambiguous expectations.

The key survival skill is the ability to influence your peers effectively and that means respect for their opinion, their knowledge, their skill and their time – and setting the same expectation of them. Collaboration requires trust; and trust requires respect; and respect is earned by example.

PS. It also helps a lot to be able to answer the question “Can you show us how?”

19/11/2011

FISH

Several years ago I read an inspirational book called Fish! which recounts the tale of a manager who is given the task of “sorting out” the worst department in her organisation – a department that everyone hated to deal with and that everyone hated to work in. The nickname was The Toxic Energy Dump.

The story retells how, by chance, she stumbled across help in the unlikeliest of places – the Pike Place fish market in Seattle. There she learned four principles that transformed her department and her worklife:

1. Work Made Fun Gets Done
2. Make Someone’s Day
3. Be Fully Present
4. Choose Your Attitude

The take home lesson from Fish! is that we make our work miserable by the way we behave towards each other. So if we are unhappy at work and we do nothing about our behaviour then our misery will continue.

This means we can choose to make work enjoyable – and it is the responsibility of leaders at all levels to create the context for this to happen. Miserable staff = poor leadership. And leadership starts with the leader.

Effective leadership is inspiring others to achieve through example.
Leadership does not work without trust.
Play is more than an activity – it is creative energy – and requires a culture of trust not a culture of fear.
To make someone’s day all you need to so is show them how much you appreciate them.
The attitude and behaviour of a leader has a powerful effect on those that they lead.
Effective leaders know what they stand for and ask others to hold them to account.

FISH has another meaning – it stands for Foundations of Improvement Science for Health – and it is the core set of skills needed to create a SELF – a Safe Environment for Learning and Fun. The necessary context for culture change. It is more than that though – FISH also includes the skills to design more productive processes – releasing valuable lifetime and energy to invest in creative fun.

Fish are immersed in their environment – and so are people. We learn by immersion in reality. Rhetoric – be it thinking, talking or writing – is a much less effective teacher.

So all we have to do is co-create a context for improvement and then immerse ourselves in it. The improvement that results is an inevitable consequence of th design. We design our system for improvement and it improves itself.

To learn more about Foundations of Improvement Science for Health (FISH) click: here

15/10/2011

The Devil and the Detail

There are two directions from which we can approach an improvement challenge. From the bottom up – starting with the real details and distilling the principle later; and from the top down – starting with the conceptual principle and doing the detail later. Neither is better than the other – both are needed.

As individuals we have an innate preference for real detail or conceptual principle – and our preference is manifest by the way we think, talk and behave – it is part of our personality. It is useful to have insight into our own personality and to recognise that when other people approach a problem in a different way then we may experience a difference of opinion, a conflict of styles, and possibly arguments.

One very well established model of personality type was proposed by Carl Gustav Jung who was a psychologist and who approached the subject from the perspective of understanding psychological “illness”. Jung’s “Psychological Types” was used as the foundation of the life-work of Isabel Briggs Myers who was not a psychologist and who was looking from the direction of understanding psychological “normality”. In her book Gifts Differing – Understanding Personality Type (ISBN 978-0891-060741) she demonstrates using empirical data that there is not one normal or ideal type that we are all deviate from – rather that there is a set of stable types that each represents a “different gift”. By this she means that different personality types are suited to different tasks and when the type resonantes with the task it results in high-performance and is seen an asset or “strength” and when it does not it results in low performance and is seen as a liability or “weakness”.

One of the multiple dimensions of the Jungian and Myers-Briggs personality type model is the Sensor – iNtuitor dimension the S-N dimension. This dimension represents where we hold our reference model that provides us with data – data that we convert to information – and informationa the we use to derive decisions and actions.

A person who is naturally inclined to the Sensor end of the S-N dimension prefers to use Reality and Actuality as their reference – and they access it via their senses – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. They are often detail and data focussed; they trust their senses and their conscious awareness; and they are more comfortable with routine and structure.

A person who is naturally inclined to the iNtuitor end of the S-N dimension prefers to use Rhetoric and Possibility as their reference and their internal conceptual model that they access via their intuition. They are often principle and concept focussed and discount what their senses tell them in favour their intuition. Intuitors feel uncomfortable with routine and structure which they see as barriers to improvement.

So when a Sensor and an iNtuitor are working together to solve a problem they are approaching it from two different directions and even when they have a common purpose, common values and a common objective it is very likely that conflict will occur if they are unaware of their different gifts.

Gaining this awareness is a key to success because the synergy of the two approaches is greater than either working alone – the sum is greater than the parts – but only if there is awareness and mutual respect for the different gifts. If there is no awareness and low mutual respect then the sum will be less than the parts and the problem will not be dissolvable.

In her research, Isabel Briggs Myers found that about 60% of high school students have a preference for S and 40% have a preference for N – but when the “academic high flyers” were surveyed the ratio was S=17% and N=83% – and there was no difference between males and females. When she looked at the S-N distribution in different training courses she discovered that there were a higher proportion of S-types in Administrators (59%), Police (80%), and Finance (72%) and a higher proportion of N-types in Liberal Arts (59%), Engineering (65%), Science (83%), Fine Arts (91%), Occupational Therapy (66%), Art Education (87%), Counselor Education (85%), and Law (59%). Her observation suggested that individuals select subjects based on their “different gifts” and this throws an interesting light on why traditional professions may come into conflict and perhaps why large organisations tend to form departments of “like-minded individuals”. Departments with names like Finance, Operations and Governance – or FOG.

This insight also offers an explanation for the conflict between “strategists” who tend to be N-types and who naturally gravitate to the “manager” part of an organisation and the “tacticians” who tend to be S-types and who naturally gravitate to the “worker” part of the same organisation.

It has also been shown that conventional “intelligence tests” favour the N-types over the S-types and suggests why highly intelligent academics my perform very poorly when asked to apply their concepts and principles in the real world. Effective action requires pragmatists – but academics tend to congregate in academic instituitions – often disrespectfully labelled by pragmatists as “Ivory Towers”.

