Taylor and Weber brought statistics to management.  Unfortunately the approach also often engendered an unhealthy and unproductive chasm between the new management positions it implied and the workers it no longer asked to think.

Taylor, Weber and others taught us to develop logical and statistical blueprints of work that rationality pounds into efficiency and productivity.

Unfortunately, these philosophies arguably engendered a significant portion of the union movement in the early 20th century, pitting the worker and the manager on opposite ends of a spectrum that destroys innovation and synergy and does not inherently find legitimacy in any organization. No team can be effective when it is split down the middle or harbors adversarial emotion. Much of the legendary works by Drucker in the decades since then consciously form a response to the negative effects of this hierarchical paradigm.

Later we learned that informal social relationships within every organization evolve that have as much or more to do with successful outcomes as the blueprints Taylor taught us to produce. We began investigating matrices, and empowerment, and currently a great deal of research centers on complex networks and differential status structures.  Deming taught us to stop focusing so much on discrete tasks, as Taylor espoused, and measure the total system.  The early adopting Japanese developed a significant manufacturing advantage as a result.

The challenge made here is that the blueprint is not yet quite squarely on-center.  It is missing key pieces of the puzzle that other disciplines have identified as crucial, whether they are the maturation and effectiveness of organisms, innovative free markets, or emergent complex systems.

We shall return to the individual. We shall investigate the model of the individual maturing in a complex, non-linear world and review what we learned in the past hundreds of years about what that means. We shall start at the beginning.

Are you burdening process people with projects?  Projects will always lose.  Relatedly, we often see large projects formed to resolve an issue or perform a housekeeping function, that really should be a dedicated ongoing process.  Both issues confuse projects and processes.  The first issue is one of priority, and the other with function.

Project groups are appropriate when it comes to creation or change, until the new baby can mature enough to hand it off to its rightful process family.

Wayward projects are most often without appropriate measurements or badly managed.  Incompetent team members are more rare.

Do you have project teams that are isolated from the ongoing work of the organization?  You are headed for a train wreck.  Stop now and at least save your money.  Remember the measurement rule?  If you are not getting measurable feedback from the people you will be affecting, what are you building it for? The frequency of your feedback depends on the size of the project.

Assembled correctly, project groups can have an incredibly important effect on the organization with synergistic benefits. Cross departmental Associate exposure, relationships, and a less departmentalized view of loyalty are some of them.  Well situated projects can drastically improve Associate engagement, and most of them should increase shareholder return (You’ll fail sometimes).  If they are talked about openly, especially the failures, trust levels will rise.

Process vs Project Wheel

I can hear some Managers groaning under their breath right now.  They’re saying, “Jim, you are crazy. You are implying bloating the staff on a perpetual basis to do projects.” Actually the opposite is true. Hiding projects in line positions slows them down and bloats function costs. But it is the over-riding product of focus and specialization that drives project team formation. It also makes measuring project cost and ROI much easier.

Further, if the company is of any size at all, do not despair of any ongoing ‘bloat’ to the organization.  Especially in this era of change, your company will have a never ending list of projects that need to be tackled to increase the excellence of the company, measured in sales, efficiency, profit or some other significant enhancement that brings measurable value to the bottom line. That list can be talked about quite openly.  And team members can come and go to their line positions on project teams.

Especially during a down turn, one possibility is to work lists of projects and improve ROI, rather than just laying people off.  Share price will go where share prices go, rather independently in the long run of whether companies laid off a portion of their workforce.  But they don’t very often have a chance to free up some of their staff to do any foundation building.  It’s a powerful advantage of recessions.  It’s also regrettable more companies don’t take advantage of it.

Objectives

• If we aren’t having fun, what are we having? Please enjoy.
• Provide an interactive forum for holistic concepts of organizations in an effort to increase their reliability, adaptability and creativity.

Who should read this website?

Anyone with an interest in practical methods and theory to improve their organizations should find actionable articles here. They fit into any culture and are malleable enough to institute to varying degree depending on the situation.

Leis Network name

Welcome. The name Leis Network is really a play on words. A network has technological and organizational implications which are fundamentally different than typical hierarchies.  They exhibit advantages in communication and speed of execution.   They naturally foster innovation and engagement. Psychologically, they have natural synergies with morale, empowerment, and productivity which all command and controls hierarchies must constantly battle.

All organizations depend on social networks to function, regardless of their structure. And although networks are a powerful concept, they are only a piece of the puzzle that transforms an organization. They are a physical form of a larger holistic concept. We don’t want to just clarify the picture of an optimized firm; we want to add 3D video, thousands of watts of stereo sound, and an absorbing screen play with actors that engage the heart and soul!

The word ‘network’ also implies a group of people who share the same philosophies or ideas on a chosen topic or sphere of influence.  This website is a collection of practical and illustrative articles exploring efficiency and value creation for both individuals and organizations, utilizing a flatter, networked architecture to empower people and unleash productivity.

Hopefully the website will inspire your discussions and ideas.  You can become a member of the network.  You can contribute articles and comments to the website.  Please use the Jim Leis Contact page if you wish more information.

Our potential stakeholders are all employees (both Associates and Managers) with a curiosity about improving productivity, value, and daily enjoyment of their organizations.

We hope you enjoy the site and welcome your feedback.

Responsibilities to Stakeholders

To fulfill the charter to readers, the website will provide practical and illustrative articles on implementing the following precepts:

• Today’s organization must be nimble, creative, and value driven.
• The macro environment, driven by technology and globalization, demands a learning organization.  It is no longer viable to manage organizations built on the status quo.
• Smaller is better. Bureaucracies must be viewed with extreme prejudice. Empowered Associates in flatter organizations get things done with speed and excellence.
• Business is intensely personal.  It also implies our foundation for fulfilling the first Responsibility.  We wish to develop empowered, creative teams made up of diverse, engaged Associates in a cohesive atmosphere.  That is not difficult to do; it just requires a shift in mindset within a consistent framework.  Associate productivity and creativity remain a significant, unrealized potential in most organizations.  Required themes in Associate development:
• Do our actions pass an ethical test?  Even inconsistent application of ethics destroys morale and trust.  We must also encourage Associates to actively listen to their inner voice.
• Human Resources is everything. Unfortunately, separate Human Resource departments often condition Associates and Managers to believe it’s work that someone else periodically does to, or for you. Everyone is a Human Resource Manager.
• You are your habits.  So it is with organizations.
• Information technology remains an unrealized potential.  Organizations tend to harness only about 10-20% of current available technologies in terms of efficiency, excellence, communication and measurement. Many implementations are time wasters. Today’s technology well implemented can easily double productivity in most organizations.
• What gets measured gets managed.  It is impossible to accomplish the other mandates without instituting this one.
• Appropriate measurement is “more honored in the breach than in the observance.” There is a significant tendency to measure the wrong thing if we measure at all, or develop measurements that are not granular enough for practical use.
• Goals must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely).  Unfortunately, any other goal is a dream. And like the one you had while you were sleeping, it’s about as useful.
• The art of developing and driving measurement throughout an organization is a cellular and organism exercise, not a top down exercise, which normally fails.

Someone said that ‘Life is like high school,” rather than college. We shall confront both the benefits and concerns of this statement as we explore together. We shall also challenge the conventional wisdom that habits developed by age 15 are mainly fixed in our life story.  For changing some of them are necessary to getting to the next level of actualization; both personal and professional.