A Positive Approach to Organizational Learning and Transformational Collaboration

1. A Positive Approach to Organizational Learning and Transformational Collaboration Frank J. Barrett, PhD Professor of Management GSBPP Naval Postgraduate School

2. Overview • Organizational transformation and learning • The start of transformation – breakthrough insights • Case Study -- Gunfire at Sea: keep curiosity alive. • Obstacles to innovation: success traps and problem solving mentality • Steps toward positive change • Generative learning: choose comparisons and form questions wisely • Power of positive image for learning potential • Finding and supporting innovations in your own commands.

3. Anticipating the future

4. The Age of the Network Small Groups Hierarchy Bureaucracy Networks + + + Nomadic Agricultural Industrial Information 160,000 BCE. 10,000 BCE 18th century... 20th century...

5. It’s not about Technology

6. Quotes from Feb 6 brief • “Sea Enterprise’s success is based on trust.” • “Trust is the cornerstone.” • “The solutions to this can only come out of collaborative relationships.” • “Enterprise is not a command and control structure.” • “As excomm meets, it’s in a collaborative way, they need to understand each other, they need to appreciate each other’s perspective.” • “We have to work together to create performance agreements.” • “We’re trying to spread what we learned in NAE and SWE and push it to other warfare enterprises to accelerate their learning.” • “We’re not yet sure how often we’ll have to meet.” • “How do we know anyone’s getting this? Where’s the feedback loop.”

7. Collaboration

8. Learning and exploration

9. Warnings: watch out for some answers • “We’re free – you don’t pay for me so you shouldn’t care. But you should, it’s dollars you don’t have for other things.” • “We’re unique. “We’re only ones who do this.” • “I know what the customer wants.”

10. “You’re building context as opposed to managing context.”-Roger Conway

11. “Learning should be a joyful process.”

12. Shifts in Mission Definition Technological Innovation Requirement for Discontinuous Organizational Change Funding Shifts Geopolitical Shifts Destabilizing Event(s) Shifts in Warfighting Strategies New Partnerships Kotter: create sense of urgency! 12

13. Repeated urgency

14. Urgency Fatigue!

15. Leadership and Transformation • Leadership is critical to the success of innovation • Top leadership— Create urgency and readiness for change • Middle leadership — Create a context for learning, experimentation and collaboration • Deckplate — feel supported to explore, experiment, contribute to new vision. • All three levels are required for effective leadership of innovation

16. Planning and learning

17. ONR NAVSEA/SP/PEO NAVAIR/PEO SPAWAR/PEO NAVFAC/PEO NAVSUP MPT&E Installations Health Svcs Mapping Primary Value Streams What should be considered as ‘main stream’ vs supporting in the product line? Outside Spt Provider Provider value Owned process $ cost other product line Outside Spt Outside Spt Provider contributions: Reliance on other Provider ‘overhead’ (MPT&E) Reliance on other product lines: The extent to which a product line to the FRE supports another of my product lines (NAVSUP) Outside support: Leveraging others’ resources (Congressional adds, other Services) Define interdependencies

18. NAE SWE USE NNFE NECE Navy Enterprise StructureThe Top Triangle REQUIREMENTS Demand Signals WARFARE ENTERPRISES CNO PROVIDERS/ ENABLERS MPT&E AT&L Installa-tions OUTPUT = READINESS/ CAPABILITY AT COST Health Care S & T CFFC/ VCNO/ ASN (RDA) N8/ ASN (FMC) PROVIDERS RESOURCES Completing the governance model 18

19. Short exercise • A successful change you’ve experienced. • An unsuccessful change that did not quite meet your expectations. • Get together and generate lists.

20. Change formula • Change = a X b X c > d • (a) Awareness of present state X • (b) Vision of Ideal Future X • (c) Process for Change (especially first steps) • > (d) Cost of change (Loss).

21. Starting Appreciative Interview(dialogue in pairs) • A-->B (15 min) • B-->A (15 min) • Spirit of discovery • Take brief notes • At the end.. summary & thanks

22. The mystery of insight • Where do we get images of a possible future? • Starbuck’s

23. Insight

24. Strategic planning vs strategic learning • “Strategic planning in most cases is 10% strategy and 90% planning.” • Willie Peterson

25. Strategic learning for innovation • All breakthrough strategies are based on unique insights • What kind of climate generates breakthrough insights and innovative strategies? • Hint: comparisons generate insights

26. Gunfire at Sea “They are holding the horses.”

27. Gunfire at Sea

28. Discussion questions • What was Scott’s motivation? How was it possible for Scott to notice innovative potential of rapid aim firing? • What was Sim’s motivation? • Why did the Navy resist Sims’ idea? • What was it about Sims that made him ineffective as a leader of change initially? • What made him effective in the end? • What was it about the way the Navy was organized that made innovation more difficult in this case?