Unfortunately this innate tendency to seek-like-types is counter-productive because it re-inforces the differences, exacerbates the communication barriers, and leads to “tribal” and “disrespectful” and “trust eroding” behaviour, and to the “organisational silos” that are often evident.

Complex real-world problems cannot be solved this way because they require the synergy of the gifts – each part playing to its strength when the time is right.

The first step to know-how is self-awareness.

If you would like to know your Jungian/MBTI® type you can do so by getting the app: HERE

17/09/2011

The Cost of Distrust

Previously we have explored “costs” associated with processes and systems – costs that could be avoided through the effective application of Improvement Science. The Cost of Errors. The Cost of Queues. The Cost of Variation.

These costs are large, additive and cumulative and yet they pale into insignificance when compared with the most potent source of cost. The Cost of Distrust.

The picture is of Sue Sheridan and the link below is to a video of Sue telling her story of betrayed trust: in a health care system. She describes the tragic consequences of trust-eroding health care system behaviour. Sue is not bitter though – she remains hopeful that her story will bring everyone to the table of Safety Improvement

View the Video

The symptoms of distrust are easy to find. They are written on the faces of the people; broadcast in the way they behave with each other; heard in what they say; and felt in how they say it. The clues are also in what they do not do and what they do not say. What is missing is as important as what is present.

There are also tangible signs of distrust too – checklists, application-for-permission forms, authorisation protocols, exception logs, risk registers, investigation reports, guidelines, policies, directives, contracts and all the other machinery of the Bureaucracy of Distrust.

The intangible symptoms of distrust and the tangible signs of distrust both have an impact on the flow of work. The untrustworthy behaviour creates dissatisfaction, demotivation and conflict; the bureaucracy creates handoffs, delays and queues. All are potent sources of more errors, delays and waste.

The Cost of Distrust is is counted on all three dimensions – emotional, temporal and financial.

It may appear impossible to assign a finanical cost of distrust because of the complex interactions between the three dimensions in a real system; so one way to approach it is to estimate the cost of a high-trust system. A system in which the trustworthy behaviour is explicit and trust eroding behaviour is promptly and respectfully challenged.

Picture such a system and consider these questions:

How would it feel to work in a high-trust system where you know that trust-eroding-behaviour will be challenged with respect?
How would it feel to be the customer of a high-trust system?
What would be the cost of a system that did not need the Bureaucracy of Distrust to deliver safety and quality?

Trust eroding behaviours are not reduced by decree, threat, exhortation, name-shame-blame, or pleading because all these behaviours are based on the assumption of distrust and say “I do not trust you to do this without my external motivation”. These attitudes behaviours give away the “I am OK but You are Not OK” belief.

Trust eroding behaviours are most effectively reduced by a collective charter which is when a group of people state what behaviours they do not expect and individually commit to avoiding and challenging. The charter is the tangible sign of the peer support that empowers everyone to challenge with respect because they have collective authority to do so. Authority that is made explicit through the collective charter: “We the undersigned commit to respectfully challenge the following trust eroding behaviours …”.

It requires confidence and competence to open a conversation about distrust with someone else and that confidence comes from insight, instruction and practice. The easiest person to practice with is ourselves – it takes courage to do and it is worth the investment – which is asking and answering two questions:

Q1: What behaviours would erode my trust in someone else?

Make a list and rank on order with the most trust-eroding at the top.

Q2: Do I ever exhibit any of the behaviours I have just listed?

Choose just one from your list that you feel you can commit to – and make a promose to yourself – every time you demonstrate the behaviour make a mental note of:

When it happened?
Where it happened?
Who was present?
What just happened?
How did you feel?

You do not need to actively challange your motives, or to actively change your behaviour – you just need to connect up your own emotional feedback loop. The change will happen as if by magic!

18/06/2011

The Crime of Metric Abuse

We live in a world that is increasingly intolerant of errors – we want everything to be right all the time – and if it is not then someone must have erred with deliberate intent so they need to be named, blamed and shamed! We set safety standards and tough targets; we measure and check; and we expose and correct anyone who is non-conformant. We accept that is the price we must pay for a Perfect World … Yes? Unfortunately the answer is No. We are deluded. We are all habitual criminals. We are all guilty of committing a crime against humanity – the Crime of Metric Abuse. And we are blissfully ignorant of it so it comes as a big shock when we learn the reality of our unconscious complicity.

You might want to sit down for the next bit.

First we need to set the scene:
1. Sustained improvement requires actions that result in irreversible and beneficial changes to the structure and function of the system.
2. These actions require making wise decisions – effective decisions.
3. These actions require using resources well – efficient processes.
4. Making wise decisions requires that we use our system metrics correctly.
5. Understanding what correct use is means recognising incorrect use – abuse awareness.

When we commit the Crime of Metric Abuse, even unconsciously, we make poor decisions. If we act on those decisions we get an outcome that we do not intend and do not want – we make an error. Unfortunately, more efficiency does not compensate for less effectiveness – if fact it makes it worse. Efficiency amplifies Effectiveness – “Doing the wrong thing right makes it wronger not righter” as Russell Ackoff succinctly puts it. Paradoxically our inefficient and bureaucratic systems may be our only defence against our ineffective and potentially dangerous decision making – so before we strip out the bureaucracy and strive for efficiency we had better be sure we are making effective decisions and that means exposing and treating our nasty habit for Metric Abuse.

Metric Abuse manifests in many forms – and there are two that when combined create a particularly virulent addiction – Abuse of Ratios and Abuse of Targets. First let us talk about the Abuse of Ratios.

A ratio is one number divided by another – which sounds innocent enough – and ratios are very useful so what is the danger? The danger is that by combining two numbers to create one we throw away some information. This is not a good idea when making the best possible decision means squeezing every last drop of understanding our of our information. To unconsciously throw away useful information amounts to incompetence; to consciously throw away useful information is negligence because we could and should know better.

