Team Management Master Class: Lead High Performance Teams

The team in an organization is like the family in a society. It is the fundamental building block of trust and competence. In the family we develop our earliest habits of communication, problem solving and relationships. Where the family does not function well, there is wasteful and destructive human behavior. As the family is our first learning organization, the natural work team is the primary learning unit for all members of the organization. Lean organizations are a social system, a culture, as well as a technical system. At the heart of that social system is the small work group, the team, both at the front line level and at all levels of management.

The lecture outlines the curriculum of a course that focuses on developing skills for high-performing teams and organizations using the lean model of Toyota production system. The course is divided into three major phases: planning and organizing, improvement process, and developing skills. The planning and organizing section includes lectures on lean principles, team charter, stages of team development, and developing a team scorecard. The improvement process involves understanding customer requirements, problem-solving models, eliminating waste, mapping work processes, and developing standard work. The developing skills section focuses on important skills for team leaders, such as facilitating teams, giving and receiving feedback, resolving conflicts, and creating a culture of dialogue. The optional green belt certification is also offered upon completion of critical sections and action items of the course. The lecture emphasizes that serious learning and skill development take time and recommends planning to go through the course over a six-month period while practicing the lessons with a coach's feedback.

Attached are my three books - Team Kata, The Lean Coach, and Getting to Lean as well as a number of articles on the implementation of the team process. These are epub format for e-readers or you may read them with Adobe Digital Editions (free) on your computer.

The lecture presents a tool for managing the learning process with teams or organizations, aimed at promoting accountability and positive reinforcement. The tool is an Excel spreadsheet that tracks progress from the start of the course to becoming a high-performing team, with modules along the bottom and deliverables or action items on the vertical axis. The chart is filled with black arrows to indicate completed modules and red arrows to show completed deliverables. The lecture suggests putting the chart on the wall to motivate teams and promote performance improvement. The speaker emphasizes that the tool helps hold managers and teams accountable and recognizes teams for their improvement efforts.

This lecture discusses the concept of Lean Management and Lean Culture, which are essential components of effective team leadership. Lean Management originated from the Toyota Production System and emphasizes the elimination of waste and continuous improvement. The lecture describes how Lean Management evolved from mass production, which divided work horizontally and vertically, leading to fragmented work processes and a disintegrated work system. Lean Management emphasizes the importance of teamwork, collaboration, and experimentation. The lecture illustrates the principles of Lean Management through a case study of Shigeo Chingo, who involved workers in reducing the cycle time of dye changes in stamping presses, resulting in a significant reduction in waste and continuous improvement. The lecture concludes by encouraging listeners to understand the principles of Lean Management and apply them to their own work processes.

The lecture emphasizes the power of visual display and how human beings are naturally responsive to visual stimuli. The House of Leane, a complex subject, is used as an example to illustrate the importance of simplicity and clarity in visual display. The lecturer has created their own version of the House of Leane, which combines the social and technical aspects into one simple structure. The structure is built on the foundation of standard work, stability, and teamwork, and is centered around the leadership principles of Toyota or Lean. The lecturer believes that the House of Leane is not just a set of practices but a system of knowledge and learning. The lecture promises to go through each of the principles in detail in the following lectures.

In this lecture, the speaker introduces the first two principles of lean management: continuous improvement and the scientific method. He emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement and the idea that there is always room for improvement, even after achieving a goal. He encourages employees to experiment and learn from experience, using data and graphs to track performance and set goals. The speaker also discusses the concept of standard work and how it enables continuous improvement. Finally, he shares a real-life example of how empowering an employee with data and feedback led to significant improvements in their work efficiency. Overall, the lecture encourages employees to adopt a scientific mindset and engage in a continuous improvement process.

