Table Of ContentWhat Works for GE
May Not Work
for You
Using Human Systems Dynamics
to Build a Culture of Process Improvement
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Using Human Systems Dynamics
to Build a Culture of Process Improvement
Lawrence Solow and Brenda Fake
Productivity Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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New York, NY 10016
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Solow, Lawrence (Lawrence A.)
What works for GE may not work for you : using human systems dynamics to build
a culture of process improvement / Lawrence Solow and Brenda Fake.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4398-2599-0
1. Organizational effectiveness. 2. Organizational change. 3. Process control. 4.
Quality control. I. Fake, Brenda. II. Title.
HD58.9.S66 2010
658.4’013--dc22 2010000672
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the Productivity Press Web site at
http://www.productivitypress.com
This book is dedicated to my parents, Paul and Sheila Solow.
They provided the DNA, motivation, and solid foundation
that made my contribution to this book possible.
Larry Solow
This book is dedicated to my clients across industries and
companies for enriching my work and understanding of the
world. Thank you for the experiences and validation that
people are the most important asset of any organization.
Brenda Fake
Contents
Foreword ................................................................................................xi
Preface .................................................................................................xiii
Acknowledgments ...............................................................................xix
Introduction .........................................................................................xxi
SectIon I What?
chapter 1 Introduction to “What?” ....................................................3
Consequences of Failure .............................................................3
Don’t Implement LSS for the Wrong Reasons .........................5
Other Complicating Factors .......................................................8
Human Systems Are Different .................................................10
Our “Simple Rules” in Writing This Book ..............................10
chapter 2 Lean Enterprise ................................................................13
Evolution of Lean Enterprise ...................................................14
A Typical Lean Implementation ..............................................17
More Advanced Lean Implementations .................................18
Sustaining a Lean Implementation ..........................................19
chapter 3 Six Sigma ...........................................................................21
History of Six Sigma ..................................................................21
Implementing Six Sigma ...........................................................23
Reasons Six Sigma Implementations Are Not Sustained......24
Other Business Improvement Models ....................................25
chapter 4 Human Systems Dynamics ..............................................27
A Brief Timeline of Leadership and Organizational
Development Theory ......................................................27
Differing Assumptions ..............................................................29
vii
viii • Contents
Section I Summary ..............................................................................33
Case Study Interview .................................................................33
Panel Discussion: The Current Condition ............................34
SectIon II So What?
chapter 5 Introduction to “So What?” .............................................43
chapter 6 Introduction to TryinHard Marine .................................47
chapter 7 The Project Begins ...........................................................57
chapter 8 The Training Begins ........................................................61
chapter 9 The Training Drags On ...................................................67
chapter 10 The Projects: An Update ..................................................69
chapter 11 A Staff Meeting ................................................................73
One Year Later ............................................................................76
Three Years Later.......................................................................80
Section II Summary ............................................................................81
SectIon III So What?—take 2
chapter 12 The TryinHard Marine Case Story Retold ......................85
chapter 13 The Next Staff Meeting ....................................................89
Contents • ix
chapter 14 Choosing a Consultant ....................................................93
chapter 15 Establishing the Initial Projects ......................................97
Summary of Themes ................................................................109
chapter 16 The Training ...................................................................113
chapter 17 Another Leadership Team Meeting ..............................117
chapter 18 Meanwhile, Back at the Projects … ..............................123
The Ship Date Team ................................................................123
The Accounts Receivable Variation (ARV) Team ................129
chapter 19 One Year Later ................................................................133
Questions for Consideration ..................................................137
SectIon IV now What?
chapter 20 Now What? .....................................................................141
Readiness ..................................................................................143
Leadership ................................................................................145
Selecting a Consultant .............................................................146
Selecting and Training Black Belt Candidates and
Project Team Members ................................................149
Initial Project Selection ...........................................................150
Adaptive Action .......................................................................152
chapter 21 What Next? .....................................................................161
Recommended Reading ......................................................................167
Index ....................................................................................................169
Foreword
As founder of the field of human systems dynamics (HSD), my mission
is to build capacity for individuals and organizations to be effective and
productive, even when they cannot predict or control the future. Applying
complexity, chaos, and other nonlinear sciences to human systems—indi-
viduals, teams, and organizations—HSD provides a new way to address
critical needs in today’s challenging global environment.
