Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's InThinking Network welcomes Mike Beck, from Hartford, Connecticut, to lead our fifth Ongoing Discussion of 2013 on May 20th and 21st (and our 161st session since we began in January 2000).   Mike has selected "On Developing an Operational Definition of People Centric Leadership" as his topic in his first time with us as a Thought Leader.    

I've known Mike since 2005, when we met at the Deming Institute's fall conference at Purdue University and I soon realized his connection to Dr. Deming as well as many colleagues in the Deming community, including many of our past Thought Leaders.   It's fitting to feature Mike this month in a long overdue appearance.

In his Thought Piece, Mike opens with these thoughts,    

In the course of a career in industry that now spans 34 years, I have had the opportunity to work in four very large companies, and in several small to medium organizations, both as an employee, and as a consultant. In many ways my career has been unusual, in that I have generally been working as the specialist supporting organizational transformation and improvement.   Thus I have been involved in helping leaders develop and implement strategies that ask a lot from their organizations, and involve significant levels of effort, risk, and stress. As might be expected, I have seen a wide range of results, and have drawn a few conclusions based on my observations.

The deepest impression was developed over the course of two particular change efforts, separated in time by 20 years. In each case I learned something about the high degree of leverage possessed by the organizational leader, both for positive and not so positive change. In these two cases I also observed a common pattern. Perhaps you have witnessed something similar, the story line in each case went something like this: Leader #1 recognizes an organizational imperative for change, and actively learns and develops a strong view of what must be done. Leader #1 seeks and receives new knowledge from outside the company, and develops a coherent approach. The leader enrolls their team in a new vision, and improvement begins. As all such efforts go, the initial successes are few, but with perseverance and constancy of purpose, the improvement begins to accelerate. Up to this point, things were quite positive, and on a good trajectory, and the efforts and actions of the leader were an important part of the success.  The story from this point forward was slightly different in the two cases observed, however both involved a similar change; Leader #1 was replaced with Leader #2. In each case, Leader #2 did not have the same orientation to the change effort. While appreciating the benefits observed to be accruing, the second leader did not recognize or appreciate the importance of the noble cause, nor of the intrinsic motivation of the people. Working from what appeared to be a Theory X point of view, and with little willingness to be influenced by me or others on his team, in each case actions of Leader #2 had the effect of undoing the progress of multiple years in a short period of time. Needless to say this was quite disheartening.

He adds, 

In the interest of co-developing the concept of a concrete and practical operational definition of people-centric leadership, I would like to propose some questions for us to consider and think about together. My aim is to seek the collective wisdom of our participants to guide future development of a useful and practical result.

Questions for discussion and/or dialogue:

1)     How would an organization that practices people-centric leadership measure success?

2)     What would the roles of leaders include in a people-centric company?

3)     An operational definition is intended to enable a concept to be translated into a measurement. What kinds of measurements of people-centric leadership would be most useful?

4)     What would the culture of an organization that practices people-centric leadership fully look like? What kinds of activities and practices would you expect to see in place? What would the environment feel like?

5)     How would companies that practice people-centric leadership select new employees?

6)     What would a people-centric leader do in the case of a severe downturn in revenue?

7)     How would a company that practices people-centric leadership go about integrating acquired companies?

8)     What would be the practices in place to assure the best possible succession of key leaders in people-centric organizations?

9)     What would be the nature of training and development practices in people-centric organizations?

10)  How does the Toyota Production System practices of Leader Standard Work and Kaizen relate to the concept of a people-centric organization?

11)  There are some companies and organizations currently actively pursuing people-centric leadership as a core business strategy (e.g. Barry-Wehmiller, Association for Manufacturing Excellence); how useful would it be to study their activity and ideas?

12)  What would be the value in your personal situation to having an operational definition of people-centric leadership?

13)  What additional preparation would be helpful in forming our operational definition?

I look forward to our conversations on May 20 and 21, 2013!

Link here to download Mike's Thought Piece.

Link here to register to attend.

Biography

After earning his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University, Mike Beck started his career in the auto industry, working for General Motors, initially at the Oldsmobile Division. His early roles were in new product development, reliability and test engineering. At GM, Mike met and worked with Dr. W. Edwards Deming, a consultant to the Division. Mike was selected to become an internal consultant in quality and continuous improvement, spent one year in training with Dr. Deming, and transitioned from Engineering Management to a position co-leading the Powertrain Statistical Network from 1987 through 1992. Strongly influenced by Deming, Mike obtained a second masters degree during these years, an M.S. in Applied Statistics from Oakland University. In this period Mike developed deep expertise in continual improvement, quality, statistical methods and organizational transformation, with successful applications in casting, machining, and assembly operations.

The next step in Mike's career led him to join Toyota, where he assisted in organizing the new Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America headquarters in Erlanger, KY. In 2007, Mike joined Terex Corporation, where he was recruited by a former UTC colleague to become VP Manufacturing for the Construction Division, responsible for Lean Manufacturing Deployment, Quality, Sales and Operations Planning, with P&L responsibility for all operations of the division, producing excavators, backhoe loaders, articulated and rigid trucks, and earth moving equipment. Since 2009, Mike has provided consulting and leadership for applications of lean manufacturing, quality, engineering, and continuous improvement to a range of organizations, including the gaming industry, aerospace manufacturing, and construction firms. During 2012 he also served as VP Operational Excellence for Harvest Power, Inc., a startup green energy and recycling company based in Watham, MA, with operations at 28 sites across the US and Canada.

Contact Mike by e-mail at mike@sunyatapartners.com with any questions you would like to share with him in preparation for this OD session.