Organizational Transformation Quotes

[A] process was going on in which people were transformed into things, into pieces of reality which pure science can calculate and technical science can control. … [T]he safety which is guaranteed by well-functioning mechanisms for the technical control of nature, by the refined psychological control of the person, by the rapidly increasing organizational control of society – this safety is bought at a high price: man, for whom all this was invented as a means, becomes a means himself in the service of means.

Arming employees with the tools, know-how, and mindset needed to successfully innovate on a continual basis will be paramount to organizational survival.

Innovation is a learned organizational capability. You must train people how to innovate and navigate organizational barriers that kill off good ideas before they can be tested.

We dubbed this goal—this state of emergent, adaptive organizational intelligence—shared consciousness, and it became the cornerstone of our transformation.

By bringing together people who share interests, no matter their location or time zone, social media has the potential to transform the workplace into an environment where learning is as natural as it is powerful.

Micromanagement is mismanagement. … [P]eople micromanage to assuage their anxieties about organizational performance: they feel better if they are continuously directing and controlling the actions of others—at heart, this reveals emotional insecurity on their part. It gives micromanagers the illusion of control (or usefulness). Another motive is lack of trust in the abilities of staff—micromanagers do not believe that their colleagues will successfully complete a task or discharge a responsibility even when they say they will.”108

Getting your ego out of the way has an even deeper organizational impact.

The sustainable success of digital transformation comes from a carefully planned organisational change management process that meets two key objectives, one being the company culture, and the other one is empowering its employees

last frontier of competitive advantage will be the transformation of unhealthy organizations into healthy ones,

Just implementing technology alone does not produce a digital transformation. Changing an organization by taking advantage of the potential of technologies does.

The purpose of digitalization is to make a significant difference in the overall levels of business performance and organizational maturity.

A hybrid organizational structure can bring greater awareness of intricacies and systemic value of organizational systems, processes, people dynamics, technology, and resource allocation, etc.

Doing scrum” is as meaningless (and impossible) as creating an instance of an abstract class. Scrum is a framework for surfacing organizational dysfunction. It is not a process and it is not prescriptive.

When it comes to transformation or deformation, organizational cultures are rarely neutral. For the most part cultural norms will support and catalyze or work against the process of spiritual transformation. Cultivating a culture

Three profoundly destabilizing scientific ideas ricochet through the twentieth century, trisecting it into three unequal parts: the atom, the byte, the gene. Each is foreshadowed by an earlier century, but dazzles into full prominence in the twentieth. Each begins its life as a rather abstract scientific concept, but grows to invade multiple human discourses-thereby transforming culture, society, politics, and language. But the most crucial parallel between the three ideas, by far, is conceptual: each represents the irreducible unit-the building block, the basic organizational unit-of a larger whole: the atom, of matter; the byte (or "bit"), of digitized information; the gene, of heredity and biological information.

term Lean was coined by John Krafcik in a 1988 article based on his master’s thesis at MIT Sloan School of Management1 and then popularized in The Machine that Changed the World and Lean Thinking. Lean Thinking summarized Womack and Jones’s findings from studying how Toyota operates, an approach that was spearheaded by Taiichi Ohno, codified by Shigeo Shingo, and strongly influenced by the work of W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Henry Ford, and U.S. grocery stores. Lean Thinking framed Toyota’s

People are typically more comfortable talking with others in their own environment; being asked to come to a conference room to help a leadership-heavy team evaluate work flow can evoke understandable anxiety and make them feel like they are on a witness stand. It is much more effective to go to them.

The most significant transformational moment in my career was an act of elimination. It wasn’t my idea. I was in my late thirties and doing well flying around the country giving the same talk about organizational behavior to companies. I was on a lucrative treadmill of preserving, but I needed my mentor Paul Hersey to point out the downside. “You’re too good at what you’re doing,” Hersey told me. “You’re making too much money selling your day rate to companies.” When someone tells me I’m “too good” my brain shifts into neutral—and I bask in the praise. But Hersey wasn’t done with me. “You’re not investing in your future,” he said. “You’re not researching and writing and coming up with new things to say. You can continue doing what you’re doing for a long time. But you’ll never become the person you want to be.” For some reason, that last sentence triggered a profound emotion in me. I respected Paul tremendously. And I knew he was right. In Peter Drucker’s words, I was “sacrificing the future on the altar of today.” I could see my future and it had some dark empty holes in it. I was too busy maintaining a comfortable life. At some point, I’d grow bored or disaffected, but it might happen too late in the game for me to do something about it. Unless I eliminated some of the busywork, I would never create something new for myself. Despite the immediate cut in pay, that’s the moment I stopped chasing my tail for a day rate and decided to follow a different path. I have always been thankful for Paul’s advice.

