Hi, this is Mark Raven. Welcome to episode 287 of Liam
blog audio. This is a post from September
3rd, 2019, titled General, Jim Mattis on leadership, mistakes.
And defining problems. So retired General.
Jim Mattis has been making the rounds to talk about his new
book that's out today and that book is titled callsign.
Chaos learning to lead and you can find a link to the book.
You can find links. Stu the Articles.
I'm going to mention in this episode by going to lean blog
dot org, slash audio 287. I'm so again, the book is
callsign chaos with the subtitle learning to lead, now learning
to lead. Sounds like, it could be the
title of a book about lean management.
We're all learning how to lead people, how to lead Improvement
to lead organizations. You might say, we're practicing
leadership if you will myself included.
Now, a few things jumped out at me from an article and an NPR
interview. Mattis, it made me think about
lean and the challenges we face in various workplaces as
Madness. Wrote a piece, it was an excerpt
from the book. This was published in the Wall
Street Journal. He said, quote, the Marines are
bluntly. Critical of falling short
satisfied, only with 100% effort, and commitment yet over
the course of my career. Every time I made a mistake and
I made many the Marines promoted me, they're recognized that
these mistakes were part of my tuition and unnecessary bridge
to learning how to do things. Things right year in and year
out, the Marines had trained me in skills.
They knew I needed while educating me to deal with the
unexpected. So there's a lot to unpack in
that quote, you know, I think a lean culture and the leaders
there in our bluntly critical of falling short as Mattis wrote,
you know, facts are facts. Problems are to be embraced,
will get nowhere by ignoring or refusing to face up to problems.
Now, that said, lean thinkers look at systems and processes
having 100% effort and Commitment, as Mattis wrote
might be helpful but insufficient or not fully
sufficient for success. But Madness writes about not
being punished for mistakes, which I think is really
powerful. We can try to error-proof
processes but maybe we can't mistake proof bad decisions.
When people are doing the best they can giving their situation
training and Leadership support. Now, Madison wasn't left to
flounder as he wrote, he was given training and education but
dealing with the unexpected. Acted means that mistakes will
occur. Now, I think a lean culture
promotes, the idea of making small mistakes, it's better to
fail early when the stakes are low in the design of a new
process or a physical space. Lean Design, Concepts like
cardboard, prototypes of workspaces mean that we can
learn from mistakes when making changes at a point when making
changes is relatively easy and inexpensive.
We want to make sure we're truly learning from mistakes instead
of making the same mistakes over and over.
Now Healthcare, I've noticed. Sadly has a tendency to punish
people who make mistakes. Now, Matt has also shared
example, about a leader who is alienating people.
He wrote I served with a brilliant Admiral from a
European nation. He looked and acted every inch.
The forceful leader is too forceful.
He yelled dressing officers down in front of others and publicly
mocked reports that he considered shallow, instead of
clarifying what he wanted. He was harsh and inconsiderate
and the subordinates were fearful.
Now lean leaders. Don't yell mock or dress down if
a leader disagrees or needs to address a problem they can do.
So respectfully lean actually works against the old culture of
fear that dr. Deming and others warned us
against. Now unfortunately reminded of
the old leadership style that was still there.
When I worked at General Motors in 1995, as I blogged about in a
post titled beat down on them. So instead of beating down on
people, we need to collaborate in a way that lifts them up.
Up General Mattis, writes a called in the Admiral and
carefully explained why I disapproved of his leadership
your staff resents. You, I say you're disappointed
in their input, okay? But your criticism makes that
input worse. Not better.
You're going the wrong way. You cannot allow your passion
for excellence to destroy, your compassion for them as human
beings. This is a point.
I'd always driven home to my subordinates.
Change your leadership style. I continued coach, and encourage
don't berate least of all in public, So Madness was correct
but telling somebody to change even if you're their leader,
doesn't mean they will necessarily choose to change.
I think that's a really important lesson from the
motivational interviewing approach and I'll be presenting
a webinar in October for The Institute of industrial and
systems Engineers on this topic. And I'm also hosting through
Connexus, another webinar with Mark Valenti from who's going to
be doing the Presenting if you want to register for that
webinar. Next week you can again go to
lean blog dot, org slash audio 287 and look for the link or you
can go to www.hsn.com. So what happened after maddest
old this European Admiral that he should change Mattis wrote
but he soon reverted to demeaning his subordinates.
I shouldn't have been surprised. When for decades, you have been
rewarded and promoted. It's difficult to break the
habits. You've acquired Alice of how
they may have worked in another setting.
Finally, I told him to go home, so I would add.
Yeah, old habits are hard to change, that's for sure.
I see this in healthcare organizations again far too
often. As see a bullying or demeaning
style of leadership. That's only been reinforced over
decades. Here are some other interesting
comments from Mattis as he was interviewed by NPR.
It says in the article, man is says that when he was a senior
military commander quote, I didn't expect to be obeyed but I
did, but I expected to be heard. So that in a way, makes me think
of a quote, from Gary Canvas, OR former Toyota executive who was
taught to quote lead. As if you have no Authority,
that means engaging in collaborating.
A way that's more constructive than barking orders.
Now, I can't find the text of the audio that I heard listening
to the MPR one app. We're mattes quoted Albert.
Einstein and talking about the importance of defining problems,
properly and getting alignment on our understanding of the
problem before. Going into Solutions which again
reminds me of lean thinking and lean problem-solving, he quoted,
Einstein whose alleged who supposedly said.
If I only had one hour to save the world, I would spend 55
minutes to finding the problem and only five minutes, finding
the solution. But it's said that Einstein
didn't really say that. Abraham Lincoln allegedly said
something similar. Quote, if I only had an hour to
chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening,
my axe. I don't know if that's a true
quote but a quote that I think is legit and accurate is from
Charles Kettering the famed General Motors engineer.
Who said a problem, well stated as half solved.
So, recently, I've been coaching some improvement efforts in
Health Systems Ambulatory Surgery Center, their aim and
mandate was to improve the Patient experience and do so, in
a way that would hopefully be reflected in patient survey
scores, one role that I played and I think it was an important
one was to be mindful of when individuals or teams or jumping
in the solution mode. Prematurely I find myself
saying, well you know what problem are we trying to solve?
So collectively, we spent more time on defining, the problem,
in understanding the current state, understanding the real
reality spending more time on that than the organization might
have otherwise. But that investment Paid off, in
terms of better, countermeasures that had more support from the
staff and leaders, who had been engaged in the discussion along
the way. So to wrap up I don't know if I
would label General Mattis a quote-unquote lean later.
I mean, what does that matter anyway?
He seems like a great leader in a principled leader and I would
argue, we need more of that in different workplaces. so again,
if you would like to find the blog post for this episode, you
can go to lean blog dot org, slash audio 287