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