This lecture discusses the importance of respect for people in lean management, using Toyota as an example. The speaker emphasizes that this principle is not just a slogan, but a fundamental part of the company's culture. One example of respect for people is the practice of having every new manager and salaried employee spend six weeks on the production line, learning to respect the people who do the actual work. The lecture also stresses the importance of focusing on the process rather than blaming individuals when there are problems, and developing teams and teamwork skills. The speaker provides practical advice for team leaders, such as having a map of the team's workflow on the wall and celebrating team successes.

In this lecture, the speaker emphasizes the importance of eliminating waste in work processes to increase productivity and reduce costs. By implementing Just-In-Time inventory, companies can reduce excess inventory, waste, and space. Honda is used as an example, where they have reduced inventory to a two-hour pile, allowing for a quick feedback loop for defective parts. Interruptions also slow down processes and waste time, so cross-functional teams are used to reduce interruptions between teams and with suppliers. Additionally, the speaker suggests adopting a four-to-one positive-to-negative ratio when giving feedback to employees to optimize their performance and promote positive reinforcement.

Review the principles of lean management.

In many organizations, when people think of teams they think about a problem-solving, kaizen, project, or Six Sigma team formed to solve a problem and make a recommendation to managers. While these are useful, these teams are temporary. The culture of the organization, the norms and habits, are not embedded in temporary problem-solving teams. Rather, the culture is embedded in the norms and habits of permanent work groups – frontline teams, management teams and functional teams. These teams are permanent and they own responsibility for performance. How these teams execute that responsibility will determine the performance of the organization. Problem solving groups are responsible for improving some process, but they do not own that process on a
continuing basis. These teams are sometimes formed because the problem wasn’t solved more quickly by those doing the work.

It is very possible that you serve on more than one team. In this age of flexible organizations that is very normal. But, as you go through this course it is important that you are focused on the development on a specific team and you will seek to apply the lessons to that team.

1.Is my team a permanent team with on-going responsibility for a process and performance? What is the process or processes that my team “owns?”

a.Who is the formal leader of this team?

b.What is the relationship of this team to other teams – both horizontally and vertically?

2.Is my team a problem-solving (kaizen, project, etc.) team?

a.What is the exact problem that we are trying to solve?

b.When we develop a solution, who are the “deciders?”

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the different roles and responsibilities within a team. The formal leader of the team is responsible for facilitating the team, holding people accountable, taking notes, and keeping track of time. However, as the team matures, it's important to delegate responsibilities to other team members to develop their facilitation skills. Other roles on a team include the note-taker, who writes down the agenda, decisions, and action items, and the timekeeper, who is responsible for keeping track of time during meetings. Additionally, subject matter experts may be designated to share their expertise with the team. The speaker suggests consulting with the team to decide how to handle these different roles and responsibilities, rather than taking on everything as the team leader.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the importance of having an agenda for team meetings. He recommends having a daily 10-15 minute huddle in a manufacturing plant, followed by a weekly meeting for those at the next level of management. He stresses the need for an agenda, stating that it makes for an efficient meeting and ensures that people come prepared. The speaker also provides an Excel spreadsheet with a suggested agenda that includes standard items such as safety, recognition, action plan review, and reviewing the scorecard. He emphasizes the importance of discipline and accountability in following through on action items and provides tips for effective facilitation.

The lecture discusses the four stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. The speaker introduces a model he developed to describe team maturation and how responsibility should be delegated as the team progresses. He draws a parallel between parenting and team leadership, stating that as children develop good judgment and responsibility, parents gradually delegate decision-making. Similarly, team leaders should gradually back off as team members demonstrate responsibility. The lecture also highlights the importance of not being too permissive or over-controlling and motivating the team to take responsibility for their performance. The lecture concludes with a reminder that the job of a team leader is to move the team towards autonomy and highly responsible performance.

In this lecture, the speaker explores the concept of organizational culture in terms of its maturity or life cycle. Just like individuals, organizations go through stages of emergence, growth, decline, and eventually, an end. The speaker has written a best-selling book, "Barbarians to Bureaucrats," which delves into the emergence and decline of cultures applied to corporations and the most effective leadership styles for various life cycle stages. The lecture aims to help attendees identify their company's position in the life cycle and provide suggestions on how to optimize the organization's culture accordingly.