29. Gunfire at Sea • Scott’s motivation: free to experiment, passion • Sim’s motivation: adapt and improve • Obstacles to adapting: history of success, lots of change; image of heroism and careerism; bureau of ordnance; tyranny of success. Excess success  kills curiosity

30. Spanish-American War • 9,500 shots fired at various close ranges • 121 hits • Just above 1 percent

31. 1898 Target – lightship hulk Firing done by 5 ships Duration 15 minutes Hits - 2 1905 Target – area 75 x 25 feet Firing done by 1 gunner Duration 1 minute Hits - 15 Continuous aim firing

32. REST ON YOUR LAURELS… AND REST IN PEACE Numerous examples of industry leaders that have fallen… Maintaining leadership position is difficult • Global Fortune 100 ...And relatively few that have remained great • Still top 100 in 2005 Top 100 in 1995

33. The Innovator’s Dilemma • Clayton Christensen, a Harvard professor, studied firms that were responsible for “discontinuous technical innovations” in their industries. • His conclusion? • Market leaders were almost never responsible for bringing discontinuous technical innovations to market, even though they possessed the knowledge and capability to do so.

34. 5. Technical Discontinuity Product Life Cycle 1 3. Dominant Design Product Life Cycle 2 Product Innovation Number of Innovations 2. Period of Ferment 4. Period of Incremental Change Time 1. Technical Discontinuity

35. Discontinuous Change Drop-outs Incremental Change Drop-outs Drop-outs Patterns of Industry Evolution: “Punctuated Equilibrium” Activity Disequilibrium Equilibrium Time

36. Success Syndrome Environmental Disequilibrium Outcomes • Decreased customer focus • Increased cost • Loss of speed • Less innovation • Capacity to act problems Success Syndrome • Codification • Internal focus • Insularity, arrogance, and complacency • Complexity • Conservatism • Disabled learning Sustained Success Declining Performance Denial andDefensiveReactions Do More of the Same Continue doing those things that contributed to success in the past The “Death Spiral”

37. From competency traps to “the art of unlearning” • Current methods seem reasonable • Successful firms don’t wait for crises to occur. • Create opportunities to surprise yourself. • Spencer Silver at 3M in 1964: “the literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.”

38. Culture: the double edged sword • Can provide competitive advantage and long term failure.

39. Overcoming cultural inertia • “Cultural inertia comes with organizational age and success. . . . Cultural inertia is a key reason for managers’ failures to introduce revolutionary change.” • M. Tushman. • “Fixing the culture is the most critical – and the most difficult part of a corporate transformation.” • Lou Gerstner, CEO at IBM

40. Vietnam village and nutrition

41. Amplifying positive deviance Choose comparisons wisely

42. Your Experience of change • Where have you seen these dynamics in the Navy? • An example of an attempt to change a unit in which people are so familiar and comfortable with the old system that has been working well?

43. Discovering our strengths Appreciative approaches to managing change

44. Peter Drucker…in his most recent book “The Next Society” “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, making our weaknesses irrelevant”.

45. Six Principles of Appreciative Inquiry • Constructionist Principle: The way we know is fateful. • Principle of Simultaneity: Change begins at the moment you ask the question. • Poetic Principle: Organizations are an open book. • Anticipatory Principle: Deep change = change in active images of the future. • Positive Principle: The more positive the question, the greater and longer-lasting the change. • Narrative Principle: Storytelling makes sense of the past and supports pathways into the future.

46. ? Where Do Positive Images and Stories Come From?

47. Problem solving Generative learning Two Kinds of Learning

48. Identify problems Analyze causes Propose solutions Action planning Appreciate and value the best of what already exists Envision what is possible Dialogue about possibilities Innovate Generative Learning Adaptive Learning

49. The unintended consequences of deficit based development • Conservative, limiting approach to inquiry • Learned hopelessness: people learn to live with diminished expectations • Overlearned deficiency expectation: we assume something must be wrong somewhere • Deftness with problem solving draws attention to breakdowns

50. Problem with problem solving • Language of mystique develops • Managers develop self worth as problem solvers • Fragmented view of the world: managers become experts in smaller parts of the system • Culture of defensive posturing: It’s not my problem • Skilled incompetence: looking good better than being good • Defensiveness discourages experimentation • Vocabulary of human deficit