I frequently detect a hint of satisfaction in the accounts that manage to excavate moral and individual responsibility from the historical debris. Perhaps it is because of the unspoken belief that changing the people will change the outcome. 'No Hitler, no Holocaust.' If only a few individuals had resolved that it was unconscionable to be a bystander, then perhaps thousands would have been saved. I suppose there is some solace in recovering a history in which altering an isolated event transforms all that follows. But personalizing the story in this way can obscure how these were not isolated individuals operating on their own but rather were people situated in an organizational and historical context that profoundly shaped how they looked upon the world, what they believed they could do, and what they wanted to do. The UN staff and diplomats in New York, in the main, were highly decent, hard-working, and honorable individuals who believed that they were acting properly when they decided not to try to put an end to genocide. It is this history that stays with me.

In an organizational culture where respect and the dignity of individuals are held as the highest values, shame and blame don’t work as management styles. There is no leading by fear. Empathy is a valued asset, accountability is an expectation rather than an exception, and the primal human need for belonging is not used as leverage and social control. We can’t control the behavior of individuals; however, we can cultivate organizational cultures where behaviors are not tolerated and people are held accountable for protecting what matters most: human beings. We

And so, when I tell stories today about digital transformation and organizational agility and customer centricity, I use a vocabulary that is very consistent and very refined. It is one of the tools I have available to tell my story effectively. I talk about assumptions. I talk about hypotheses. I talk about outcomes as a measure of customer success. I talk about outcomes as a measurable change in customer behavior. I talk about outcomes over outputs, experimentation, continuous learning, and ship, sense, and respond. The more you tell your story, the more you can refine your language into your trademark or brand—what you’re most known for. For example, baseball great Yogi Berra was famous for his Yogi-isms—sayings like “You can observe a lot by watching” and “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It’s not just a hook or catchphrase, it helps tell the story as well. For Lean Startup, a best-selling book on corporate innovation written by Eric Ries, the words were “build,” “measure,” “learn.” Jeff Patton, a colleague of mine, uses the phrase “the differences that make a difference.” And he talks about bets as a way of testing confidence levels. He’ll ask, “What will you bet me that your idea is good? Will you bet me lunch? A day’s pay? Your 401(k)?” These words are not only their vocabulary. They are their brand. That’s one of the benefits of storytelling and telling those stories continuously. As you refine your language, the people who are beginning to pay attention to you start adopting that language, and then that becomes your thing.

The empowerment triangle turns drama upside-down, transforming the persecutor (or scapegoat) into a challenger, the rescuer into a coach, and the victim into a creator. The empowerment dynamic allows all the roles to be essential for growth. In the drama triangle, the persecutor works with issues of power, the rescuer works with issues of responsibility, and the victim works with area of vulnerability: The drama triangle is familiar to many of us. We all know this pattern inside ourselves. We get stuck in a situation that we want to escape, and it creates drama. By leaning into the dynamic and entering deeper into relationship, we can work the energy so that it becomes an enriching transformation. If you can work this in a group, then you’ve subdued the scapegoat archetype and turned it into something more life affirming. The most important thing about the drama triangle is to make people aware of it. When a group can understand and recognize how this is a kind of destructive pattern, it becomes empowered to change the pattern. Uncoupling drama from our organizational and personal lives is the key. The group as a whole can embody a role to create safety and make sense of the system. Transformation from the drama to the redeemed starts with a pause, then an inquiry of what’s happening here, then a recollection of the three roles and who is playing what role in this context. Once the system is self-aware, ask the questions: “what else is possible? How can I become so centered that something new can happen? How can a new perception take place?” With enough safety and connection, the group will be able to follow the healing energy into re-organization and re-integration of the parts. Claiming or remembering your own archetype can protect against falling into one.