Here is a time-series chart of a process metric presented as a ratio. This is productivity – the ratio of an output to an input – and it shows that our productivity is stable over time. We started OK and we finished OK and we congratulate ourselves for our good management – yes? Well, maybe and maybe not. Suppose we are measuring the Quality of the output and the Cost of the input; then calculating our Value-For-Money productivity from the ratio; and then only share this derived metric. What if quality and cost are changing over time in the same direction and by the same rate? The productivity ratio will not change.

Suppose the raw data we used to calculate our ratio was as shown in the two charts of measured Ouput Quality and measured Input Cost – we can see immediately that, although our ratio is telling us everything is stable, our system is actually changing over time – it is unstable and therefore it is unpredictable. Systems that are unstable have a nasty habit of finding barriers to further change and when they do they have a habit of crashing, suddenly, unpredictably and spectacularly. If you take your eyes of the white line when driving and drift off course you may suddenly discover a barrier – the crash barrier for example, or worse still an on-coming vehicle! The apparent stability indicated by a ratio is an illusion or rather a delusion. We delude ourselves that we are OK – in reality we may be on a collision course with catastrophe.

But increasing quality is what we want surely? Yes – it is what we want – but at what cost? If we use the strategy of quality-by-inspection and add extra checking to detect errors and extra capacity to fix the errors we find then we will incur higher costs. This is the story that these Quality and Cost charts are showing. To stay in business the extra cost must be passed on to our customers in the price we charge: and we have all been brainwashed from birth to expect to pay more for better quality. But what happens when the rising price hits our customers finanical constraint? We are no longer able to afford the better quality so we settle for the lower quality but affordable alternative. What happens then to the company that has invested in quality by inspection? It loses customers which means it loses revenue which is bad for its financial health – and to survive it starts cutting prices, cutting corners, cutting costs, cutting staff and eventually – cutting its own throat! The delusional productivity ratio has hidden the real problem until a sudden and unpredictable drop in revenue and profit provides a reality check – by which time it is too late. Of course if all our competitors are committing the same crime of metric abuse and suffering from the same delusion we may survive a bit longer in the toxic mediocrity swamp – but if a new competitor who is not deluded by ratios and who learns how to provide consistently higher quality at a consistently lower price – then we are in big trouble: our customers leave and our end is swift and without mercy. Competition cannot bring controlled improvement while the Abuse of Ratios remains rife and unchallenged.

Now let us talk about the second Metric Abuse, the Abuse of Targets.

The blue line on the Productivity chart is the Target Productivity. As leaders and managers we have bee brainwashed with the mantra that “you get what you measure” and with this belief we commit the crime of Target Abuse when we set an arbitrary target and use it to decide when to reward and when to punish. We compound our second crime when we connect our arbitrary target to our accounting clock and post periodic praise when we are above target and periodic pain when we are below. We magnify the crime if we have a quality-by-inspection strategy because we create an internal quality-cost tradeoff that generates conflict between our governance goal and our finance goal: the result is a festering and acrimonious stalemate. Our quality-by-inspection strategy paradoxically prevents improvement in productivity and we learn to accept the inevitable oscillation between good and bad and eventually may even convince ourselves that this is the best and the only way. With this life-limiting-belief deeply embedded in our collective unconsciousness, the more enthusiastically this quality-by-inspection design is enforced the more fear, frustration and failures it generates – until trust is eroded to the point that when the system hits a problem – morale collapses, errors increase, checks are overwhelmed, rework capacity is swamped, quality slumps and costs escalate. Productivity nose-dives and both customers and staff jump into the lifeboats to avoid going down with the ship!

The use of delusional ratios and arbitrary targets (DRATs) is a dangerous and addictive behaviour and should be made a criminal offense punishable by Law because it is both destructive and unnecessary.

With painful awareness of the problem a path to a solution starts to form:

1. S hare the numerator, the denominator and the ratio data as time series charts.
2. Only put requirement specifications on the numerator and denominator charts.
3. Outlaw quality-by-inspection and replace with quality-by-design-and-improvement.

Metric Abuse is a Crime. DRATs are a dangerous addiction. DRATs kill Motivation. DRATs Kill Organisations.

Charts created using BaseLine

11/06/2011

The One-Eyed Man in the Land of the Blind.

“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” Donald Rumsfeld 2002.

This infamous quotation is a humorously clumsy way of expressing a profound concept. This statement is about our collective ignorance – and it hides a beguiling assumption which is that we are all so similar that we just have to accept the things that we all do not know. It is OK to be collectively and blissfully ignorant. But is this OK? Is this not the self-justifying mantra of those who live in the Land of the Blind?

Our collective blissful ignorance holds the promise of great unknown gains; and harbours the potential of great untold pain.

Our collective knowledge is vast and is growing because we have dissolved many Unknowns. For each there must have been a point in time when the first person become painfully aware of their ignorance and, by some means, discovered some new knowledge. When that happened they had a number of options – to keep it to themselves, to share it with those they knew, or to share it with strangers. The innovators dilemma is that when they share new knowledge they know they will cause emotional pain; because to share knowledge with the blissfully ignorant implies pushing them to the state of painful awareness.

We are social animals and we demonstrate empathy and respect for others, so we do not want to deliberately cause them emotional pain – even the short term pain of awareness that must preceed the long term gain of knowledge, understanding and wisdom. It is the constant challenge that every parent, every teacher, every coach, every mentor, every leader and every healer has to learn to master.

So, how do we deal with the situation when we are painfully aware that others are in the state of blissful ignorance – of not knowing what they do not know – and we know that making them aware will be emotionally painful for them – just as it was for us? We know from experience that that an insensitive, clumsy, blunt, brutal, just-tell-it-as-it is approach can cause pain-but-no-gain; we have all had experience of others who seem to gain a perverse pleasure from the emotional impact they generate by triggering painful awareness. The disrespectful “means-justifies-the-ends” and “cruel-to-be-kind” mindset is the mantra of those who do not walk their own talk – those who do not challenge their own blissful ignorance – those who do not seek to gain an understanding of how to foster effective learning without inflicting emotional pain.