The lecture discusses the roles of prophets and barbarians in the early stages of organizational growth. Prophets, like Steve Jobs and Jesus Christ, are risk-taking innovators with groundbreaking ideas, while barbarians, like Alexander the Great, are fast-moving conquerors who mobilize and unite people with devotion. However, great civilizations cannot be built on personality alone, as it is unsustainable. At Alexander's death, his empire disintegrated, demonstrating the need for established principles, processes, and organizational structure for long-lasting growth and success.

Purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to clarify who will make what decisions when, and in what style.

Objectives

1.To clarify how our team will make decisions in different situations.

2.To understand situational decision-making styles – why different styles are effective in different situations.

3.To understand the relationship between decision-making styles and the culture of the organization.

Deliverables

The team will reach an agreement as to which types of decisions within the team will be command, consultative or consensus and who will be involved in or own those decisions.

As you build a lean culture it will be necessary to shift how decisions are made throughout your organization.You will increasingly become a high-trust culture as teams demonstrate their maturity and their ability to improve performance.

This is a normal transition as everyone learns to focus on the process, rather than blaming people, and everyone develops a unity of effort around providing the best possible care to customers.

The reality of most work teams is that each individual is making some decisions every day. We must trust in the responsible nature of employees who operate equipment, interact with customers or do other work on their own. Most work involves making decisions.

The speaker discusses how to reach consensus within a group or team, noting that while some groups do this easily, others struggle. The speaker suggests that practical consensus, where all members have an opportunity to share their ideas and opinions, is necessary in the business world. In contrast to academic consensus, practical consensus requires judgment and an understanding that a decision must be made within a reasonable timeframe. The speaker outlines steps to reaching practical consensus, including clarifying the issue, sharing all facts, considering all opinions, weighing pros and cons, and being willing to sacrifice. The speaker also shares a practical exercise involving dot voting to quickly reach consensus.

There are three major stages of learning and development within the Team Kata that bring a team to the status of high performance. The Learning/Coaching Kata is how one learns. But, what is the team attempting to learn? What is the behavior, if practiced by every team that will result in high performance for the organization?This illustrates the basic skills and activities of high performing teams. This is the lesson plan, if you wish to think of it that way. Both this book and the accompanying online learning course will teach these skills. It is these skills that your coach should be coaching as you go through the learning process. The skills and activities can be broken into three major categories.

1. Planning and Organizing

2. The Improvement Kata

3. Improving Team Effectiveness

When you think about developing your scorecard give consideration to each of the following types of measures:

1.Customer Satisfaction: How do you measure customer satisfaction? Do you conduct an annual survey? Do you conduct telephone surveys and ask for feedback in some other way. It is worth considering how we can measure and track improvements in the satisfaction of our customers.

2.Business Process Measures: These may be measures of the cycle time from input to output of any process. Or, they may be measures of the number of times rework occurs within the process. Or, any other form of waste or errors that may be caught before the product leaves the organization, but results in unnecessary costs.

3.Learning and Development: Every organization must be a learning organization to compete in today’s world. Many organizations have goals for how many hours of training are received by each manager or employee. How can you measure the degree of learning and development? Completing the training modules in this book could be a measure of learning and development.