This discussion of war then lays the foundation for an understanding of change as a process and as an essential component of military affairs. Militaries must change to cope with the changing environment in which they function. The U.S. Army has a robust process to guide change in its combat developments community. Change is also present in the business world, as industry seeks a competitive advantage in order to survive and prosper. The present transformation initiatives in the U.S. Department of Defense seek to maintain the U.S. dominance in military capability in the world and to exploit the opportunities afforded by new technologies and concepts of organization and warfare that use those technologies. The future of military requirements remain a challenge to define. The transformation process tries to define that future and the capabilities needed in order to maintain the security of the United States. Yet enemies of the United States and its allies also seek to predict and mold this future to their advantage. The rise of Islamic fundamentalists or radicalism has changed the global security environment. Western nations must prepare to defeat this threat that is not really new but has risen to new levels of ferocity and lethality. Regardless of the changes in technology, organizational and operational concepts, and external or internal threats, people remain a constant as the crucial element in war. People make decisions to use military and other elements of national power to impose the will of a nation on another group or nations. People also comprise the military services and man the component systems within the services. Any study of war and warfare must address the impact that people make on the conduct of war and the effects of war on people. The political process always includes people. To paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz, war is a continuation of that political process. Leaders who make a decision to fight and those who lead those soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines into battle must not forget that people implement those decisions and are the object of any offense or defense. Protecting the citizens of the United States is why the nation maintains military forces.

As Deming is commonly reported to have said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.

LEADERSHIP ABILITIES Some competencies are relevant (though not sufficient) when evaluating senior manager candidates. While each job and organization is different, the best leaders have, in some measure, eight abilities. 1 STRATEGIC ORIENTATION The capacity to engage in broad, complex analytical and conceptual thinking 2 MARKET INSIGHT A strong understanding of the market and how it affects the business 3 RESULTS ORIENTATION A commitment to demonstrably improving key business metrics 4 CUSTOMER IMPACT A passion for serving the customer 5 COLLABORATION AND INFLUENCE An ability to work effectively with peers or partners, including those not in the line of command 6 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT A drive to improve the company by attracting and developing top talent 7 TEAM LEADERSHIP Success in focusing, aligning, and building effective groups 8 CHANGE LEADERSHIP The capacity to transform and align an organization around a new goal You should assess these abilities through interviews and reference checks, in the same way you would evaluate potential, aiming to confirm that the candidate has displayed them in the past, under similar circumstances.

If apostolic refounding is about anything, it is about a return to the sources. Organizational renewal therefore involves the discovery of an organization’s true identity and mission. The authority to bring transformation to the church does not rest in the person of the leader or group but in God’s calling. Therefore, the key to the revitalization of religious organizations is to reappropriate, or recover, their founding charism. When Dallas Willard, an influential theologian and thinker, urges younger leaders to “stir the primal coals of your movement, do what they did, say what they said,” he is wisely encouraging them to be radical traditionalists.

Goethe asserted, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

As Olivier Serrat of the Asian Development Bank wrote, “Micromanagement is mismanagement.… [P]eople micromanage to assuage their anxieties about organizational performance: they feel better if they are continuously directing and controlling the actions of others—at heart, this reveals emotional insecurity on their part. It gives micromanagers the illusion of control (or usefulness). Another motive is lack of trust in the abilities of staff—micromanagers do not believe that their colleagues will successfully complete a task or discharge a responsibility even when they say they will.