Nowhere is the opportunity for this approach greater than in the area of
process improvement. People everywhere strive to do better, be better, and
achieve better results for the organizations to which they commit them-
selves. There is nothing more heartbreaking than to see these efforts either
fail completely or only partially achieve their potential.
Larry Solow and Brenda Fake bring the best of three different worlds
to this book. First, both have invested their time and energy in under-
standing the concepts, models, and tools of HSD. Second, both have first-
hand knowledge of process improvement. Larry is a Six Sigma Black Belt
and has created his own innovative problem-solving process. Brenda has
worked with world-class organizations to understand the human side of
process improvement and organizational change. Finally, both are sea-
soned, experienced change agents. They have worked with a wide variety
of organizations that span profit and nonprofit, industry segments, and
geographies. They write from first-hand experience, sharing their stories
of what has and has not been effective in making change happen.
Throughout their book, Larry and Brenda emphasize that adaptive
action is not intended to replace existing process improvement tools, but
rather to complement them. I could not agree more. Viewing organiza-
tions as complex adaptive systems invites focus on patterns and the recog-
nition that influencing critical dimensions of these patterns creates a shift
in them. It is a different mindset than the mechanistic, cause-and-effect
thinking that permeates so much of today’s leadership thinking. Not bet-
ter and not worse; there are many places where viewing systems as linear
is both true and useful. It is in those other places, where flexibility, rapid
change, and the need for adaptive action are called for, that HSD-inspired
constructs and tools shine.
xi
xii • Foreword
I found What Works for GE May Not Work for You: Using Human Systems
Dynamics to Build a Culture of Process Improvement to be theoretically
sound, practical, and easy to read and understand. Blending traditional
models and new thinking, the authors have certainly provided food for
thought for those struggling to make process improvement a way of life in
their teams and organizations. I believe these ideas and tools can help you
build capacity for yourself, your team, and your organization to respond
creatively and effectively to complex change.
Glenda H. eoyang
Founding Executive Director
Human Systems Dynamics Institute
Circle Pines, Minnesota
Preface
If you can imagine a system … comprised of individual agents … each with
the freedom to act in unpredictable ways … yet whose actions are inter-
connected, but not known to any of the agents in the system … then we
can begin to explain how this book evolved. From a strictly linear, “cause
and effect” standpoint, the chances of Brenda Fake and Larry Solow join-
ing forces was astronomically small, yet it happened. Three people—three
seemingly unrelated stories—came together and resulted in the story you
are about to read.
We begin with Dr. Glenda Eoyang’s story. Her groundbreaking work
in applying nonlinear dynamics to human systems created the field of
Human Systems Dynamics (HSD). It was HSD that would ultimately serve
as the catalyst for Larry’s and Brenda’s collaboration on this book.
Dr. GlenDa eoyanG
Eoyang never outgrew the two-year-old’s question, “Why …?” Growing
up in a string of small towns in West Texas, she wondered why a church
continued to exist even after the building burned down. She wondered
why one little community celebrated different holidays than others. She
wondered why sports were a passion for some, a pastime for others, and
an irrelevancy to her. She wondered why some people could build words
and sentences into a work of art and others barely made themselves under-
stood. She wondered.
St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, turned her curiosity toward
classics of the Western World. In reading and discussing great works,
she discovered that Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton also
wondered, and that they did it very, very well. Studying history and the
philosophy of science inspired her to reflect in new and surprising ways
on her own experience with individuals and groups. She taught physics
and chemistry, designed early computer-based training, started her own
companies, and supported others as they implemented computer systems
xiii