The no-pain-no-gain life limiting belief is an excuse – not a barrier. It is possible to learn without pain – we have all been doing it for our whole lives; each of us can think of people who inspired us to learn and to have fun doing so – rare and memorable role models, bright stars in the darkness of disappointment. Our challenge is to learn how to inspire ourselves.

The first step is to create an emotionally Safe Environment for Learning and Fun (SELF). For the leader/teacher/healer this requires developing an ability to build a culture of trust by actively unlearning their own trust-corroding-behaviours.

The second step is to know what we know – to be sure of our facts and confident that we can explain and support what we know with evidence and insight. To deliberately push someone into painful awareness with no means to guide them out of that dark place is disrespectful and untrustworthy behaviour. Learning how to teach what we know is the most effective means to discover our own depth of understanding and it is an energising exercise in humility development!

The third step is for us to have the courage to raise awareness in a sensitive and respectful way – sometimes this is done by demonstrating the knowledge; sometimes this is done by asking carefully framed questions; and sometimes it is done as a respectful challenge. The three approaches are not mutually exclusive: leading-by-example is effective but leaders need to be teachers and healers too.

At all stages the challenge for the leader/teacher/healer is to to ensure they maintain an OK-OK mental model of those they influence. This is the most difficult skill to attain and is the most important. The “Leadership and Self-Deception” book that is in the Library of Improvement Science is a parable that decribes this challenge.

So, how do we dissolve the One-Eyed Man in the Land of the Blind problem? How do we raise awareness of a collective blissful ignorance? How do we share something that is going to cause untold pain and misery in the future – a storm that is building over the horizon of awareness.

Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) was the young Hungarian doctor who in 1847 discovered the dramatic live-saving benefit of the doctors cleaning their hands before entering the obstetric ward of the Vienna Hospital. This was before “germs” had been discovered and Semmelweis could not explain how his discovery worked – all he could do was to exhort others to do as he did. He did not learn how the method worked, he did not publish his data, and he demonstrated trust-eroding behaviour when he accused others of “murder” when they did not do as he told them. The fact the he was correct did not justify the means by which he challenged their collective blissful ignorance (see http://www.valuesystemdesign.com for a fuller account). The book that he eventually published in 1861 includes the data that supports our modern understanding of the importance of hand hygiene – but it also includes a passionate diatribe of how he had been wronged by others – a dramatic example of the “I’m OK and The Rest of the World is Not OK” worldview. Semmelweis was committed to a lunatic asylum and died there in 1865.

W Edwards Deming (1900-1993) was the American engineer, mathematician, mathematical physicist, statistician and student of Walter A. Shewhart who learned the importance of quality in design. After WWII he was part of the team who helped to rebuild the Japanese economy and he taught the Japanese what he had learned and practiced during WWII – which was how to create a high-quality, high-speed, high-efficiency process which, ironically, was building ships for the war effort. Later Deming attempted, and failed, to influence the post-war generation of managers that were being churned out by the new business schools to serve the growing global demand for American mass produced consumer goods. Deming returned to relative obscurity in the USA until 1980 when his teachings were rediscovered when Japan started to challenge the USA economically by producing higher-quality-and-lower-cost consumer products such as cars and electronics ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming). Before he died in 1993 Deming wrote two books – Out of The Crisis and The New Economics in which he outlines his learning and his philosophy and in which he unreservedly and passionately blames the managers and the business schools that trained them for their arrogant attitude and disrespectful behaviour. Like Semmelweis, the fact that his books contain a deep well of wisdom does not justify the means by which he disseminated his criticism of poeple – in particular of senior management. By doing so he probably created resistance and delayed the spread of knowledge.

History is repeating itself: the same story is being played out in the global healthcare system. Neither senior doctors nor senior managers are aware of the opportunity that the learning of Semmelweis and Deming represent – the opportunity of Improvement Science and of the theory, techniques and tools of Operations Management. The global healthcare system is in a state of collective blissful ignorance. Our descendents be the recipients of of decisions and the judges of our behaviour – and time is running out – we do not have the luxury of learning by making the same mistake.

Fortunately, there is an growing group of people who are painfully aware of the problem and are voicing their concerns – such as the Institute of Healthcare Improvement in America. There is a smaller and less well organised network of people who have acquired and applied some of the knowledge and are able to demonstrate how it works – the Know Hows. There appears to be an even smaller group who understand and use the principles but do it intuitively and unconsciously – they dem0nstrate what is possible but find it difficult to teach others how to do what they do. It is the Know How group that is the key to dissolving the problem.

The first collective challenge is to sign-post some safe paths from Collective Blissful Ignorance to Individual Know How. The second collective challenge is to learn an effective and respectful way to raise awareness of the problem – a way to outline the current reality and the future opportunity – and a way that illuminates the paths that link the two.

In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is the person who discovers that everyone is wearing a head-torch by accidentally finding his own and switching it on!

04/06/2011

Where is the Rotten Egg?

Have you ever had the experience of arriving home from a holiday – opening the front door and being hit with the rancid smell of something that has gone rotten while you were away.

Phwooorrrarghhh!

When that happens we open the windows to let the fresh-air blow the smelly pong out and we go in search of the offending source of the horrible whiff. Somewhere we know we will find the “rotten egg” and we know we need to remove it because it is now beyond repair.

What happened here is that our usual, regular habit of keeping our house clean was interrupted and that allowed time for something to go rotten and to create a nasty stink. It may also have caused other things to go rotten too – decay spreads. Usually we maintain an olfactory vigilance to pick up the first whiff of a problem and we act before the rot sets in – but this only works if we know what fresh air smells like, if we remove the peg from our nose, and if we have the courage to remove all of the rot. Permfuing the pig is not an effective long term strategy.

The rotten egg metaphor applies to organisations. The smell we are on the alert for is the rancid odour of a sour relationship, the signal we sense is the dissonance of misery, and the behaviours we look for are those that erode trust. These behaviours have a name – they are called discounts – and they come in two types.

Type 1 discounts are our deliberate actions that lead to erosion of trust – actions like interrupting, gossiping, blaming, manipulation, disrespect, intimidation, and bullying.