Managing the Neutral Zone: A Checklist Yes No   ___ ___ Have I done my best to normalize the neutral zone by explaining it as an uncomfortable time that (with careful attention) can be turned to everyone’s advantage? ___ ___ Have I redefined the neutral zone by choosing a new and more affirmative metaphor with which to describe it? ___ ___ Have I reinforced that metaphor with training programs, policy changes, and financial rewards for people to keep doing their jobs during the neutral zone? ___ ___ Am I protecting people adequately from inessential further changes? ___ ___ If I can’t protect them, am I clustering those changes meaningfully? ___ ___ Have I created the temporary policies and procedures that we need to get us through the neutral zone? ___ ___ Have I created the temporary roles, reporting relationships, and organizational groupings that we need to get us through the neutral zone? ___ ___ Have I set short-range goals and checkpoints? ___ ___ Have I set realistic output objectives? ___ ___ Have I found the special training programs we need to deal successfully with the neutral zone? ___ ___ Have I found ways to keep people feeling that they still belong to the organization and are valued by our part of it? And have I taken care that perks and other forms of “privilege” are not undermining the solidarity of the group? ___ ___ Have I set up one or more Transition Monitoring Teams to keep realistic feedback flowing upward during the time in the neutral zone? ___ ___ Are my people willing to experiment and take risks in intelligently conceived ventures—or are we punishing all failures? ___ ___ Have I stepped back and taken stock of how things are being done in my part of the organization? (This is worth doing both for its own sake and as a visible model for others’ similar efforts.) ___ ___ Have I provided others with opportunities to do the same thing? Have I provided them with the resources—facilitators, survey instruments, and so on—that will help them do that? ___ ___ Have I seen to it that people build their skills in creative thinking and innovation? ___ ___ Have I encouraged experimentation and seen to it that people are not punished for failing in intelligent efforts that do not pan out? ___ ___ Have I worked to transform the losses of our organization into opportunities to try doing things a new way? ___ ___ Have I set an example by brainstorming many answers to old problems—the ones that people say we just have to live with? Am I encouraging others to do the same? ___ ___ Am I regularly checking to see that I am not pushing for certainty and closure when it would be more conducive to creativity to live a little longer with uncertainty and questions? ___ ___ Am I using my time in the neutral zone as an opportunity to replace bucket brigades with integrated systems throughout the organization?

Organizational maturity is not just about technical excellence or process efficiency, but also about business effectiveness, agility, innovation intelligence, and people-centricity.

The organizational fit is the good balance of the fitting attitude and misfit thinking.

Digital transformation requires changes to processes and thinking—changes that span your internal organizational silos. The clear delineation between technical skills and leadership skills is blurring fast.

An organizational norm that says, “We value practice over theory but we value theory-informed practice over ad-hoc practice” helps to restore some respect for theory. We

This adaptive capacity is the crucial leadership element for a changing world (see fig. 7.1). While it is grounded on the professional credibility that comes from technical competence and the trust gained through relational congruence, adaptive capacity is also its own set of skills to be mastered. These skills include the capacity to calmly face the unknown to refuse quick fixes to engage others in the learning and transformation necessary to take on the challenge that is before them to seek new perspectives to ask questions that reveal competing values and gaps in values and actions to raise up the deeper issues at work in a community to explore and confront resistance and sabotage to learn and change without sacrificing personal or organizational fidelity to act politically and stay connected relationally to help the congregation make hard, often painful decisions to effectively fulfill their mission in a changing context This capacity building is more than just some techniques to master. It’s a set of deeply developed capabilities that are the result of ongoing transformation in the life of a leader.

after you have chosen an approach, you don’t need to worry about getting the advantages of that design because it will come naturally. Where you need to provide management focus is on addressing the disadvantages of your organizational choice.

English exports, led by cotton textiles, doubled between 1780 and 1800. It was the growth in this sector that pulled ahead the whole economy. The combination of technological and organizational innovation provides the model for economic progress that transformed the economies of the world that became rich.

The Five Initiatives 1.​Growth (via customer service, globalization, and technology) 2.​Productivity (went hand-in-hand with growth) 3.​Cash (improve working capital and have high-quality earnings) 4.​People (keep the best talent, organized the right way and motivated) 5.​Organizational enablers (including Six Sigma, Honeywell Operating System, and Functional Transformation)

It turns out that an organizational structure that worked well for a Swedish music streaming company may not work for an investment bank. In addition, the original paper showed a snapshot of how Spotify worked in 2012 and things have changed since. It turns out not even Spotify uses the Spotify model.

The governor of Illinois feared that armed Mormon retaliation could escalate into a civil war. He urged Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, and his followers to leave the state. Soon the urging became more insistent: leave or be forcibly expelled. Young agreed to go. Young now faced a serious organizational challenge. How do you plan an exodus? How should you move thousands of families and their horses, mules, oxen, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, geese, and goats, all while searching for a permanent home? Young stewed on the problem, debated with his advisors, and finally, on January 14, 1847, announced that the Lord had spoken to him. The Church should divide into small companies, each led by a single captain, and head west.

Transformational leadership means leaders inspiring and motivating followers to achieve higher performance by appealing to their values and sense of purpose, facilitating wide-scale organizational change. Such leaders encourage their teams to work toward a common goal through their vision, values, communication, example-setting, and their evident caring about their followers’ personal needs.