4.Financial Results: This is obvious at management levels. But, how can we create financial measures at the level of frontline work teams? This is possible. There are costs associated with every work team. The costs of materials, people, space, etc. Those costs can be compared to the percent of revenue attributable to that team. In other words, if a manufacturing plant sold product worth one million dollars a year, and there are one hundred employees in the plant, a team of ten can be considered responsible for that percent of the revenue. Of course, this is not an accurate accounting measure. But, it is a way to give the team a sense of business/financial responsibility for their work.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the importance of visualizing data and connecting remote team members. In the past, remote workers may have been disconnected from the rest of the team, but now there are technologies available to bridge that gap. The speaker emphasizes the emotional connection that people have with visual data and how it can be used to make performance visible and connect team members. They also discuss the scientific approach to human behavior and the importance of collecting baseline data to measure the effects of interventions. The speaker gives an example of how visualizing data helped improve performance in a textile mill by motivating workers to improve their efficiency. Overall, the lecture highlights the importance of using data and visualization to connect and motivate remote team members and improve performance.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the importance of setting big dreams and breaking them down into manageable steps to achieve them. He emphasizes the need to find a model or models to emulate and to focus on one's own field of action. The speaker shares a personal story of setting a goal to write a book and using a cumulative graph on the wall to track progress, which motivated him to continuously improve and ultimately achieve his goal. He highlights the importance of reinforcement and rewarding oneself for achieving goals.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses Dr. Deming's 14 points, which include eliminating management by objectives. The idea of setting objectives is good, but the way it was being implemented in corporations during the 60s, 70s, and 80s was top-down and authoritarian. The speaker discusses the history of management by objectives and self-control and highlights the importance of allowing individuals to set their own goals and own their victories. The speaker shares a personal story about a woman named Mary who was engaged in continuous improvement when given feedback and the opportunity to set her own goals. The speaker emphasizes the importance of reflecting on the process and implanting the habit of setting goals and striving for improvement in oneself, team, and children.

The lecture advises teams to conduct customer interviews and provides tips on how to do it effectively. The interviewer should have a set of questions prepared beforehand and ask open-ended questions to allow the customer to answer freely. A second person should be present to take notes and ask clarifying questions. It is important to accept the customer's feelings and avoid arguing with them. Asking both hard and soft questions and analyzing the results is crucial to defining customer requirements and improving the product or service. Face-to-face interviews are best, but surveys can also be used.

This lecture discusses principles of lean management and problem-solving. The two core pillars of lean are respect for people and continuous improvement. Continuous improvement involves taking small steps towards an ideal future state and conducting experiments. Respect for people means engaging those who are experts in the problem, going to the gemba to observe and learn, and focusing on the process rather than blaming individuals. Joy can be returned to work by empowering employees and allowing them to think and solve problems.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the importance of brainstorming and some methods to make it effective. Brainstorming is about idea generation, and the critical element is to put aside the tendency to judge. The facilitator's job is to keep everyone on track to generate ideas and to gently remind them not to judge. The more ideas, the better, and the more people involved, the more ideas generated. The output of brainstorming should be owned collectively by the group. Visualizing ideas and having quiet times are also essential elements. Laughter and funny ideas are encouraged because they stimulate creative thinking.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses different methods of brainstorming for problem-solving and decision-making. The facilitator of a brainstorming session should have different methods to engage different types of participants. Some of the methods include freewheeling, round-robin, and using Post-it notes. Mind mapping is also a useful method to organize ideas by generating subtopics and actions related to the central problem or solution. The speaker also mentions affinity diagrams and cause and effect diagrams as effective tools for organizing ideas during a brainstorming session.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses Fishbone diagrams, also known as cause and effect diagrams, and how they can be used to brainstorm solutions to a problem. The diagram can be organized based on different categories, such as social and technical factors, and each category can be brainstormed individually to identify possible causes and solutions. The speaker also suggests using CEDEC, a method that involves placing the diagram on a wall and allowing anyone to contribute potential causes and solutions through cards. This inclusive approach can help generate more ideas and ultimately lead to a better solution.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses affinity diagrams, which are used to organize ideas generated during brainstorming sessions. The speaker suggests using Post-it notes of different colors to write down and organize ideas into logical groupings. Affinity groups are created based on common interests or themes. Affinity diagrams help in identifying the most important groups, which are prioritized, and then worked on to design solutions. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of physical movement during the brainstorming process to encourage blood flow and suggests asking people not to talk while creating the affinity groups to enhance focus.

The Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, suggests that 80% of the benefit or value comes from 20% of the possible options. The rule is useful for decision-making when faced with a list of possible causes of a problem. After brainstorming all possible causes and grouping them, the principle is applied to determine which ones to focus on. This involves analyzing the causes and identifying the 20% that result in 80% of the problem. For example, if customers are leaving a movie theater due to dissatisfaction, the most number of complaints may be about dirty floors and bathrooms, which should be addressed to improve customer satisfaction.

In this lecture, the speaker introduces the "rule of parsimony," which suggests that the simplest solutions are often the most effective and should be employed first. The speaker then discusses the "five whys" problem-solving technique, which involves repeatedly asking "why" to get to the root cause of a problem. The technique is easy to use and can help identify simple solutions to problems. The speaker suggests using the five whys technique as a starting point before moving on to more complex problem-solving processes.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model, also known as Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) or Plan-To-Learn-Act (PTLA). He notes that this model is flexible and has been used in various companies and situations for over 50 years. The speaker emphasizes that problems are normal and challenges to be solved rather than crises to be panicked over. He explains the four quadrants of the PDCA model and their relative proportions of time and effort. The Plan stage involves more time and analysis, brainstorming solutions, and analyzing causes. The Do stage involves experimentation, which can range from a few hours to several months. The Check stage involves studying and analyzing the data, while the Act stage involves deciding what to do next based on the results of the analysis. The speaker stresses that learning from failures is essential and that management's role is to spread the lessons learned to other similar areas.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model and how it can be applied to different types of problems in various environments. The lecture emphasizes the importance of the Plan stage, which is the most time-consuming and requires a lot of analysis to clarify the problem, break it down, set targets, analyze root causes, and develop countermeasures. The speaker also discusses the Toyota business practice, which breaks down the PDCA model into eight steps and is used in every level of the company. Finally, the lecture touches on the importance of doing and checking in the next two quadrants of the PDCA model.

The lecturer provides resources for problem-solving, including a PDCA form and an action planning form. He emphasizes the importance of accountability in problem-solving, noting that teams often fail to follow through on their plans due to a lack of accountability. In the implementation phase, it may be necessary to train employees or call in engineers to adjust equipment. The lecturer stresses the importance of checking the results and analyzing what was learned from the experiment, which can inform future problem-solving efforts. The act phase involves conducting another experiment more intelligently based on the learning from the previous phase. The lecturer emphasizes the importance of being on the spot and talking to people involved in the implementation to ensure success.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the importance of standard work in the continuous improvement process. Standard work is defined as the best way to do a job at a given time, which can be improved through experiments and learning. The speaker emphasizes the importance of involving the people who do the work in developing standard work and capturing institutionalized knowledge. The act phase of the PDCA process involves improving standardized procedures based on learning from experiments. A client example is given to illustrate the importance of visualizing improvements and incorporating them into standard work. The speaker encourages the audience to practice the PDCA process to learn from their own experiments.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the A3 problem solving model, which is based on the same principles as the PDCA model but provides a more visual and in-depth approach for complex problems that require more time and effort. The A3 model consists of eight steps, including problem clarification, analysis of root causes, developing countermeasures, implementing those countermeasures, monitoring results, and standardizing and sharing. The speaker suggests using a large wall with different categories for visualizing the problem and involving more people. The A3 model can help engage more people, cause them to feel ownership, and increase the probability of success.

In this lecture, the speaker discusses the A3 problem-solving model, which is a way of using the same questions and categories as other problem-solving models but in a more visual and in-depth way. The A3 model involves eight steps, including defining and clarifying the problem, breaking down the problem into specifics, setting targets, analyzing root causes, developing countermeasures, implementing countermeasures, monitoring results and the process, and standardizing and sharing. The speaker emphasizes the importance of baseline data and the scientific thought process when monitoring results. They also suggest using a visual wall with Post-it notes to involve more people in the problem-solving process.