Type 2 discounts are the actions that we deliberately omit to do that also cause erosion of trust – like not asking for and not offering feedback, like not sharing data, information and knowledge, like not asking for help, like not saying thank you, like not challenging assumptions, like not speaking out when we feel things are not right, like not getting the elephant out in the room. These two types of discounts are endemic in all organisations and the Type 2 discounts are the more difficult to see because it was what we didn’t do that led to the rot. We must all maintain constant vigilance to sniff out the first whiff of misery and to act immediately and effectively to sustain a pong-free organisational atmosphere.

28/05/2011

Watch Out for the Overshoot!

In 1972 a group called the Club of Rome published a report entitled “The Limits to Growth” that examined the possible global impact of our current obsession with competition and growth. They used Jay W Forrester’s computer models described in World Dynamics – models of global stocks and flows of natural resources, capital and people – and explored the range future possibilities based on the best understanding of current reality. Their conclusions were not encouraging – the most likely outcome they predicted if current behaviours continued would be global natural, economic and population collapse before 2100!

Their conclusions were discounted by governments, corporations and individuals as doom-preaching but it struck a chord with many and helped to fuel the growth of the global environmental movement.

Thirty years later the original work has been revised, updated and the original predictions compared with actual changes.

The original forecast proved to be prophetic – and revealed an alarming conclusion – that we may already be past the point of no return. It is now forty years since the original work and we have enjoyed the predicted boom years of the 1980’s and ignored the warnings so many options for avoiding a future global collapse have already been squandered. Even if we corrected all the errors of commission and errors of omission today it may be too late because we over-estimate our ability to solve problems and underestimate the effect of “overshoot”.

Suppose you are driving at night in freezing fog and you want to get to your destination as soon as possible so you press on the accelerator and your speed grows. You have not been on this particular road before but you have been driving for years and you trust your experience, skills, and reactions. Suddenly a red light appears out of the gloom – it is a stop light and it is close, too close, so you hit the brakes! You don’t stop immediately though – you are slowing down but not fast enough. The road is slippery, your tyres do not grip as well as usual, and your momentum carries you on. You are burning up the remaining tarmac fast and now you see other lights – white lights – coming from the right. A juggernaut is nearly at the crossroads and it has the green light and is not slowing down. You are on a crash course – and there is nothing you can do – you have no options. The awful realisation dawns that you have made a fatal error of judgement and this is the end as you overshoot the red light and are crushed to a mangled pulp of metal and flesh under the wheels of the juggernaut!

The accident was avoidable – in retrospect. Was it avoidable in prospect? Of course – but only
– IF we were able to challenge our blind trust in our own capability and
– IF we were able to anticipate what could happen and
– IF we had set up trustworthy early warning signals and
– IF we had prepared contingency plans of what we would do if any of the warning bells rang.

Easy enough for an individual to do perhaps – but much more difficult for a group of individuals who have low regard for each other and who are competing to grow bigger and faster. Our mastery of nature has given us the means to change global system dynamics – so our collective fate is sealed by our collective behaviour. We have the ability to achieve mutually assured destruction (MAD) without dropping a single bomb – and we are on course to do so not because we set out to – but because we did not set out not to. The error of omission is the stealth killer.

Is this global disaster scenario realistic? Is there anything that can be done? Are we collectively capable of doing it? The evidence suggests “yes” to all three questions – there is hope – but it will require a paradigm shift in thinking rather than a breakthrough in technology.

The laws of physics will seal our fate unless the laws of people adapt – and it may already be too late to avoid some degree of catastrophic decline – which implies billions of lives will be lost needlessly. Those of us in positions of most influence are already to old to expect to live to see the fruits of our collective error of omission – our children will bear the pain of our ignorance and arrogance. What do you want carved on your gravestone … “Here lies X – who saw but did not act. Sorry.”

Limits to Growth – the 30 year update. ISBN 978-1-84407-144-9

14/05/2011

July 5th 2018 – The old NHS is dead.

Today is the last day of the old NHS – ironically on the 70th anniversary of its birth. Its founding principles are no more – care is no longer free at the point of delivery and is no longer provided according to needs rather than means. SickCare®, as it is now called, is a commodity just like food, water, energy, communications, possessions, housing, transport, education and leisure – and the the only things we get free-of-charge are air, sunlight, rain and gossip. SickCare® is now only available from fiercely competitive service conglomerates – TescoHealth and VirginHealth being the two largest. We now buy SickCare® like we buy groceries – online and instore.

Gone forever is the public-central-tax-funded-commissioner-and-provider market. Gone forever are the foundation trusts, the clinical commissioning groups and the social enterprises. Gone is the dream of cradle-to-grave equitable health care – and all in a terrifyingly short time!

The once proud and independent professionals are now paid employees of profit-seeking private providers. Gone is their job-for-life security and gone is their gold-plated index-linked-final-salary-pensions. Everyone is now hired and fired on the basis of performance, productivity and profit. Step out of line or go outside the limits of acceptability and it is “Sorry but you have breached your contract and we have to let you go“.

So what happened? How did the NHS-gravy-train come off the taxpayer-funded-track so suddenly?

It is easy to see with hindsight when the cracks started to appear. No-one and every-one is to blame.

We did this to ourselves. And by the time we took notice it was too late.

The final straw was when the old NHS became unaffordable because we all took it for granted and we all abused it. Analysts now agree that there were two core factors that combined to initiate the collapse and they are unflatteringly referred to as “The Arrogance of Clinicians” and “The Ignorance of Managers“. The latter is easier to explain.

When the global financial crisis struck 10 years ago it destabilised the whole economy and drastic “austerity” measures had to be introduced by the new coalition government. This opened the innards of the NHS to scrutiny by commercial organisations with an eager eye on the £100bn annual budget. What they discovered was a massive black-hole of management ignorance!

Protected for decades from reality by their public sector status the NHS managers had not seen the need to develop their skills and experience in Improvement Science and, when the chips were down, they were simply unable to compete.