In reality, true military innovation is less about technology than about operational and organizational transformation.

The first step in breaking organizational culture inertia is simplification. This helps to eliminate the complex routines, processes, and hidden bargains among units that mask waste and inefficiency. Strip out excess layers of administration and halt nonessential operations—sell them off, close them down, spin them off, or outsource the services. Coordinating committees and a myriad of complex initiatives need to be disbanded. The simpler structure will begin to illuminate obsolete units, inefficiency, and simple bad behavior that was hidden from sight by complex overlays of administration and self-interest. After the first round of simplification, it may be necessary to fragment the operating units. This will be the case when units do not need to work in close coordination—when they are basically separable. Such fragmentation breaks political coalitions, cuts the comfort of cross-subsidies, and exposes a larger number of smaller units to leadership’s scrutiny of their operations and performance. After this round of fragmentation, and more simplification, it is necessary to perform a triage. Some units will be closed, some will be repaired, and some will form the nuclei of a new structure. The triage must be based on both performance and culture—you cannot afford to have a high-performing unit with a terrible culture infect the others. The “repair” third of the triaged units must then be put through individual transformation and renewal maneuvers. Changing a unit’s culture means changing its members’ work norms and work-related values. These norms are established, held, and enforced daily by small social groups that take their cue from the group’s high-status member—the alpha. In general, to change the group’s norms, the alpha member must be replaced by someone who expresses different norms and values. All this is speeded along if a challenging goal is set. The purpose of the challenge is not performance per se, but building new work habits and routines within the unit. Once the bulk of operating units are working well, it may then be time to install a new overlay of coordinating mechanisms, reversing some of the fragmentation that was used to break inertia.

The use of KPIs is meant to improve and transform the organizational performance.

But moving from enabling the business to being the business is challenging work. It means changing governance models, organizational structures, delivery methodologies and hiring practices. It means transforming IT people from technologists to strategists, from constructing hard lines around IT to creating an environment devoid of organizational boundaries, and from clamping down on employees attempts to develop their own technology to embracing end-user innovation. It also means driving change in the most difficult of all arenas: the mindset, the psyche, the most deeply held ways that we understand our jobs, our success, and our professional identity.

The organizational digital transformation journey is where the juice is in the organization, not just the destination.

The QMO, worked closely with the PMO throughout the Kanban transformation, but we never tried to change them. Our stance was to help them understand what was different about how projects were governed with the new Agile practices so they could decide what to change.

Such tensions might partly explain why the Gallup organization repeatedly finds just 13 percent of the world’s workforce likes going to work, despite the rise of popular books and research on employee engagement, organizational culture, and motivation.

Finally, a common purpose answers the question, “Why us?” Why this group of people? Why right now? Why are we coming together as individuals to organize, solve this problem, and deliver this purpose? This is perhaps the most overlooked yet most powerful purpose to state. A common purpose answers the questions, Can every person see his or her own personal purpose in the organizational purpose? Is the purpose shared?

Tell the story of why you exist, often. Talk about why before what in meetings. Reward why before what, and train people by first engaging them in your story. Create shared dramatic experiences. People need to feel your purpose. How do your people know when organizational purpose has been delivered? How do they hear about it? Do they see it? Do they feel it? More important, do they experience it together?

where network effects are present, industries operate by different rules.17 One reason is that it is far easier to scale network effects outside a firm than inside it—since there are always many more people outside a firm than inside it. Thus, where network effects are present, the focus of organizational attention must shift from inside to outside. The firm inverts; it turns inside out. The management of human resources shifts from employees to crowds.18 Innovation shifts from in-house R & D to open innovation.

How and why is this happening? Let’s break it down. In the world of platforms, the Internet no longer acts merely as a distribution channel (a pipeline). It also acts as a creation infrastructure and a coordination mechanism. Platforms are leveraging this new capability to create entirely new business models. In addition, the physical and the digital are rapidly converging, enabling the Internet to connect and coordinate objects in the real world—for example, through smartphone apps that allow you to control your home appliances at long distance. Simultaneously, organizational boundaries are being redefined as platform companies leverage external ecosystems to create value in new ways.7 In this new stage of disruption, platforms enjoy two significant economic advantages over pipelines. One of these advantages is superior marginal economics of production and distribution.