Relationship Maps (Who Did What?)

Relationship maps illustrate who did what and in what sequence. In other words, it illustrates the relationship between people and tasks.

The following is a very simple map. This is a process with which we are all familiar. It is a simple work process: making a meal. If you are a good cook (like me!) you know that the order in which you do things is very important. For example, if you are going to make a spaghetti dinner, you don’t start your preparations by sticking the pasta in a pot of cold water, and then thinking about how to prepare the sauce. You begin preparing the sauce long before putting water on to boil for the spaghetti. Order is important in most work processes. It is one of the reasons why you should map your processes. Problems often occur because the order is wrong. Or you have missed a step or have unnecessary steps.

A variance is a problem. It is something that varies from either the standard way of doing things, or from performance that meets the customer’s expectations. In other words, it is a problem. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze your work process to discover and eliminate causes of quality, productivity and cost problems.

Objectives

1.To understand the costs and causes of variation.

2.To identify variation within our own core work process and seek to reduce the causes of variation.

Deliverable

Your team should produce a variance analysis sing the variance analysis worksheet.

A variance is a problem. It is something that varies from either the standard way of doing things, or from performance that meets the customer’s expectations. In other words, it is a problem. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze your work process to discover and eliminate causes of quality, productivity and cost problems.

Objectives

1.To understand the costs and causes of variation.

2.To identify variation within our own core work process and seek to reduce the causes of variation.

Deliverable

Your team should produce a variance analysis sing the variance analysis worksheet.

If you are to become a truly lean organization you must become process focused and must continually seek to reduce or eliminate variances.

The term variance refers to a performance that varies from how it should be. A variance is a gap from how things are to how they should be. Variances may be of any of the following types:

·Variances may be quality defects.

·Variances may be from standard operating performance.

·They may be variances from customer satisfaction requirements.

·Variances in costs of production or service delivery.

·They may be variances from our principles.

·Variances in behavior or standard work.

In each of these variances you may discover them simply by observation or by reports from customers. However, they may be observed statistically. It is important to have an understanding of statistical variation.

The purpose of this chapter is to engage in systematic and continuous efforts to eliminate all non-value adding activity, materials, time or costs from your processes.

Objectives

1.To understand and identify the seven forms of waste in your work and organization.

2.To practice and implement waste elimination from your processes.

3. To understand and eliminate the six forms of management waste.

Deliverables

Identify and demonstrate that you have eliminated waste from at least one of your processes.

For more than forty years, Toyotahas worked to improve the process of designing and building cars by focusing on the elimination of waste. They are still doing it today. For how long have you been eliminating waste from your processes? When will you be done?

Contrary to the understanding of many, the primary focus of improvement in lean organizations has not been making more money or managing quality, although both have been the result. The primary driver for improvement has been the elimination of waste. It is not the same as cost reduction!

One of the core ideas of continuous improvement is the elimination of waste. This usually means eliminating unnecessary tasks, motions, inventory, rework, etc. However, the new challenge for lean management is to improve the efficiency of management itself. Much management activity is waste. This waste is just as destructive, or more so, than waste among front line employees.

What does this waste look like? I have identified six forms of management waste. Feel free to add to the list.

Management Waste # 1: Sucking decisions up due to the lack of empowerment, education and encouragement at lower levels. Management thinks they are busy because they are doing other people’s work and they do this because they have not structured the organization, established the training and systems to create competent problem-solving and decisions at lower levels.

Management Waste #2: Displaying contradictory models. If you want to teach your children not to smoke, drink or swear, but you walk around the house smoking, drinking and swearing, your efforts are going to be little more than wasted. Management, leaders, must model the behavior they desire of others. The failure to do so cripples any change effort. Millions of dollars in consulting and training have become waste because management didn’t walk the talk.

