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Abstract: As with many success stories, the American pastime of baseball has many fathers (and mothers), with a heritage that extends well beyond the original thirteen colonies to England. Consider the design of the playing field, with “foul” lines emanating from “home plate,” to the left, past third base, all the way to the outfield fence, and to the right, past first base, to the right field fence. Nine defensive players are distributed around this diamond and across the outfield. None of their jobs are defined by outlines that restrict their roles in the way that a goalkeeper in soccer can use his or her hands only within the confines of the penalty area. What if, in contrast, baseball players were each constrained in their field positions by solid boundaries, painted on the field? Might this situation begin to approximate the operation of an organization with inflexible job descriptions, wherein employees are left to believe their respective roles are independent? Such rigidity is a classic attribute of what Dr. Deming termed “the prevailing style of management,” with each co-worker seeking to conform to a pre-defined set of requirements for their role, presumably independent of the performance of others within the organization. In the absence of interdependence, the concept of a team sport might instead be known as a group sport, with a common aim superseded by individual aims. Beginning with an exploration of baseball and bowling balls, this aim of this presentation is to share a proposal for “better thinking about thinking” as it applies to teamwork in all aspects of our lives.

Biography: Bill Bellows is an Associate Fellow in the InThinking Network at Aerojet Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, California, where he is known for his efforts to provide insights to the advantages of thinking together, learning together, and working together. Audiences for his classes have also reached after-school program in elementary schools, graduate students at Northwestern University, as well as corporate, university, and public classes across the United Kingdom. Bill earned his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Away from work, Bill serves as president of the In2:InThinking Network, and as a board member of the W. Edwards Deming Institute, and the Volunteers of America – Los Angeles chapter. He also serves on the editorial board of the Lean Management Journal. He lives in Valencia with wife, Monica, and their two college-aged children, Allison and Wilson.

Contact: Bill can be reached by e-mail at william.bellows@rocket.com for additional information about this Weekend Conference session.

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/bill-bellows/0/435/218/