General Questions What are the business issues (service quality, product quality, speed, capacity, cost, morale, competitive landscape, impending regulations, etc.) we wish to address? What does the customer want? What measurable target condition(s) are we aiming for? Which process blocks add value or are necessary non-value-adding? How can we reduce delays between processes? How can we improve the quality of incoming work at each process? How can we reduce work effort and other expenses across the value stream? How can we create a more effective value stream (greater value to customers, better supplier relationships, higher sales conversion rates, better estimates-to-actuals, lower legal and compliance risk, etc.)? How will we monitor value stream performance?

Touch Points Are there redundant or unnecessary processes that can be eliminated (e.g., excessive approvals)? Are there redundant or unnecessary handoffs that can be eliminated or combined (e.g., work that can be done by a single department)? Are there processes or handoffs that need to be added?

Delays Is work being processed frequently enough? Can we reduce batch sizes or eliminate batching completely? Do we have adequate coverage and available resources to accommodate existing and expected future workloads? How can we create more capacity or reduce the load at the bottleneck?

Sequencing and Pacing Is the work sequenced and synchronized properly? Are processes being performed too early or too late in the value stream? Are key stakeholders being engaged at the proper time? Can processes be performed concurrently (in parallel)? Would staggered starts improve flow? How can we balance the workload to achieve greater flow (via combining or dividing processes)? Do we need to consider segmenting the work by work type to achieve greater flow (with rotating but designated resources for defined periods of time)?

Variation Management Is there internally produced variation (e.g., end-of-quarter sales incentives)? How can we level incoming workload along the value stream to reduce variation and achieve greater flow? Can we reduce variation in customer or internal requirements? How can necessary variation be addressed most effectively? Are there common prioritization rules in place throughout the value stream?

Technology Is redundant or unnecessary technology involved? Is the available technology fully utilized? Are the systems interconnected to optimize data movement?

Quality How can higher-quality input be received by each process in the value stream (to improve the %C&A metric)? Is there an opportunity to standardize and error proof work?

Labor Effort How can we eliminate unnecessary non-value-adding work? How can we reduce the labor effort in necessary non-value-adding work? How can we optimize value-adding work?

Value Stream Management Do policies need to be changed to enable improved performance? Are there organization departmental reporting structures that can be changed to reduce conflicting goals or align resources? Do existing performance metrics (if any) encourage desired behaviors and discourage dysfunctional behavior? What key performance indicators (KPIs) will we use to monitor value stream performance? Who will monitor the KPIs? How frequently? Who else will results be communicated to? What visual systems can be created to aid in managing and monitoring the value stream? Are the key processes within the value stream clearly defined with their own KPIs, standardized appropriately, and measured and improved regularly?

She empowers ADD women by validating their experience as worthwhile human beings who struggle with serious organizational problems in many areas of their lives.

Hiring and onboarding approaches, sales and marketing processes, budgeting practices, incentive structures, performance evaluation and management systems, and every other organizational system, structure, and process can be conceived and deployed in inward-mindset or outward-mindset ways. Organizations that are serious about operating with an outward mindset turn these systems and processes outward to invite and reinforce outward-mindset working.

Simple organisational mechanisms, such as the creation of a sub committee of the EXCO body, under the authorisation of the CEO and chaired by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or the Chief Operating Officer (COO) — i.e., those who have the necessary organisational authority to resolve issues — should be established. Reporting into this group should be weekly and any variance to plan should be identified for resolution. There may be other organisational solutions but as a minimum, project reporting should be frequent and escalation for issue resolution should be integral to the process.

Green Projects Consulting provides a variety of services such as project portfolio management trainings, project portfolio management strategy and project portfolio management implementation services. Furthermore we have extensive experience in building value driven PMOs, organizational transformation, change management and advanced project management applying critical chain project management and TOC principles to achieve exceptional growth for our clients.

Steve and Karen extend our view beyond the interrelationships of team, management, and leadership practices, beyond the skillful adoption of DevOps, and beyond the breaking down of silos—all necessary, but not sufficient. Here we see the evolution of holistic, end-to-end organizational transformation, fully engaged and fully aligned to enterprise purpose.

And when you do have the authority to act but worry that doing so may cause tension for others, it’s much safer and more comfortable to just take action when you know any tensions that result will be transformed into organizational learning in the next governance meeting—and when your team had a voice in giving you that authority in the first place.

According to Harrison Owen, “the key ingredients for deep creative learning are real freedom and real responsibility.