Thousands of them hit the growing queues of the unemployed or had to settle for painful cuts in their pay and conditions before they really knew what had hit them. They were ruthlessly replaced by a smaller number of more skilled and more experienced managers from successful commercial service companies – managers who understood how systems worked and how to design them to deliver quality, productivity and profit.

The medical profession also suffered.

With the drop in demand for unproven treatments, the availability of pre-prescribed evidence-based standard protocols for 80% of the long-term conditions, and radically redesigned community-based delivery processes – a large number of super-specialised doctors were rendered “surplus to requirement”. This skill-glut created the perfect buyers market for their specialist knowledge – and they were forced to trade autonomy for survival. No longer could a GP or a Consultant choose when and how they worked; no longer were they able to discount patient opinion or patient expectation; and no longer could they operate autonomous empires within the bloated and bureaucratic trusts that were powerless to performance manage them effectively. Many doctors tried to swim against the tide and were lost – choosing to jump ship and retire early. Many who left it too late to leap failed to be appointed to their previous jobs because of “lack of required team-working and human-factor skills”.

And the public have fared no better than the public-servants. The service conglomerates have exercised their considerable financial muscle to create low-cost insurance schemes that cover only the most expensive and urgent treatments because, even in our Brave New NHS, medical bankruptcy is not politically palatable. State subsidised insurance payouts provide a safety net – but they cover only basic care. The too-poor-to-pay are not left to expire on the street as in some countries – but once our immediate care needs are met we have to leave or start paying the going rate. Our cashless society and our EzeeMonee cards now mean that we pay-as-we-go for everything. The cash is transferred out of our accounts before the buy-as-you-need drug has even started to work!

A small yet strident band of evangelical advocates of the Brave New NHS say it is long overdue and that, in the long term, the health of the nation will be better for it. No longer able to afford the luxury of self-abuse through chronic overindulgence of food, cigarettes, and alcohol – and faced with the misery of the outcome of their own actions – many people are shepherded towards healthier lifestyles. Those who comply enjoy lower insurance premiums and attractive no-claims benefits. Healthier in body perhaps – but what price have we paid for our complacency? “

On July 15th 2012 the following headline appeared in one Sunday paper: “Nurses hired at £1,600 a day to cover shortages” and in another “Thousands of doctors face sack: NHS staff contracts could be terminated unless they agree to drastic changes to their pay and conditions“. We were warned and it is not too late.

26/03/2011

Ignorance Mining

Ignorance means “not knowing” and as the saying goes “Ignorance is bliss” because we do not worry about what we do not know about. Or do we?

We are not totally ignorant – because we know that there are “unknowns” that would be of value to us. This knowledge creates an anxiety that we are very good at pushing out of awareness and despite the denial the unconscious feeling remains and it is emotionally corrosive. Repressed anxiety leads to the counter-productive behaviour of self-deception and then to self-justification – both of which are potent impedients to improvement.

We habitually, continuously and unconsciously discount the importance of what we do not know and in so doing we create internal emotional dissonance. Our inner conflict drives external discounting behaviour and the inevitable toxic cultural consequence – Erosion of Trust. Our inner conflict also drives internal discounting behaviour and the inevitable toxic emotional consequence – Erosion of Confidence. This is the toxic emotional waste swamp that we create for ourselves and is the slippery slope that leads down to frustration, depression, cynicism and apathy. Ignorance leads to anxiety and fear – and because we have conditioned ourselves to back away from fear we reflexly back away from ignorance and we end up trading fear for frustration. We do it to ourselves first and then we do it to others.

The antidote is counter-intuitive: it is to actively acknowledge and embrace our ignorance – and to do that we have to deliberately expose our own ignorance because we are very, very good at burying it from conscious view under a mountain of self-deception and self-justification. We need to become Ignorace Miners.

The opposite of ignorance if knowledge and the good news is that we only need to scratch the surface to find knowledge nuggets – not huge ones perhaps – but plentiful. A bag of small knowledge nuggets is as valuable as an ingot of insight!

Knowledge nuggets are durable because they withstand cultural erosion but they can get washed away in the flood of toxic emotional waste and they can get buried under layers of cynical-resentful-arrogant-pessimism (CRAP). These knowledge nuggests need to be re-gathered, re-freshed and re-cycled – and it is an endlessly exciting and energising experience.

So, when we are feeling fustrated, demotivated and depressed we just need to give ourselves a break and indulge in a bit of gentle ignorance mining – and when we do we will start to feel better immediately.

12/02/2011

In Whom and in What do We Trust?

The issue of trust has been a recurring theme again this week – and it has appeared in many guises. In one situation it was a case of distrust – I observed an overt display of suspicious, sceptical, and cynical behaviour. In another situation it was a case of mistrust – a misplaced confidence in my own intuition. My illogical and irrational heart said one thing but when my mind worked through the problem logically and rationally my intuition was proved incorrect. In another it was a case of rewarded-trust: positive feedback that showed a respectful challenge had resulted in a win-win-win outcome. And in yet another a case of extended-trust: an expression of delighted surprise from someone whose default position was to distrust.

Improvement Science rests on two Foundation stones Trust and Capability. First to trust oneself to have the confidence and humility to challenge, to learn, to change, to improve, to celebrate and to share; second to extend trust to others with a clear explanation of the consequences of betraying that trust; and third in building collective trust by having the courage to challenge trust-eroding behaviour.

At heart we are all curious, friendly, social animals – our natural desire is to want to trust. Distrust is a learned behaviour that, ironically, is the result of the instinctive trust and respect that, as children, we have for our parents. We are taught to distrust by observing and copying distrustful and disrepectful behaviour by our role models. So with this insight we gain access to an antidote to the emotional poison of distrust: our innate child-like curiosity, desire to explore, appetite for fun, and thirst for knowledge and meaning. To dissolve distrust we only need to reconnect to our own inner child: One half of the foundation of Improvement Science.

29/01/2011

Do Bosses need Hugs too?

The foundation on which Improvement Science is built is invisible – or rather intangible – and without this foundation the whole construction is unstable and unsustainable. Rather like an iceberg – mostly under the surface with only a small part that is visible and measurable – and that small visible part is called Performance.