Management Waste #3: Failure to define and manage your own processes. There are processes that are owned by the senior management team. Every team, at every level, should have a SIPOC that defines input, output, and value adding processes owned by that team. They don’t own any process? Than the entire team is waste! Tell them to go home. MOST management teams do not know what there processes are, and reinvent them in a random or annual manner. Developing strategy is a senior management value-adding process. Where is the map that visualizes how they develop strategy? When they did it last year, did they study the process and what did they learn? Unfortunately, they probably learned nothing and are not themselves engaged in continuous improvement. Therefore, they don’t understand it and do not set the model.

Management Waste #4: Failure of decision-making: I have coached dozens of senior management teams. One would think, logically, that the higher you go in the company, the more skilled would be the decision makers and decision-making process. The value of decisions made at the top, should be of greatest value. Errors made at the top are the most expensive. The truth is that in most companies, the decision-making process at the top is terrible.

Many years ago I was doing a socio-tech redesign of a major financial organization on Wall Street. The only room the design team could find to meet in was THE BOARD ROOM!! Very expensive furniture, huge table, mahogany paneled walls, etc. After a day or two the design team had half the wall area covered with flip chart sheets. In stormed the official keeper of the room with steam spurting out of his ears. He yelled, “Take that down immediately! No one has ever put anything on these walls!” I asked, “Really? No one has ever brainstormed or put flip charts on the walls in here?” “Absolutely Not!” He yelled back. Poor fellow. He had never seen a room in which people were actually solving problems, brainstorming, reaching consensus, developing action plans, etc. It tells you a lot about how senior management teams fail to employ disciplined decision processes.

Management Waste #5: Wasted space and resources. That board room was used once a quarter. It sat empty and unused most of the time. Why do managers need larger offices as they move up the ladder. Do they get fatter? Do they have bigger computers or more books? What is that about? It is about waste. It is the waste of ego. The time spent at resorts doing annual strategic planning that could be done in their own conference room, or in someone’s home, is also waste. Apply the same disciplined standards of waste and resource utilization at the executive and management level as you apply to the factory floor.

Management Waste #6: The failure of trust. An effective management team, like any team, is a social system built on trust. That trust enables members to share, to ask questions, to offer suggestions, and to listen well to each other. On MOST management teams there is a failure of trust among its members that inhibits their ability to solve problems and make effective decisions.

Situational motivations are those that occur from our environment. Management systems tend to focus on these sources of motivation because they are most easy to modify.

Behavioral psychology, or behavior analysis, is the study of how the environment affects human behavior. There is a great deal of research that clearly demonstrates that you can increase (or decrease) performance by controlling those events that come before and after behavior. This is not a new revelation, nor is it complicated.

One simple way of remembering this model is to think about the “A-B-C” Model. The “A” is for antecedents. An antecedent is something that comes before and acts as a prompt or cue for behavior. It triggers the behavior. Red light, green light, stop signs and a thousand other things that we see every day are antecedents for some specific behavior.

The “B” is for the desired behavior, such as taking your foot off the gas and putting it on the brake at a stop sign. The “C” is for consequences. When you stop for a stop light, the consequence is not having an accident. If you don’t stop there is a good chance of an accident or a traffic ticket.It is clear that the antecedent and the consequences in this case serve as motivation for the behavior of stopping your car at the stop light.

In all organizations, there is a system of reinforcement or appreciation. In the society, there is a similar system. Why does government constantly change the tax code to provide a deduction for investments in oil drilling, or research, or education? Because tax deductions are a form of reinforcement, and the government uses this to strengthen effort in that direction.

Every school has a system of reinforcing good academic performance. Every sport has a scorekeeping system and a system to reinforce good performance in many ways. There is a Rookie of the Year Award, an award for the best lineman, the best quarterback, and the best special team player. There are hundreds of different types of reinforcers that are designed to reward many different kinds of behavior.

Why has it proven effective to have so many different types of positive reinforcement? Why not just rely on one?