The difference between rules and principles is that for setting up rules, you need to analyze every possible situation before formulating it. Rules are based on the pattern of if-this-happens-do-that.

Principles are like guidelines that help you test whether your actions are aligned with your beliefs and values, or not. If not, you have to search for another way to solve

Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, has marshaled evidence that shows that when it comes to getting promoted in your job, strong relationships and being on good terms with your boss can matter more than competence.

Taking your company global is a business transformation exercise that can help you achieve your biggest and most ambitious dreams for your business.

There's a big difference between needing to change a plan because new data or new conditions warrant it and deviating from a plan because an avoidable distraction has taken away the focus of an improvement team

experiencing fewer problems and frustrations in their day-to-day work, the work force will become even more engaged in the improvement process

By comparing the defined target with actual results, the team can determine if its hypothesis was proven and make appropriate adjustments if it wasn't

we use the term countermeasure instead of solution, to aid in creating a continuous improvement culture, which begins with how people think and speak. The word solution smacks of an over-the-wall, permanent-fix mindset, which discounts the ever-changing world we work and live in.

In practice, all ideas need to be viewed as merely hypotheses; testing and evaluation of the test results must precede across-the-board adoption.

Improvements are temporary countermeasures, not permanent solutions.

Beware leaders that want to negotiate for shorter time frames than the team feels is prudent. Most leaders have been away from the front lines for a long time and have grown out of touch with how long it takes to plan and execute well-thought-out improvements.

In terms of overall transformation plan ownership, we recommend a sole accountable party.

It bears repeating: in our experience, the plan review meetings are a key success factor in value stream transformation.

We find a direct link between results and the degree to which the executive sponsor remains visibly engaged.

Executing and sustaining change requires a different set of organizational behaviors than those required for planning.

Whereas clarity and ingenuity are required for creating current and future state maps, focus and discipline are essential for successfully executing and sustaining improvement.

You need to talk about it. Explain it. Let people ask questions.

In the spirit of respect for people, and as a means to facilitate plan execution, workers who are part of the process or those who will be affected by the improvements must also be aware of the mapping activity and the plan for transformation.

Following this scientific process assures that everyone involved in making improvements is thinking critically and breaking old habits of prematurely leaping to solutions or rushing through execution for the sake of meeting a deadline.

When we ask leaders and improvement professionals what the most difficult aspect to making change is, they nearly always say, "Sustaining.

We cannot empathize this enough: sustaining improvements begins with proper planning, followed by proper execution and management.

Once you've successfully realized the iterated future state, you must have two things firmly in place to sustain it: (1) someone formally designated to monitor value stream performance to assess how it's performing, facilitate problem solving when issues arise, and lead ongoing improvement to raise the performance bar, and (2) key performance indicators to tell whether performance is on track or not (value stream management)

In mature continuous improvement organizations, value stream managers are sometimes given responsibility for profit and loss across the value stream

We're often asked how frequently a value stream should be improved. The answer is continuously. We understand that's a tall order for many organizations, but continuous improvement is your only way out of a culture of reactive firefighting, which prevents your organization from excelling on all levels.

Learning to see and manage work from a value stream perspective is a powerful way to instill new ways of thinking into the DNA of your organization and achieve higher levels of performance.

During the three-day mapping activity, the team had numerous discussions about the role of software testing, customer involvement and responsibility, striking the right balance of iterations, and how "minimal" a minimally viable product should be.

You cannot lead an organizational #DigitalTransformation, if you haven't disrupted yourself.

You cannot lead an organizational Digital Transformation if you haven't disrupted yourself.

The critical path for any Digital Transformation is Digital Leadership and Culture, not technology.

where network effects are present, the focus of organizational attention must shift from inside to outside. The firm inverts; it turns inside out. The management of human resources shifts from employees to crowds.18 Innovation shifts from in-house R & D to open innovation

And remaining steadfast to the cause requires committed, executive leadership, motivation, organizational change management and above all, perseverance and resolve.

a value stream is a series of processes that connect together and transform a customer request into a good or service that's delivered to the customer, which completes the request-to-delivery cycle

the value stream map looks at the high level activities that transform a request into some sort of deliverable . . . the purpose of value stream mapping is to design a strategic improvement plan that will be executed over a period of time; it's not designed to address problems at a detailed level