What is underneath? To push our Performance through the surface so that it gets noticed we know we must synergise the People with the Processes but there is more to it than just that. The deepest part of the foundation, the part that provides the core strength and stability, is our Paradigm – our set of unconscious beliefs, values, attitudes and habits that comprises our psycho-gyro-scope: our stabiliser.

Our Paradigm creates inertia: the tendency to keep going in the same direction even when the winds of change have shifted permamantly and are blowing us off course. Paradigms resist change – and for good reason – inertia is a useful thing when there are minor bumps on the journey and we need to avoid stalling at each one. Inertia becomes a less useful thing when we meet an immovable object such as a Law of Physics – because if we hit one of these then Reality will provide us with some painful feedback. Inertia is also less useful when we have stopped and have no momentum, because it takes a bigger push for a longer time to get us moving again.

An elephant has a lot of inertia because it is big – and perhaps this is the reason why we refer to attitudes and beliefs that represent resistance to change as Elephants in the Room. The ringleader of a herd of organisational elephants is an elephant called Distrust which is the offspring an elephant called Discounting who in turn was born of an elephant called Disrespect. We see this in organisationswhen we display and cultivate a disrepectful attitudes towards our peers, reports workers and our seniors. The old time-worn and cracked “us-versus-them” record.

So let us break into the cycle and push the Elephant called Distrust into spotlight – what is our alternative. Respect -> Acknowledgement -> Trust. It doesn’t make any difference who you are: the most valuable form of respect is feedback: Honest, Unbiassed and Genuine (HUG). So if we regularly experience the Elephant called Distrust making a Toxic Swamp in our organisations and we feel discounted and disrespected then part of the reason may be that we are not giving ourselves enough HUGs. And that means the bosses too.

27/11/2010

More than the Sum or Less?

It is often assumed that if you combine world-class individuals into a team you will get a world-class team.

Meredith Belbin showed 30 years ago that you do not and it was a big shock at the time!

So, if world class individuals are not enough, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a world-class team?

The late Russell Ackoff described it perfectly – he said that if you take the best parts of all the available cars and put them together you do not get the best car – you do not even get a car. The parts are necessary but they are not sufficient – how the parts connect to each other and how they influence each other is more important. These interdependencies are part of the system – and to understand a system requires understanding both the parts and their relationships.

A car is a mechanical system; the human body is a biological system; and a team is a social system. So to create a high performance, healthy, world class team requires that both the individuals and their relationships with each other are aligned and resonant.

When the parts are aligned we get more than the sum of the parts; and when they are not we get less.

If we were to define intelligence quotient as “an ability to understand and solve novel problems” then the capability of a team to solve novel problems is the collective intelligence. Experience suggests that a group can appear to be less intelligent than any of the individual members. The problem here is with the relationships between the parts – and the term that is often applied is “dysfunctional”.

The root cause is almost always distrustful attitudes which lead from disrespectful prejudices and that lead to discounting behaviour. We learn these prejudices, attitudes and behaviours from each other and we reinforce them with years of practice. But if they are learned then they can be un-learned. It is simple in theory, and it is possible in practice, but it is not easy.

So if we want to (dis)solve complex, novel problems thenwe need world-class problem solving teams; and to transform our 3rd class dysfunctional teams we must first learn to challenge respectfully our disrespectful behaviour.

The elephant is in the room!

03/09/2010

Egomatosis

There is a common, and often fatal, organisational disease called “egomatosis”.

It starts as a swelling of the Egocentre in the Executive Organ that is triggered by a deficiency in the Humility Feedback Loop (HFL), which in turn is linked to underdevelopment or dysfunction of the phonic sensory input system – selective deafness.

Unfortunately, the Egocentre is located next to other perception centres – specifically insight – so as the egoma develops the visual perception also becomes progressively distorted until a secondary cultural blind-spot develops.

In effect, the Executive organ becomes progressively cut off from objective reality – and this lack of accurate information impairs the Humility Feedback Loop further – accelerating the further enlargement of the egoma.

A dangerous positive feedback loop is now created that leads to a self-amplifying spiral of distorted perception and a progressive decline of judgement and effective decision making.

The external manifestation of this state is a characteristic behaviour called “dystrustosis” – or difficulty in extending trust to others combined with a progressive loss of self-trust.

The unwitting sufferer becomes progressively deaf, blind, fearful, delusional, paranoid and insecure – often distancing themselves emotionally and physically and communicating only via intermediaries using One-Way-Directives.

Those who attempt to communicate with the sufferer of this insidious condition often resort to SHOUTING and using BIG LETTERS which, unfortunately, only mirrors the same behaviour. As the sufferer’s perception of reality becomes more distorted their lack of insight and humility blocks them from considering themselves as a contributor to the problem.

The ensuing conflict only serves to accelerate their decline and the sufferer progresses to the stage of “fulminant egomatosis”.

“Fulminant egomatosis” is a condition that is easy to identify and to diagnose. Just listen for the shouting, observe the dystrustosis and feel the fear.

Unfortunately, it is a difficult condition to manage because of the lack of awareness and insight that are the cardinal signs.

Many affected leaders and their organisations now enter a state of Denial – unconsciously hoping that the problem will resolve itself – which is indeed what happens eventually – though not in the way they desperately hope for.

In the interim, the health of the organisation deteriorates and many executives succumb, unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge the illness that claimed them; meekly accepting the “inevitable fate” and submitting to the terminal option – usually delivered by the Chair of the Board – Retire or Resign!

The circling corporate vultures squabble over the fiscal remains – leaving no tangible sign to mark the passing of the sufferer and their hapless organisation. There are no graveyards for the victims of fulminant egomatosis and the memory of their passing soon fades from the collective memory. Failure is a taboo subject – an undiscussable.

Some organisations become aware of their affliction while they are still alive, but only after they have reached the terminal stage and are too sick to save. The death throes are destructive and unpleasant to watch – and unfortunately fuel the self-justifying delusion of other infected organisations who erroneously conclude that “it could never happen to them” and then unwittingly follow the same path.

