Book Review: You can't order change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing - Peter Cohan

I was attracted to this book because the title said what I have always thought yet doesn't seem to be what I get involved with doing! I spend a lot of time on Boeings so I felt I had an interest in knowing what they doing and how they are doing it.

A while back Boeing was in a mess - stockprice was down, staff were complaining, revenue was not as anticipated, key people were leaving, lawsuits abounded and generally everything was on a downward trend.  Enter CEO Jim McNerney who gained a reputation of requiring results to speak for themselves rather than putting himself on a pedestal.

This book takes you through the CEO perspective and actions in turning around a self-destructing monolith. The view I got form the book was the importance of people stuff, relationships and leadership in times of trouble. Sounds obvious but in my experience I see organisations go down the route of more rules, process redesign and the like when the crunch hits.

Cohan interprets McNerney's approach as expressing what is required from leaders in the organisation, working with people so they jointly own these leadership attributes and encouraging communication at all levels. He also got rid of the people who didn't make the grade while investing in those who were growing into leadership roles with the right skills and capabilities. After people, the big message is the importance of the person who manages the finances. Then there is also the piece about customer involvement.

Written in summary here all this looks like the standard stuff of management and leadership texts. However, Cohan does explain all these actions in the context of Boeing. Still - to me, much of the diagnosis ended up a bit samey. Maybe that is more a reflection of my expectations - was I looking for something unique? Maybe the answer to large scale change in large organisations really is simple - the difficulty is in applying the tactics.

Overall - nothing new in here and maybe that is what is new.

Book Review: Sustaining lean healthcare programme; a practical survival guide - Eaton & Phillip

Different book styles appeal differently, to different people. This one appealed to me because it is relatively short (94 pages plus appendices), well organised, uses bullet points and lists, checklists, diagrams and has some short examples to illustrate points.

Contents include:

1. Where are you on your journey
2. Why do only 24% succeed?
3. Going Lean
4. The top ten signs of a failing programme
5. Creating a lean healthcare organisation
6. Four key checklists
7. The next eight things to do...

So do only 25% succeed? The authors suggest there are 8 critical success categories Communications. resources, involvement, training, implementation, compass, achievement and leadership (yes, these do spell "critical"). If you like wordplay then read the book and discover PRISM, CAD, VSE, RIE, RPE, FIT, FMEA etc. Not as bad as it looks in a list here. I found them a good description, and sometimes reminder, of basic principles.

The chapter on the top 10 signs of a failing program is easily read. For each reason there is an explanation of what you may experience, why it happens and then what you can do about it.

The four checklists you need? One each on people, success, tools and culture. Nothing really new to me, just nicely organised.

I particularly liked the Appendices which included key lean phrases and concepts (worth the price of the book for its organisation and simplicity), audit form, guide to common saying (fabulous!), and then a number of "how to" guides.

I know Mark Eaton has actually implemented lean in healthcare. This book is a demonstration that when written by someone who has got their hands dirty it turns into valuable desktop reference.

Evidence: Quality Improvement Training

The Health Foundation has released a useful, and I think important, scan of the literature surrounding the strategy, content and process of training others in quality improvement. The document is a comprehensive and well organised summary of their scan of an enormous number of papers.  You can download the 52 page PDF from their website.

What  I liked about this literature scan is their focus on the impact of training. If you are responsible for organising or delivering quality improvement training then I recommend this literature review.

Report: Virtual QI Collaborative

It seems to have taken years for the QI family round the world to gain their trust in virtual improvement programs. My personal experience is they can work as effectively as face-to-face programs, although they need to be designed to work in a different way and need proper virtual facilitation.

There's a useful report about a virtual QI collaborative from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The results look pretty good to be.

Book Review: Spiritual Capital; wealth we can live by. Zohar, Marshall

You know about IQ. Along came EQ. And now we have SQ - Spiritual Capital.

Published in 2004, this book languished on my bookshelf filed somewhere between management books, self-help and fiction. Having read it I will now file it permanently under management texts. Although it is written for an individual to read and contemplate their own SQ, it is framed for wider thinking covering society and organisations.

The authors provide explanation of the different type of Capital:
IQ: Material Capital, rational intelligence - What I think
EQ: Social Capital, emotional intelligence - What I feel
SQ: Spiritual Capital, spiritual intelligence - What I am

SQ is defined at what a community or organisation exists for, aspires to, takes responsibility for. These combine to provide a moral and motivation framework for existing. "Spiritual" is described as human beings asking why we are doing what we are doing and suggest we seek a better way of doing it. It is not, as the authors state, about shrines in hallways or calling employees to prayer.

SQ links to corporate social responsibility (CSR). When I read this I wondered how much public sector organisations monitored their CSR - being funded byt he taxpayer does not automatically create CSR.

The authors spend a few chapters unpicking various theories of motivation. Nothing new in here if you've covered this before, however, I liked the way they framed their discussion and the use of their motivation scale.

They suggest twelve principles of transformation. These alone are worth the read. So much of the change management and improvement work I am involved in is focused on transformation. These authors provide a thought-provoking, simple yet rich framework for conceiving of and applying transformation.

The book ends with a chapter on corporate spiritualism and asking the question "Is it still capitalism".

If you are trying to figure out your own meaning at work, leading others through change processes or concerned about your organisation's "soul", then this book will provide you with some language and structure to frame your thoughts.

Coaching, feedback and behavioural tools - MBTI

So what tool or method do you use for your coaching practice or other organisational and improvement work?

Over my career I've been on the receiving end of a number and also tried a variety with different clients.  I've ended up using MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) as my main method for helping others - to help themselves. My main reason is this tool is well evidenced, has been in place for decades and is used successfully in many countries. The evidence base is important for me as I believe it is necessary for healthcare to demonstrate the use of evidence-based techniques and tools.  The techniques can't be administered or debriefed unless you've been accreditated which means there is a consistent standard world-wide.

Other reasons I prefer MBTI:

• it is more than a one-off
• it can be scaled from individual through the team and organisation
• it works well to support change processes
• the evidence base, being huge, allows greater depth of understanding
• it is common enough that it provides a "language" for staff to use in times of difficulty

Do you know of or use other behavioural techniques which have an evidence base similar to MBTI and can also be scaled up in their use?