Unfortunately, egomatosis is an infectious cultural disease. The spores, or “memes” as they are called, can spread to other organisations. Just as Dr Ignaz Semmelweis discovered in 1847, the agents-of-destruction are often carried on the hands of those who perform organisational postmortems. These meme vectors are often the very people brought into assist the ailing organisation, and so become chronically infected themselves and gravitate to others who share their delusions. They are excluded by healthy organisations, but their siren-calls sound plausible and they gain entry to weaker organisations who are unaware that they carry the dangerous memes! Actively employing the services of management consultants in preference to encouraging organisational innovation incurs a high risk of silent infection! Appearance of the symptoms and signs is often delayed and by then it may be too late.

The organisations that are naturally immune to egomatosis were “built to last” because they were born with a well-developed sense of purpose, vision, humility, confidence and humour. They habitually and unconsciously look for, detect, and defuse the early signs of egomatosis. They do not fear failure, and they have learned to leverage the gap between intent and impact. These organisations have a strong cultural immune system and are able to both prevent infection and disarm the toxic-memes they inevitably encounter. They are safe, fun, challenging, exciting, innovative and motivating, places to work – characteristics that serve to strengthen their immunity, boost their resilience, and secure their future.

Some infected organisations are fortunate enough to become aware of their infection before it is too late, and they are able to escape the vicious cycle of decline. These “good to great” organisations have enough natural humility to learn by observing the fate of others and are able to detect the early symptoms and to seek help from someone who understands their illness and can guide their diagnosis and treatment. Such healers facilitate and demonstrate rather than direct and delegate.

All organisations are susceptible to egomatosis, so prevention is preferable to cure.

To prevent the disease, organisations must consciously and actively develop their internal and external feedback loops – using all their senses – including their olfactory organ. Cultural and political bull**** has a characteristic odour!

They also regularly exercise their Humility Feedback Loop to keep it healthy – and they have discovered that the easiest way to do that is to challenge themselves – to actively look for their own gaps and gaffes – to look for their own positive deviants – to search out opportunities to improve – and to practice the very things that they know they are not good at.

They are prepared to be proved lacking and have learned to stop, look, laugh at themselves – then listen, learn, act, improve and share.

There is no known cure for egomatosis – it is a consequence of the 1.3 kg of ChimpWare between our ears that we have inherited from our ancestors – so vigilance must be maintained throughout the life of the organisation.

22/05/2010

But Why?

Just two, innocent-looking, three-letter words.

So what is the big deal? If you’ve been a parent of young children you’ll recognise the feeling of desperation that happens when your pre-schooler keeps asking the “But why?” question. You start off patiently attempting to explain in language that you hope they will understand, and the better you do that the more likely you are to get the next “But why?” response. Eventually you reach the point where you’re down to two options: “I don’t know!” or “Just because!”. How are you feeling now about yourself and your young interrogator?

The troublemaker word is “but”. A common use of the word “but” in normal conversation is “Yes … but …” such as in “I hear what you are saying but …”.

What happens inside your head when you hear that? Does it niggle? Does the red mist start to rise?

Used in this way the word “but” reveals a mental process called discounting – and the message that you registered unconsciously is closer to “I don’t care about you and your opinion, I only care about me and my opinion and here it comes so listen up!”. This is a form of disrespectful behaviour that often stimulates a defensive response – even an argument – which only serves to further polarise the separate opinions, to deepen the mutual disrespect, and to erode trust.

It is a self-reinforcing negative-outcome counter-productive behaviour.

The trickster word is “why?” When someone asks you this open-ended question they are often just using it as a shortcut for a longer series of closed, factual questions such as “how, what, where, when, who …”. We are tricked because we often unconsciously translate “why?” into “what are your motives for …” which is an emotive question and can unconsciously trigger a negative emotional response. We then associate the negative feeling with the person and that hardens prejudices, erodes trust, reinforces resistance and fuels conflict.

My intention in this post is only to raise conscious awareness of this niggle.

If you are curious to test this youself – try consciously tuning in to the “but” and “why” words in conversation and in emails. See if you can consciously register your initial emotional response – the one that happens in the split second before your conscious thoughts catch up. Then ask youself the question “Did I just have a positive or a negative feeling?

07/03/2010

What is the Dis-Ease?

Do you ever go into places where there is a feeling of uneasiness?

You can feel it almost immediately – there is something in the room that no one is talking about.

An invisible elephant in the room, a rotting something under the table.

This week I have been pondering the cause of this dis-ease and my eureka moment happened while re-reading a book called “The Speed of Trust” by Stephen R. Covey.

A common elephant-in-the-room appears to be distrust and this got me thinking about both the causes of distrust and the effects of distrust. My doodle captures the output of my musing. For me, a potent cause of distrust is to be discounted; and discounting comes from disrespect. This can happen both within yourself and between yourself and others. If you feel un-trust-worthy then you tend to disengage; and by disengaging the system functions less well – it becomes dysfunctional. Dysfunction erodes respect and so on around the vicious circle.

This then led me to the question: Why haven’t we all drowned in our own distrust by now? I believe what happens is that we reach an equilibrium where our level of trust is stable; so there must be a counteracting trust-building force that balances the trust-eroding force. That trust-building force seem to comes from our day-to-day social interactions with others.

The Achilles Heel of negative-cause-effect circles is that you can break into them at many points to sap their power and reduce their influence. So, one strategy might be to identify the Errors of Commission that create the Disease of Distrust.

Consider the question: “If I have developed a high level of trust then what could I do to erode it as quickly as possible?”.

Disrespectful attitude and discounting behaviour would be all that is needed to start the vicious downward spiral of distrust disease.

Who of us never disrespects or discounts others?

Are we all infected with the same disease?

Is there a cure or can we only expect to hold it in remission?

How can we strengthen our emotional immune systems and neutralise the infective agents of the Disease of Distrust?

Do we just need to identify and stop our trust eroding behaviour?

That would be a start.